I stand frozen, my face burning.
“I’d be careful, though.” He turns a page without looking up. “All that flannel… one spark between us and you’ll go up in flames.”
“Good thing we aren’t touching, then,” I manage.
I march to the empty side of the bed and change the subject. “I didn’t know you wore glasses. Is that why you almost ran me over? Because you were half blind?”
“They’re just for reading.”
“You look like a stern librarian.”
Liam glances up at me over the rims, his gaze dark and amused. “Is that a fantasy of yours? Because I can shush you, if you like.”
My face flames hotter. I yank back the covers and slide underneath, keeping as far from him as the admittedly large bed allows.
True to his word, Liam stays on top of the comforter. He has a heavy blanket folded at his feet that he’ll presumably use when he’s done reading.
I curl up on my side, facing away from him, staring at the wall. Despite the layers of fabric separating us, his heat reaches me. And the mattress dips under his weight, shifting gravity and threatening to roll me toward the center. Toward him.
I squeeze my eyes shut. Then open them. I’m too weirded out to sleep.
“So,” I say to the wall. “Is this the part where we do pillow talk? Discuss our hopes and dreams?”
“My hope,” Liam says, “is to finish this chapter.”
“Don’t let me stop you.”
I roll onto my back. The ceiling is painted a crisp white, but the molding near the corner is chipped. I stare at the imperfection. Then get bored again and look at Liam immersed in his book.
I wish I had something to read. But my e-reader is lost somewhere in the boxes downstairs. Without a book or my phone, I have nothing to do but lie down and marinate in the awareness of him.
Liam sighs. “I can feel you staring.”
“I’m waiting for you to turn the page.” I shift onto my side to face him, propping my head on my hand. “It’s the only entertainment I have.”
“There are two hundred pages left.” He lifts an eyebrow. “It’s going to be a long night.”
“Couldn’t agree more.”
Another sigh escapes him, this one long, exasperated, resigned. He closes the book with a snap and turns to face me.
“What do you like to read?”
“Mmm… Anything with a crumbling British manor covered in ivy or a fog-drenched island off the coast of Maine, and I’mhooked. Better if it has gothic vibes and a ghost, or a murder. Or a ghost solving a murder. Oh, it could be its own murder. And I love psychological domestic thrillers with a messed-up marriage where you’re reading thinking ‘why is she even with this guy, he’s awful to her,’ but then—boom—plot twist, unreliable narrator, she’s the psycho.” I tap my chin. “Or straight-up romance always works.”
Liam stares at me, jaw working, but he doesn’t comment on my literary taste. He swings his legs over the side of the bed and limps out of the bedroom.
His footsteps echo down the stairs, followed by scuffling sounds. Then the footsteps return.
Liam reappears in the doorway, carrying a stack of paperbacks. He crosses the room and dumps them onto my nightstand.
“Knock yourself out,” he huffs, standing by the bed, hands on his hips, looking put-upon and grumpy and… somehow incredibly thoughtful.
I pop my lips. “Ah, books, that’s why I married you.”
Liam scowls and returns to his side of the bed. He throws the second comforter over himself and picks up his book with pointed determination.
I shuffle through my new treasure stack, reading the back covers one by one. He brought me a dog-eared thriller about a wealthy, dysfunctional family, a black-and-red paperback promising a shocking twist ending, a suspense novel about a wife spying on her neighbors, and a spooky romance where two feuding writers end up on a retreat at a haunted castle in Scotland.