Page 43 of Reign

She of all people knew how complicated families could be: how you could love them and resent them all at once; how you could be grateful to them for shaping you into the person you’d become, and at the same time feel desperate to break out of the mold they had cast you into.

“Sometimes I worry my parents are right, though. That I should give up music,” Liam said gruffly. “I’m not exactly a rock star.”

“Don’t do that.” Unthinking, Sam reached for his wrist, forcing him to pause. She quickly let go. “Don’t second-guess yourself. You’re so talented.”

Somehow the silence that followed his words was stranger than the touch had been. Liam was the first to break eye contact. He stepped toward a pair of French doors, smiling.

“Maybe you should take your own advice,Martha.Don’t let your family, or anyone else, make you feel like you’re not good enough.”

Before she could answer that, he threw open the doors,revealing a small space with floor-to-ceiling windows. Boxes labeledJessica Albrightin Sharpie bubble letters were stacked in the middle of the room; Liam unapologetically began shoving them to one side.

“This was supposed to be a dining room, but I mean, who actuallyusesa formal dining room? Sorry, I’m probably asking the wrong person,” he added wryly.

Sam tried to hide her trepidation. Where was the closest bathroom? “I’ve never slept in a dining room before,” she said warily.

“Here, I’ll help you set up the air mattress,” Liam offered, which was when Sam noticed a giant plastic thing in the corner.

She watched in mute fascination as Liam unfurled it, then pressed a button. The mattress began filling with an angry whirring sound. Liam looked up to meet Sam’s gaze, his hair falling into his face, and grinned.

“You’ve never set up an air mattress before, have you?”

“Of course I have. I’m just distracted by how unbearably loud yours is,” Sam fibbed. Before Hawaii, the only mattresses she’d ever slept on were real ones, handmade in Sweden out of cotton and thick-spun wool and layers of very expensive horsehair.

Liam reached for a set of sheets and began tugging one corner over the edge of the air mattress. Sam tried her best to help, ignoring how intimate it felt for Liam to be setting up the place where she would sleep. He obviously didn’t think it was weird, and for all Sam knew, maybe it wasn’t. Hadn’t he said that they had guests constantly coming in and out of this house?

A clamor of voices made them both look up. Liam rocked back on his heels, grimacing slightly. “That’s the main drawback of this space—you hear everything in the living room.”

“Are those the rest of your housemates?” Sam stood, raking fingers through her cropped hair. “Can you introduce me?”

“I don’t know if this is a great time. We’re all about to go out,” Liam began, but Sam cut him off.

“A night out sounds likeexactlywhat the doctor ordered.”

As it turned out, the group was headed to Enclave, the very same bar where Sam had snuck out to see Liam’s band on her graduation night. When they headed through the side entrance, Sam saw that it was just as she remembered: dimly lit and smelling faintly of beer. A pre-concert anticipation buzzed in the air.

I should bring Marshall here,she thought, which only made her sadder, because she might never get the chance to.

She turned to Jessica—Liam had introduced them earlier, at which point Jessica had apologized for all the clothes, and urged Sam to borrow whatever she wanted. “Should we stake out spots near the stage?”

Jessica shot her a concerned glance. “Liam didn’t tell you? We all work here.”

“At Enclave?”

“Amber is the sound tech, Leah and I are bartenders, Talal works security, and you already know that Ben and Liam are in the band.” Jessica reached up to pull her glossy dark hair into a ponytail. “It was how we all met, actually.”

“That makes sense.” Sam’s eyes darted around the venue, which was filling up by the minute. Instinctively she pulled her fedora lower over her brow. “Well, I’ll just find a spot,and—”

“Jessica!” An impatient-looking woman strode toward them. “I need you to work your section plus Deborah’s tonight; shejust quit. God, this is not the night I wanted to be understaffed. It’s a sold-out show.” She closed her eyes and pressed her fingers to her temples, groaning.

“A sold-out show? Good for Liam,” Sam exclaimed, before she could think better of it.

The woman glanced over, then looked at Sam for a beat too long, her eyes studying Sam’s face. “Sorry, have we met? You look so familiar…”

“I’m a friend of Liam’s,” Sam said quickly.

“Well, new girl, how well can you open beer bottles?”

Sam blinked, and the woman threw out a hand to indicate the venue. “This is going to be a rough night for us without enough bartenders. Are you looking for work? As of now, we’re hiring.”