Page 133 of The Lies We Play

There.

That little silence.

Want.

Shared, immediate, stunned by itself.

“Temporary,” she says again, but her voice has lost the argument.

Halston looks at her through the screen, his fingers tightening around mine.

“For now,” he says.

I look at Liv.

Then at him.

Then back to her.

“For now,” I agree.

Liv exhales, soft and shaky, then lifts her chin like she can put dignity back on by force. “I hate both of you.”

“No, you don’t,” Halston says.

“No,” she admits, eyes warm on the screen. “I really don’t.”

Halston laughs softly, but his eyes stay on the screen, on her face, on the place where her mouth has gone quiet.

For a second, the three of us only look at one another, and the silence feels less like distance than a promise we are not ready to say out loud.

Liv opens her mouth, maybe to make another joke, maybe to say something that would ruin us in the best possible way.

But she doesn’t get the chance.

A knock lands on her bedroom door.

Liv freezes.

Halston’s hand tightens around mine.

“Livia?” a woman calls from the other side.

Liv looks at us through the screen, all the color draining from her face.

Then she whispers, “That’s my mother. I have to go, but we’ll talk about your mouth the next time we’re together.”

“It’s a promise,” Hal winks, and I hope that I get to experience his tongue before I have to travel to California for my next game.

Chapter Nineteen

Creed

Now . . .

A call arrives long after we hang up, but before I remember how to move.

I am still sitting at the kitchen counter with my phone in one hand and the quarter in the other, the apartment lit too brightly around me. Every lamp is on. The recessed lights. The light above the stove. Even the ridiculous little gallery light over the painting I bought because a decorator said it made the room less masculine in a way that sounded like criticism disguised as help.