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JESS

My skin still tingles from Liam’s touch. The way his hand wrapped around my wrist wasn’t aggressive or possessive. More like the way he may grip his hockey stick. A caress. As if he had the sudden awareness that not everything in the world is hard, a challenge to tackle.

Even when we’re not together, I am constantly aware of his presence. There’s no comparison. Rexlan and I coexisted. Liam and I orbit each other and I’m afraid, given the blaze in his gaze earlier, if we’re not careful, we might collide.

I find myself looking at cars. I’ve never considered what kind of car I’d buy given the opportunity. I always just make do. But this is crazy. The man cannot purchase a vehicle for me.

However, logically speaking, if he also wants me to look after KJ, in addition to my regular personal assistant responsibilities, he probably doesn’t want me driving his son around in a death trap.

Knowing I need to operate at full capacity if I’ll be taking care of the kid, as Liam calls him, I should probably work on my insomnia situation.

I’ve read all the articles about sleep hygiene, regulating melatonin, blue light hazards, red light therapy, and how to neutralize my stress levels for optimum relaxation.

What do I have to be stressed about? I’m blessed.

If not a little disappointed at being back in Cobbiton.

The original plan was to be so successful, I’d fly Grandma Dolly to Tinseltown to see my name in lights. We’d also go on annual cruises, visit the national parks, and trek to a wool museum in New Zealand. She loves to knit, and do basically anything with her hands from signing to baking, playing piano to winning typing contests online.

Here I am again with nothing to write home about. I’m ashamed of my inability to adult like an adult.

To have dropped out of college.

Left at the altar.

My childhood.

All of these failures stack up, then drop like dominos, threatening to knock me down.

But I get up, dust off, put on a smile, and keep going. That’s what I always do because the sun will surely come out tomorrow … and if not then, eventually.

I scroll social media, searching for the secret key to a good night’s sleep—someone has it, so please share!

I wander down a rabbit hole, er, cave about the royal family when my phone beeps with an incoming text.

Mr. Meanie: I just had another piece of cake.

Me: Nat is not going to approve.

Mr. Meanie: I couldn’t resist

Me: That’s not setting a good example as team captain.

Mr. Meanie: I’m not above breaking the rules from time to time.

Me: Grandma Dolly would be disappointed. She’s obsessed with your abs.

Mr. Meanie: I’m not sure whether I should be flattered or frightened.

Me: What? That you’re popular in the sixty-five-plus age category.

I send him the link to #MrDarcysAbs on social media and wait for him to bang my door down because it seems like the kind of thing he’d hate. But right now, snug and warm in my bed, texting my big bad boss, I feel like he’s backed off his dislike of me a little.

Mr. Meanie: I don’t want to see some dude’s abs.

Me: You mean YOUR abs. Social media users claim they’re yours. Please do me a solid and confirm.

Mr. Meanie: If they are mine, where on earth are they getting the images?

Me: You probably sell photos to fund your rock-chewing habit.

Mr. Meanie: My what habit? I have nice teeth.

Me: That means you never have anything nice to say.

Mr. Meanie: I liked the cake.

Me: Are all your teeth original?

Mr. Meanie: Why do you care?

Me: Grandma Dolly sends me daily updates to the hashtag. She probably wants to start one featuring your teeth, your toes, all of it.

Mr. Meanie: You mean YOU didn’t sign up for notifications?

Me: That’s what you took from my statement?

Mr. Meanie: Admit there’s something you like about me.

I go still, my hand stiff around the phone. That does not sound like something Liam would ask. I’ve been baited! Someone took his phone and this is a phishing scheme or they’re trolling me. Could be Rexlan and his basement dwelling, internet-video game mafia.

Me: I, uh, have to go.

Mr. Meanie: To sleep?

No, because now my mind will whir and wonder all night.

Me: If this is really Liam, tell me what we’re doing tomorrow.

Mr. Meanie: Getting you a new car.

Me: Beep! That was the buzzer sound. No, that’s nuts. Plus, you have appointments.

I list them in a separate text and then regret it because now if someone has hacked his phone and is posing as him, they’ll know where he’ll be and when. Suddenly overheating with worry, I kick off my covers. I have to figure this out. Now.

Me: Tell me something only I would know.

Mr. Meanie: Wait, do you think this isn’t me for some reason?

Me: Obviously.

Mr. Meanie: I knew about the whole #MrDarcysAbs thing.

Me: You could’ve just been playing along.

Mr. Meanie: Why #MrDarcysAbs though?

Me: Because you’re stone cold like Jane Austen’s male protagonist.

Mr. Meanie: What’s with all the sedimentary references?

Me: Always bringing it back to your abs, huh? Looking at your impeccably sculpted abdominal muscles would have the opposite effect of making me drowsy.

I just glitched. Why on earth did I text that? Maybe I am tired. I should shut this down now. Go to sleep. The three little dots indicate he’s replying. Then they disappear. Reappear.

Whoever was posing at Liam realized I was on to them and ghosted.

I tuck back under the covers when my phone beeps. Instead of a message, an image comes through in our thread.

It’s a selfie of Liam, shirt lifted, abs on display. I drool a little and I’m not even asleep yet. But his finger points at the side just below his ribs. I angle my phone and zoom in to see a little freckle that looks like a tiny whale shooting a spume out of its blowhole.

In a word, it’s adorable. It also matches many of the abs pics on #MrDarcysAbs. But Liam is anything but adorable. He’s a brooding grouser whose blue-gray eyes sometimes look like the sky in the morning and at others, they’re deep like the dusk.

And when they land on me, there’s something else, a spark there that I don’t usually see—it’s there in the photo on my phone. A swizzly feeling warms me through.

I won’t be getting any sleep tonight.

* * *

The morning sun makes the snowy tops of the trees sparkle. I’m operating on a severe coffee deficit when I meet Mrs. Kirby, the woman who runs a sewing and alternation studio downstairs in the Old Mill building, outside the elevator.

“Doing the walk of shame, eh?” she asks.

Wondering if I misheard, I tap the side of my head like I did the car dashboard earlier when the heat wouldn’t come on. It was chilly this morning.

I point to the elevator. “How do you figure that? I’m going upstairs.”

Her harrumph reminds me of Liam. Could they be related?

“I’ll have you know that I’m Liam’s personal assistant.” And nanny. He’s been at away games and we didn’t quite go over the details. Should’ve when we were messaging the other night instead of discussing his abs.

When we text, the animosity cools and flirtation, I think, takes its place. But why can’t he be more friendly in person? Though, the photo of his abs was, ahem, quite friendly.

In the polished reflection of the elevator doors, I catch my blurry image, looking a little windswept and pink-cheeked.

“It used to be so quiet upstairs. Now there’s just stomping.”

“Dancing.” KJ loves impromptu dance parties.

“Yelling.”

“Singing.” The little boy doesn’t mind that I’m perpetually off-key. Of course, he can feel the music and I sign the words. It’s a lot of fun.

She sniffs with disapproval. “Parties.”

“Family life.” In some ways, I guess I have been nannying all along.

Just then, the double glass doors to the building open, and Liam jogs in, shirtless, and with KJ in a special kind of backpack. The kid bobbles along, an oversized Knights knit hat flopping on top of his blond hair. He grins and waves wildly when he spots me.

I wave back, but my jaw lowers and I blink, honing in on his father’s abs. I mean the whale freckle, for identification purposes.

Liam’s voice, a low rumble because of course he’s not out of breath after running who knows how far with fifty pounds on his back, says, “Good morning, Jessica.”

I clear my throat and open my mouth, but words don’t come. Instead, I sign my greeting.

We get in the elevator and over my shoulder, to Mrs. Kirby, I say, “It won’t happen again.”

But I’m not sure whether I’m referring to the noise complaint or me ogling my boss’s impressive six-pack.

“What was that all about?” he asks.

I gesture dismissively.

Liam’s stare tells me he’s not going to cast it back into the lake, so I recap Mrs. Kirby’s comments.

Not surprisingly, he grunts.

After knocking some sense into my head by mainlining a pot of coffee, and preparing for the day, Liam emerges from the shower. He wears a pair of well-fitted jeans and a soft t-shirt that looks as if it would feel like butter between my fingers. He smooths his hand through his damp hair without throwing off its effortless style. His lips quirk when my gaze lengthens.

“I knew there was something you liked about me.”

“Don’t flatter yourself.”

“At least you’re not in your seventies.”

I roll my eyes and then blink a few times.

“Have something in your eye?” he asks.

I must be sleeping. This is a dream. No, a nightmare. Is Liam Ellis flirting? No amount of coffee would make it so I could handle that. Chocolate on the other hand …

Before KJ and I start a baking project, I give his dad, my boss, the man with the abs of stone, the rundown of his agenda for the upcoming week.

“Schedule in car shopping.”

I ignore him and plow ahead. “I still need something signed for Grandma Dolly.”

The corner of his lip lifts as if he’s contemplating an abs shot.

“Actually, make it a team photo. We could have the starting line sign it and anyone else who’s willing.”

“That’s asking a lot.”

“You’re the captain, aren’t you? Flex those muscles.”

My cheeks flame.

His lips quirk.

Silence stretches between us until the kid honks the horn on his little trike, telling us he wants to take a walk.

Liam says, “You’re being bossy.”

“I think you like it.”

The week folds into the following month without a signed photo, a new car, or a consensus on whether Liam Ellis is a secret flirt.

However, we do spend a lot of time together. It can’t be helped given how my responsibilities are split between personal assistant tasks and being KJ’s nanny.

One afternoon, he and I go downstairs to bring Mrs. Kirby a homemade applesauce Bundt cake with a spiced doughnut flavor sugar topping when we meet Liam at the elevator.

I say and sign, “You’re home early.”

He scratches his temple, seemingly distracted. “I have a lot going on.”

Straightening, I say, “I’m here to lighten your load.”

“And bring baked goods to the enemy?”

I sign, “Mrs. Kirby is our neighbor. Practically a friend,” I say for KJ’s benefit … and maybe because sometimes this feels like home. At least, I’m here often enough.

“After she said all that nasty stuff to you?”

“I’m leading by example. Teaching KJ that we’re gracious, forgiving, and generous.”

He grunts. “You’re aggressively positive.”

“Are you suggesting I want to fight your neighbor?”

“No, you’re just so optimistic. You don’t have to try so hard.”

“Don’t I?”

“I’m saying you don’t have to give cake to the lady who said hurtful things.”

“Mending fences. Plus, you’ve said that you don’t like me and I still made you a cake.”

He rubs the back of his neck. “I’m a jerk.”

“So you admit it?”

“Don’t be mean.”

I wink.

Color rises to his cheeks.

I say, “Just honest.”

“I bet in school you were a suck-up, the teacher’s pet.”

I gaze at my shoes. “More like the classroom ghost.”

KJ tugs on my hand.

“Don’t want to keep him waiting for our visit to see Elizabeth.”

“Mrs. Kirby’s dog?” Liam asks.

“He loves dogs. We should get one.”

“No.”

“You don’t like dogs? I bet you don’t like ice cream either. We’ll have to do something about that.” Flashing him a wink, we disappear down the hall.