Page 28 of Seashells and Daiquiris
"Yeah," he says, but doesn't move. Then he shakes his head slightly and bounces off from his lean, like he didn’t mean to get stuck in this. That kind, friendly expression returns, like the facade he wears for everyone else.
Then I remind myself that I look like hot garbage.
I step forward with that reminder, knowing that nothing is happening while I look like this, and he steps to the side. Same side. We do that terrible, cliché thing where you both try to go the same direction and end up closer than you started.
"Sorry—"
"No, I'll—"
I go left. He goes left. We both pause, our gazes connecting again as we realize how ridiculous this is. He's taller than me so I'm looking up.
"Just—"
"If you—"
Then that wall seems to come down from his gaze again, and that desire returns as he seems to just commit.
Liam places his hand on my hip.
Not a brush. Not an accident. His palm lands on the curve of my hip, firm and sure, and he holds me still. Gently, but completely. Like he's placing me exactly where he needs me to be so he can pass. His fingers press into the thin fabric of my sleep shorts, his thumb grazing the strip of bare skin between my shorts and my shirt, and my entire nervous system goes offline.
He moves past me. Smoothly. Like it was nothing.
It was not nothing.
“Do that again.”
His hand drags across my hip as he goes, lingering a half-second longer than it needs to, and then he's past me and heading for his room and I'm standing in the kitchen with the counter behind me and my hand on my hip where his hand just was.
“I’ll be back out in a moment to make breakfast,” he says over his shoulder, like a normal person saying a normal thing and not a man who just restructured my molecular composition with one touch.
I hear the shower turn on as I continue to stand there for an amount of time I'll never admit to. Then I get my water, drink the entire glass in one go, fill it again, drink that too, and lean against the counter, my belly slightly aching.
The shell glows on the countertop beside me. Warm. Pulsing. Almost tender.
"We're a goner.”
I’m almost surprised how soft and gentle the statement is, like it’s talking to itself more than to me.
How can I argue with that, though?
LIAM
I touched her hip and I can still feel it in my hand.
That shouldn't be possible. Remnants of sensations do occur, but not like this. My palm has been buzzing since six thirty this morning, a phantom warmth in the exact shape of her hip bone, like my hand is refusing to forget what it learned. Of the smallest insight into the curves of her body.
I pour a pint for a regular without looking, having gone to the bar already. My hands know this bar better than they know anything, which is useful because my brain has been absolutely useless since Freddie Brown walked down my stairs in sleep shorts with her hair wrecked and one shoulder bare as she looked at me like I was something worth looking at.
I think the shell is right this time…
She’s meant for me.
Freddie’s at the end of the bar now. Same spot as every night this week with her laptop open, headphones in, and a virgin daiquiri sweating on a napkin. She types in bursts, fast and intense, and then stops and stares at the screen like she's arguing with it. Sometimes she mouths dialogue to herself. Sometimes she laughs at her own words, quiet enough that no one else hears it, but I hear it from across the bar every single time.
I've been cataloguing her without meaning to. The way she tucks her hair behind her left ear when she's concentrating. The way she chews on her thumbnail when she's stuck. The way she hums along to whatever's in her headphones and doesn't realize she's doing it. The fact that she sneaks olives from the garnish tray when she thinks I'm not watching, but I'm always watching. And refilling the olives.
This morning, when my hand was on her hip and her skin was warm under my thumb, something fired in my chest that I haven't felt in six years. Like a foundation shifting, or ice cracking along a fault line that's been holding for too long.
