Page 128 of The Lies We Play
“That is slander.”
“That is observation.”
His mouth almost curves. “If you don’t like it, I’ll move to your place and sleep on the couch.”
Liv goes still in the small, unmistakable way she does when someone offers more than she expected.
“You’d do that for us?” she asks.
Her voice is quieter now.
There it is.
The thing under the joke. Under the logistics. Under the roofs, rooms, schedules, and food orders. She doesn't need a floor plan. She needs to know whether this is a place she can leave and still be wanted. Whether we are asking her to come closer or quietly asking her to give something up.
Halston smiles, but it isn’t the polished one. It is smaller. More dangerous because it is true.
“Baby,” he says, “I’d do anything for you. Anything.”
The room loses air.
Not all of it.
Just enough that I feel the words land in my ribs.
Liv’s eyes water, but she refuses to let anything fall. That is very Liv. She will verbally eviscerate a man over punctuation, but tenderness has to catch her by surprise before she lets it show.
“Me too,” I say.
Her gaze moves to me.
I hold it.
“I’d do anything for you too,” I add.
Then Liv swallows and says, “I’d probably move to the other side of the world for you.”
Her voice tries for light.
It doesn't quite get there.
I point at the screen. “You heard that, babe. If they trade me to Finland, she’s coming with us.”
“Would they?” she asks, instantly suspicious. “I thought the teams were just Canada and the US.”
“They are,” I say. “But sometimes, if you can’t be in the league, you can find work in Europe. Fitz, my agent, told me once.”
Liv frowns like she has just discovered a new category of worry and is annoyed it exists.
Halston lifts one hand.
“We’ll cross that bridge if we need to,” he says.
He says it calmly, but his eyes cut to mine for half a second.
He heard it too. The shift. The way the joke almost became a plan. The way all three of us would move before admitting what moving would mean.
Liv looks between us through the screen.
