Page 56 of The Lies We Play

I look at Livia.

“Considerable detail,” I say to her.

She looks into her glass and shrugs. “He asked.”

“Did he?”

“I’m fluent in all things Creed.”

All things Creed.

She says it lightly. Carelessly. Like she has not just placed something small and private on the bar between us and let Halston see it.

But Halston sees it.

His gaze moves from her to me, quick and careful, then back to her. He is not embarrassed by the sentence. He is interested in what it means.

I lean my hip against the bar. I look at Halston. I let the corner of my mouth do what it wants.

“So . . . are you sharing the hottie, Liv?” I say, probably as a joke, because I really can’t understand where we’re standing, then add, “or am I cutting in?”

The air changes.

Not loudly.

Just enough.

I see three things happen to Halston Saint Claire’s face in the same second.

The first is surprise—not at the hottie, which he is clearly used to receiving in various forms, but at the cutting in. That part gives him information about me, and I watch him take it in.

The second is amusement at the question itself. Because the question is a good question, delivered well, and Halston is, I’m beginning to see, a man who appreciates a good question.

The third is a slow, controlled look at me. Specific. Assessing without being cold. A man adjusting his estimate.

Then he laughs.

It’s a good laugh. Low. Brief. Rare enough to feel like he has given the room something he didn’t mean to give away.

Livia, sweetly, says, “We always share.”

Halston’s laugh fades.

He turns his head toward her.

Very quietly, like he is trying out a sentence to see if it belongs in his mouth, he says, “We?”

The word shouldn’t do anything.

It does.

Livia tilts her head at him. “Our roof. Books. Good taste in art.” She pauses and smiles at him, not coy, not careless. Just Livia, standing on the edge of a thing and pretending she isn’t looking down. “Friends, maybe? Or we could share more.”

For a second, I don’t know what to do with my hands.

That doesn't happen to me often.

I have known Livia for weeks now. We talk about the men we find attractive. The women we think I might like, but who, in the end, don’t make it past theory. We share a lot, more than I expected to share with anyone this fast. We talk around desire as if it is a table we both keep bumping into in the dark.