Page 17

17

Alana

W alking around town with Liam Mulligan was an exercise in pretending that you didn’t know that people were staring at you. Whilst also being pinned down by the weight of all their stares.

Once upon a time, I was used to those looks. When Liam was around, I was shrouded by his presence and the way everyone loved him. It was a position I was happy with because while they were looking at him, they weren’t looking at me, and Liam played the part of being the superstar well.

But back then, he had just been playing at being a superstar. I mean, he was always great, but it was still unclear if he was just high school great . But he made it to the big leagues, and he’d been great there too. He’d lived up to the hype, to the promise. He was the Golden Boy. People had been so devastated when he announced his retirement, they wanted to stop playing Fantasy League if he couldn’t make up the team.

“Remind me again why I let you drag me out of the house?” I asked, trying to avoid looking at the family across the street who looked like they were about ready to accost Liam. I would end up taking photos if they got the idea that they could approach, and if I did it once, then everyone else who was pretending they weren’t staring at us would come over. It would become a revolving door of phones being passed to me while they pawed all over Liam. He wasn’t theirs to fawn over. That didn’t mean he was mine, but he wasn’t theirs.

“I believe I promised you doughnuts,” he replied, looping his arm around my shoulders and pulling me closer to him. I fell into him easily.

“Are we walking to the city for them? Because we’ve walked past two places that do them and I am without a doughnut. The rule is whenever I see a doughnut I buy a doughnut.”

“Fair enough. I see your point and I raise you. Why would I buy you any old doughnut from those places when I could buy you the best one that also happens to be your favourite?” I felt the gentle press of his lips on my temple and felt both warmed and chilled by the easy affection. I couldn’t be out here getting attached to all this. We were fake dating .

But it was hard to not get attached when he remembered something as minor as the fact that, even now, I thought that the best doughnut in the world came out of Westchester Bakes. My dad had bought me one the day Aaron was born, and it was my first taste of how food could change your life. Years later, I realised that I wanted to make other people feel the way that doughnut made me feel and started baking.

“How are you so sure that I haven’t found a new favourite?”

“Because they were your first food love,” he said simply as he threaded his fingers through mine and kept us walking.

There was a queue for Westchester Bakes, which wasn’t unusual, especially at this time of year. It did, however, serve as a reminder to me that when we were younger, not only did Liam bring me my favourite doughnuts regularly, but he used to queue for them. For me.

As we joined the back of the queue, he turned around so his back was to the line and grabbed my other hand, holding them both.

“I forgot how cute you look in winter,” he said, his green eyes looking blue in the crisp sunshine.

“Thanks?” It was all I could think to say in the immediate aftermath of a sincere compliment from a man whose eyes were literally sparkling at me.

“It’s a compliment, Len. I dunno, I guess I forgot that you always preferred the colder months because the weather finally matches your stylistic choices. I still haven’t met anyone who loves knitwear and a coat as much as you do. Winter suits you.”

“Thanks. Winter doesn’t—”

“Liam. Mulligan. Well, I never.” I was cut off by the person in front of us, hidden behind Liam’s back. I knew the voice, though. I’d know Chantelle Smith’s voice until the end of my life. She had been my co-captain on the cheerleading squad our junior and senior years, which she wasn’t jazzed by, but the squad couldn’t pick one of us, so we shared the captaincy. She held that against me for those two years because cheering was her everything and it was just something I did because I happened to be a good tumbler. I also needed to kill time while my ride home was otherwise occupied. She also held Liam being my friend against me. She was convinced that I was the reason Liam didn’t want to date her. I wasn’t. I begged him once to go on one date, so she’d leave me alone.

However, I couldn’t say that I wasn’t happy about the fact that he never did. I had always been secretly happy that I never had to see Liam date anybody. Why that was, I didn’t know until that night in my kitchen, when it all started to make sense. When he told me that he had a date for our high school prom, it ruined me. I changed my moving date to prom day, so I didn’t have to deal with witnessing that in any way. It was the one and only time I had utilised the fact that my dad was revered at that school. It meant that the principal just accepted that the senior valedictorian wouldn’t be finishing out the year or attending graduation.

Liam let go of one of my hands and turned around, managing to shift me so that I was pressed against his chest with his arm around my waist.

“Oh, and Alana? I thought you weren’t coming back this year.”

That was the problem with this place. Everyone knew everyone else’s business even when I told no one except my parents of my original plans for the holidays.

“Plans changed and now I’m here.” I shrugged.

“But what happened?”

“How are you doing, Chantelle?” Liam cut in, and I watched her face change as she dragged her attention away from me to something lighter. Something flirtier .

“Good. What about you? Must be nice to get a whole Christmas off now that you’re out of the game.”

It never ceased to amaze me how obsessed with Liam’s career people were. It shouldn’t, because he was kind of a big deal, but I had never been able to see him as the NHL’s Golden Boy because even if we were no longer in each other’s lives, he was still just…Muller. A guy who could tell you the most random facts about obscure Greek mythology and had an encyclopaedic knowledge of flowers. Someone who watched Mufasa die once, couldn’t cope, and from then on, always walked out of the room when Scar started to take Simba to the gorge. He would come back just before Hakuna Matata started with a Mars bar because I always used that part of the film as a chance to cry. I was always aware that he belonged on and to the ice, but whoever Liam was once those skates were laced was not the same person I got.

“I always got three days off, although it is nice to get a full two weeks with this one,” he said as he squeezed me in tighter to him and suddenly, I remembered that we were supposed to be dating. I wasn’t just standing here waiting for someone to ask Liam out before he politely turned them down and we carried on with our lives. For all intents and purposes, he was mine.

“When did this happen?” Chantelle asked, her eyes finally noticing Liam’s arm holding me against him. His fingers had managed to find a space between my coat and sweater, and I could feel the heat of his palm on my stomach. The touch was making me feel tingly.

“A few weeks ago,” Liam replied easily.

“How?” I heard the disbelief in her voice, but it was also borderline angry. Judging by the brush of lips against my temple, Liam heard it too.

“Sweet Nothing was having a little birthday party and that seemed like the perfect opportunity to thank Len in person for making my birthday brownies. I asked if she wanted to hang out and hanging out turned into dating, and now here we are.”

“Stassie mentioned that you had a bakery in Detroit, Ally. Congrats.”

She sounded sincere, but she’d used a nickname I had never given her permission to use, so I knew she wasn’t.

“It’s Alana,” Liam said before I even had the chance to think about correcting her.

Chantelle carried on like he hadn’t said anything.

“Listen, Eddie is having a party at his parents’ house on Christmas Eve. It’s a lot of the old gang and I’m sure he would be happy to see you. Both of you,” she tacked on at the end.

“We’d love to,” Liam answered just as Chantelle reached the front of the queue. As she stepped into the bakery, she turned around to give us one last look.

“Starts at seven. I trust you still remember where the house is?”

Everyone knew where Eddie lived. It was called The Big House because, well, it was big.

“Yeah, I remember where Eddie’s family lives,” Liam answered and the door closed behind Chantelle, putting a blissful barrier between us for a short while.

“Is there a reason you just signed us up to a party? I only agreed to four dates and now you want to bump it up to five,” I teased as I turned around to look at him. His arm didn’t leave my waist.

“It might be nice to see everyone for a bit. I’ll make it up to you. You can make me watch Breaking Dawn and I won’t make a single disparaging comment.”

“Wait, if you’re going to give me one film where you don’t make a single snide comment, then I am making you watch Batman and Robin .” Liam rolled his eyes just as someone walked out of the bakery, and he freed me. I tried to ignore how cold I felt without him pressed against me.

“Wait here, I’ll be back when I’m back,” he said as he stepped inside the bakery before I could say anything. I could see through the window the way people’s eyes snapped to him, Chantelle’s included. I watched in real time as he morphed into Liam ‘Gunner’ Mulligan. The easy smile, and the open body language, exuding almost puppy-like energy, but a line of tension ran through his shoulders. I could see people talking to him, getting just a little too close. The woman behind the counter batted her eyelashes and would not stop smiling while he placed his order. I turned away from the window and pulled my phone out of my pocket, busying myself with checking my email. It was a pointless task. No one was emailing me. They were under strict instructions not to bother me unless there was a legitimate emergency. And they wouldn’t tell me that over email.

I was reading a book that I had abandoned over the summer when I felt Liam return.

“One praline and coffee doughnut and a flat white, milady.”

I locked my phone and looked at Liam. His shoulders were looser, the performance now dropped, with my favourite doughnut and my go-to coffee in his hand. Clearly, at the airport, Liam hadn’t just heard my name, seen me standing there not hearing it and brought me my much-needed caffeine, he’d noticed my coffee order as well. He remembered my new coffee order.

“Thanks, I think you might owe me more than just the one snark-free film. I remembered while you were in there that my parents do that Christmas Eve lock-in at The Seamus Pub every year, which means I was getting the house to myself until one a.m. Instead, I have to go off and be social.” I took a long sip of my coffee and let the warmth soothe me from the inside out.

“Oh yeah, mine are doing that as well. I forgot about that. Were you not going with them?”

“I wasn’t supposed to be here, so it was too late for me to get added to the list, which meant I was going to be alone.”

“I would have been there,” he said.

“ Alone . Locked doors, big lights off, Jingle Jangle, and the fancy whisky from the back of the cupboard.”

“They never changed the locks,” he replied casually, which meant he still had his keys. The keys to a childhood home that wasn’t technically his, but also very much was. “And anyway, wasn’t Aaron gonna be at home?”

“No, he spends Christmas Eve with his friends somewhere not in the house.”

We started walking down Main Street, our feet carrying us on autopilot to our favourite bench. It wasn’t anything special, but it had the best dedication we had ever found.

For our Dad, who would have hated being surrounded by this many people.

Liam looked around before we sat down and I watched several pairs of eyes flick away, a terrible attempt to cover up the fact that they were staring.

“Are you stared at wherever you go?”

“No. I mean it happens, but not in the way it is happening here. Although I think it is less about me and more about us .”

That made no sense. “What about us?”

“We haven’t been seen together around here since our senior year.”

“And that warrants them staring at us like we’re giraffes at the zoo?”

“No, but I also can’t say I blame them,” he said with a shrug.

“I think you broke Chantelle’s heart, though. She probably saw those shoulders and thought she was finally getting to shoot her shot with her high school crush, only to be denied once again.” I changed the subject before I was forced to confront feelings that I was not in the headspace to deal with.

“Chantelle asked me out every month for two years and I never said yes. My answer to that question twelve years later is still no. She’s not my type.”

“Really? Because she looks an awful lot like Mel—” I cut myself off, but it was already too late.

“You been checking up on me, Lenny?” The smile on his face was downright sinful. Teasing always was a good look on him. At least to me.

“I might have cast an eye over your Instagram when I couldn’t sleep last night. You haven’t culled her from your page yet,” I admitted. I’d been surprised when I saw her in his photos. I’d deleted all traces of Kai from mine while I waited for my birthday cake to bake.

“I announced my retirement and stayed clear of social media. Given that she broke up with me not too long after that, I haven’t had the chance.”

“Whatever. What I was saying still stands. Physically, they are very similar. You can see why I would think Chantelle would be your type.”

“That’s fair, but that wasn’t what I meant when I said she wasn’t my type.”

“Then what did you mean?”

“I don’t tend to want to spend time with people who make it a habit of talking shit about my best friend,” he said.

“Who, Teddy?” From what I remembered, Chantelle got on just fine with Teddy. In fact, I always got the impression that if Liam didn’t exist in all his glory, then Chantelle would have been all over Teddy.

“No. You,” Liam said simply.

“Oh,” I replied, sending us into a comfortable silence for a moment while we ate.

“Still got it?” he asked as I scrunched up my empty bag and licked the sugar from my doughnut off my thumb.

“Never lost it,” I answered. A Westchester Bakes doughnut would always be the one I associated with after-school sugar rushes and discovering new flavour combinations. It would always be the thing that sparked a fire within me that I would eventually turn into my job, which I still found new ways to fall in love with every day. Or at least most days. It was the doughnut I associated with good days and bad days and just because days.

“Come on, let’s keep walking,” Liam said as he stood up and held his hand out to me. I placed my hand in his and he immediately tucked our joined hands into his coat pocket to keep at least one of our hands out of the winter chill. Our hands being in there gave me no option but to press myself as close to Liam as possible.

“Anyone would think you haven’t been home for ages,” I teased, taking a sip of my coffee.

“Well, I haven’t. Not properly anyway. Nor have you. And don’t try to lie to me—just because you’ve been back to your parents’ house does not mean that you’ve been home. When was the last time you queued in that line for the sole purpose of getting a doughnut?”

“I dunno, it’s been years. But I will also say that I stopped queuing long before I left because you did it for me.”

“Fine. When was the last time someone waited in line to get you a doughnut?”

“About fifteen minutes ago,” I said.

“Don’t be a smart ass.”

“Being smart has almost always been a character trait of—” I stopped abruptly as we walked past a block of units that we used to walk by all the time. It was the block of units that held my dream bakery space. Liam once found me pressed against the glass, visualising what it would look like. Where the counter would go, where the display cases would be and how I would set up the kitchen.

“It’s still empty,” I said, extracting myself from his side.

“Oh, it wasn’t the last time I was here,” Liam said from right behind me. I pressed myself up against the glass again. The space had changed a little, but the bones were the same. I could still put the kitchen in the same place. In fact, it looked like I would be able to recreate the Detroit bakery almost identically. I could expand .

I had been thinking about expanding for a while, but the issue was always the same. I didn’t have the capacity, time, or money to do it. I still didn’t. I stepped away from the window and turned around to Liam.

“You okay?” he asked. I nodded as I laced my fingers with his again and nestled into his side. He accommodated me easily.

“Can we go home now?”

“Yeah, sure.”

We walked home, pressed together in silence.