Crossing (7 page)

I’m not happy to hear this animosity he has for his ex at all. It doesn’t put gladness in my heart, not the least little bit.

X

Liam’s apartment is actually the whole third floor of this old farmhouse. He has a separate outside entrance and everything. I feel a little less sorry for him for living on the west side of town. His house has style and charm, compared to my eclectic and mostly
grandma’s thrift store cast offs from the seventies
vibe.

I follow him up the stairs and wait close to him on the tiny landing at the top while he unlocks the door.

Right when we walk in, there’s a table that he’s cleverly using like Elizabeth and I use the chair. I spot the Trader Joe’s bag that Ariana gave him weeks ago. Maybe he’s more over her than I thought?

He moves into the center of the room, which must have been the attic in its former life, because the ceiling is only about a foot above his head.

“Let me give you the grand tour.” He gestures behind himself. “Over here is the bedroom.” Two feet away from the double bed is a couch and a coffee table with a laptop on it. “And if you look this way, you’ll find my living room, complete with entertainment center.” He walks over to one of two doors in the place and pushes it open. “The bathroom.” I notice there’s a claw foot bathtub in there. Yowza. “And of course, you’re standing in the kitchen.”

I laugh. Next to the table are a microwave and a tiny counter with a shallow sink set in one side and a dish drainer taking up most of the rest of it. Next to that is a single upper cabinet with a short skinny fridge underneath it. Our movie tickets are stuck to the front with a star shaped, glittery magnet.

“What’s through the other door, your secret sex dungeon?” I point at the closet.

“Don’t you wish,” he says, grinning and wagging his eyebrows at me.

I do. Lord, I do.

He smirks. “It’s the closet.” Liam goes over and instead of throwing open the door like he did with the bathroom, he cracks it and reaches his arm inside, pulling out a pair of jeans and then a button down shirt. He gestures to the bathroom with the clothes. “Let me get changed and then we can head out.”

I don’t know where to snoop first. I have two minutes tops, unless he stops to brush his teeth or trim his chest hair or pop a nonexistent zit or something. I want to check out the closet and the Trader Joe’s bag. The bag wins out. It’s closer, but not nearly as exciting.

What the hell is in his closet? I’ll have to read his electric meter to see if he’s growing weed, although an ethereal light wasn’t emanating from inside. I hope it’s not a stash of guns and ammo. Blow up doll?

I’m wasting time. I go to the bag.

Right on the top is a textbook for some Spanish class. Yay. But directly underneath that appears to be an article of clothing. Lavender, fuzzy clothing to be exact. I gingerly lift up the book and slide the sweater out from underneath it. It’s pretty, something that I would definitely wear, but there’s no way it’s his ex’s because she’s, like, a size 0 and the tag in the back of the sweater says that it’s an XL. I also note that it’s ninety-percent angora. Hence the fuzzy softness.

I fold it back up and scope the rest of the bag. A couple of coffee mugs, a picture of an older couple, which are probably his parents – he looks like the man quite a bit. There’s a ceramic bowl wedged at the bottom full of spare change and paperclips. A Chapstick. No wonder he hasn’t bothered to do anything with this bag yet. It’s a dud. Except for the sweater that I put back in the nick of time just as Liam opens the bathroom door.

I put my hands behind my back and raise my gaze to the Buccaneers poster on the wall above the table. “Nice art. I saw this tour too when it came through Chicago.”

“Sweet.” His eyes flick to the bag and then back to me. “Yeah, Ari and I took the summer after graduation off and followed them around the country. We were actually at the second Chicago show.”

“Yeah, same here.” I cross my arms. I’m a creep. A first-rate nosy creep.

“Cool.”

“It was. Their production value is off the hook.”

“Agreed.” Liam grabs his coat off the back of the chair tucked under the table, transfers his wallet and keys from his jeans to his coat pocket, and then snags the tickets from the front of the fridge. “All right, let’s go see a man in a skirt.”

X

The movie is pretty bad, but in a good way. Liam enjoys the hell out of it and I like that about him. Our hands co-mingle in our shared giganto bucket of popcorn a couple of times. We do not share a soda. He’s having a Cherry Coke, which I think tastes like cough syrup. I go with orange Fanta’cause I wanta wanta.

It’s almost eight by the time we get out of the theater, and even though I live only a few blocks away from the Bijoux, and even though I’ve literally spent almost the entire day with Liam, I find myself wishing the walk was longer so I could keep talking to him.

“You want to go get a drink now?” he asks. “We could go to RUMORS. They don’t start charging the cover until nine.”

“Sure. Although, just think of how this day could’ve turned out if you weren’t a puritan and thought three o’clock on a Saturday afternoon was too early to drink.”

He bumps his shoulder into mine. “I think this day has been awesome. I wouldn’t want to change a thing.”

Gulp. “I didn’t mean to sound like I didn’t have a good time hanging out with you today, I was just kidding.”

“What is this kidding you speak of? I no understand.”

I shoulder bump him back.

We walk in the direction of the club. He puts his hands in his pockets right about the second I’m feeling brave and like I might try holding his hand. I have no idea what is going on, but things seem to be going mutually well. I decide then and there that I will sleep with him. I’ll take one for the plain girl team and give up my burgeoning friendship with Liam if he wants to do it with me because if I don’t take the chances when they come to me, I might be in dry spell hell forever.

“Actually,” he starts, “all kidding aside, thanks for being cool. I haven’t been on anything resembling a real date since last summer, and you’re super easy to talk to, easy to be with.”

“Hey, who you calling easy?” I say, clearing my throat. “I was just thinking about how I haven’t had sex in over a year. Is that the mark of a loose woman?”

He looks at me, eyes wide. “God. That is a
long
time.”

“Yep, it is.” I nod. “A personal record. Before that my longest dry spell was seven months. Definitely more tolerable, although I don’t recommend it.”

He whistles. “I’m at six now, and I may have watched all the porn on the entire Internet. My condolences to your vagina.”

“My vagina thanks you.”

Yeah, that’s a thing to say. My vagina wishes she could thank him.

He smiles at me sweetly. “Did it like the wreath I sent?”

Liam is right about the cover, and the bouncer that was a dick to me last time gets a little flustered as Liam walks past him. Ah-ha. Someone’s got a crush.

I nod at the bouncer and he looks away. All right dude, we could’ve shared a moment of underdog solidarity there, but whatever.

RUMORS is just starting to fill up, but there are a few tables left around the edge of the empty dance floor. It’s the liquid courage hour before the music gets loud and people gotta dance! Liam weaves through the seating area toward a table and I follow him. He smiles and gives little waves to a couple of the servers. They look me up and down.

Okay. Damn, I get it. He’s super fucking hot and I’m not.

Liam takes off his coat and hangs it on the back of his chair. I do the same.

“What do you want to drink?” he asks. “Gimlet?”

I go to pull out my chair, but then he’s got his hand on the back of it, helping me into it in a flash. “Actually, I’ll take a margarita on the rocks, light salt.” I somehow manage to act like I get treated this well all the time.

He cringes. “Ooh, tequila. Are you sure? I get in so much trouble—”

“Uh, yeah, me too,” I say, laughing. “That’s the whole point. Are we drinkin’ Garrett, or are we here for a Bible study?”

Liam sighs. “All right, all right. Be back in a sec.”

I watch him walk over to the bar, and people get out of his way so he can go right up to the front and order. Priceless. If nothing else comes of this, maybe I can convince him to accompany me to drinking establishments to fetch beverages in a timely manner.

He comes back with a tray containing four shots, a couple of lime wedges, a salt shaker, and two Coronas. He sets it down on the table. “If we’re going to drink tequila, we’re going to fucking drink tequila.”

Fine by me, son. “You really are a drink Nazi, you know that?”

He sits down. “I’m a purist. I like things to be what they are, generally.”

I peer into a shot glass and regard the clear liquor. “I see you sprung for the moderately priced stuff.”

“I can’t do Gold.” Liam makes a yuck face. “The only time I’ve ever been blackout drunk was with that shit. I woke up in a field without any pants on, but still wearing my shirt and shoes. I’m still not totally clear on what happened.”

“Yikes. I promise not to let you get that out of control if you promise the same to me.”

“Deal.” He licks his hand and sprinkles some salt on it and then holds the shaker out toward me. “Lick it and I’ll shake it.”

I can’t help but giggle. “Oh my God, I feel like I might already need to pull you back from the edge of embarrassment if you’re going to say crap like that.”

He grins. “Lick it. Lick it. Lick it.”

I lick my hand and thrust it at him. He taps the shaker and sprinkles the salt on my hand. Then he gives me a shot and a lime and picks his up.

“To a day well spent,” he toasts.

“And a night to remember, like, literally.”

I flick my tongue across the back of my hand, getting the tiniest bit of salt, and then toss the shot down my throat. It burns in a good, sweet way. I shove the lime in between my teeth and suck.

Liam passes me my other shot and raises his glass again. “To earth-bound baby mamas!”

“And Alien man hoo-ers.”

Lick, shoot, suck. I shake my head and grab one of the beers, taking a quick sip.

“I’m kind of frightened by how good I feel,” Liam says. “This is very reminiscent of my pantsless lost night.”

“You were at a drag club with your scene partner doing shots?” I deadpan.

He laughs. “No, not anything remotely close to that. I said feeling. Back then I’d just begun to figure some stuff out about myself and let myself live in it, and I’m feeling that again.”

Oh, really? “What are you figuring out?”

Liam’s eyes meet mine. “That I can have fun again. That I can hang out with a woman who’s not Ariana and y’know, be interesting and…interested. You get used to history, complacent even, and it’s nice to be building a friendship with someone again.”

Suddenly it’s hard to breathe.

Must. Recover. With. Sarcasm. “Wow. Are you sure your shots weren’t whiskey,’cause that was straight up whiskey talk right there. Tequila makes you say shit like, ‘Fuck yeah dude, you are the fuuuuuuuu….coolest, man.’”

There’s a glint in his eye. He’s not going to let me put up my defenses. “Don’t you try to play it off like you don’t think about things, Dani.”

I take a swig of my beer. “Obviously, but I tend to keep them in my head or—”

“Or write them down and perform them in front of a hundred people?” Liam chuckles.

“Exactly.” I grin. Oxygen into facehole. “I’m glad to be building a friendship with you too, even if you are a big sap.”

A female server comes up to our table and sets a shot in front of Liam. “This is from that redhead over at the end of the bar,” she says and then walks away.

Liam looks at me, his eyes sad.

I shrug. “Free liquor.”

He holds it up. “To building a friendship.” He takes a sip of the shot and then hands the glass to me. “Your share.”

“You don’t have to,” I say, shaking my head.

Liam nudges it toward me. “Please. What’s mine is yours.” I take hold of it and he sips his beer. He smiles. “With regards to pre-purchased movie tickets and shots from skanky redheads.”

I finish the drink. “Skanky, huh? Sure I’m not cockblocking you?” And now I’m in wing-man mode, my default setting. Come hell or high water, one of us is getting laid tonight, and I guess my money is on Liam.

He sticks out his tongue. “Meh, I can skip the experience.”

“Really?” I turn toward the bar to check out the redhead. She shoots me a withering glare. Ha. “She looks like prime rebound material to me. You could hit that and walk away.”

Again with the tongue. “Gross.”

Are we in an alternate universe? “What are you talking about?”

“One night stands are gross.” Liam levels his gaze at me. “I’m putting part of my body into someone else’s body. That’s not gonna happen five minutes after I meet you.”

“Must be nice to have that choice.” I think back to the first day I met him. Yup. Five minutes definitely would’ve been enough of an intro.

He leans forward, narrowing his eyes. “What are
you
talking about?”

“Oh, nothing.” I try to wave the tension between us away. “I do have one night stands...only. I’ve had sex a total of five times with five different people.”

He’s making that weird face again where I can’t tell if he’s about to cry or disgusted by me. “What’s your issue?”

“I don’t have an issue.” I cross my arms over my chest. “It’s not like I wouldn’t have, y’know, dated any of them and stuck it out for a few months. But, contrary to popular belief, not all women can just go out and get laid whenever they want. Some of us have to take what we can get when we can get it.”

Liam points at me, shaking his head. “There’s your issue right there. Fuck, why are you so down on yourself?”

“I wasn’t always like this,” I say, indignant. “So don’t give me that ‘low self-confidence is a turn-off’ bullshit. Just because what I believe about my sex life sucks, doesn’t make it not true.”

He sighs. “Did you have, like, a reputation for being someone that lets guys treat them that way?”