Page 104 of The Best of All

“Morning.” I sat up, slowly extricating myself from Mira’s octopus arms. With hair everywhere, no bra on, and probably rocking some really great smudged mascara, I could only imagine how I looked to him.

And he was looking.

“Sorry if she woke you,” he said, voice a low rumble. “She sneaked upstairs when I had my back turned.” His green eyes followed the movement of my hands when I attempted to wrangle my hair into submission.

“It’s fine. I need to get up anyway.”

“Have fun?” he asked.

I nodded easily. “Thank you for arranging it.”

Instead of a “You’re welcome” or a peppering of questions, Liam grunted.

A small laugh escaped my lips.

“What?” he asked.

With him, it would have been so much easier to say it was nothing. In the past, that’s what I would have done. It’s what I did with Charles for years—brush aside what I was thinking because it was easier. Because it kept the peace, and we were both too busy and stretched too thin to add arguments into the mix.

With Liam, I didn’t want to do what I always did. So I took a deep breath and let my gaze linger on his.

No bullshit.

“I was wishing you came with a translation guide.”

At my admission, his face gave nothing away. Only the tiniest tic of his jawline and a slight inhale through his nose.

“What’s the fun in that?” he asked, then backed out of the doorway to head downstairs.

I flopped back into bed, a sigh escaping my lips and a few errant butterflies fluttering in my chest.

“No sleeping, Zoe,” Mira said, bouncing on the mattress. “Time to get up.”

I turned toward her. “Swim lessons today, right? Are you excited?”

“No.”

With a laugh, I rolled out of bed and tossed the blanket back over her head. “It’ll be fun, I promise.”

But three hours later, I wanted to take back every word I’d said.

“What the hell?” I whispered.

On the other end of the phone, my mom whispered back: “I can’t see what we’re mad about.”

I’d called her to make sure I knew what to expect at Mira’s first appointment with the counselor, but I quickly got derailed when the backyard swim lesson turned into a never-before-tapped nightmare.

“Hang on. I’ll switch it around so you can see.” I flipped the camera so that it was aimed into the backyard. “The swim teacher is here,” I said. “Liam told me he’d handle the whole thing, so I’m trying to give him his space.”

My mom’s forehead wrinkled as she tried to see what I was showing her. When I panned the camera to the left, her jaw fell open. “Holy shit. Look at her ass.”

Yeah, I was looking. I couldn’t help it.

It was a work of art.

“I bet she does alotof squats.”

I rolled my eyes. “Thanks, Mom.”