Page 27 of The Night
“I like you too.” I tugged gently on one of her curls. “And since you have such great taste, you get to pick which bedroom you want first.”
We carted the luggage upstairs, where Hazel picked the guest room she liked best and immediately began unpacking a bunch of toys like she’d be staying for a while. Meanwhile, Liam followed me back down to the kitchen.
“Beer?” I offered. Liam shook his head, but I popped the top on a Sam Adams because when you were forced to spend time with the guy you didn't want to like and sort of reluctantly did, a guy whose hair made you want to touch it and whose smile made you want to smile, a guy who was possibly the one great love of your life,andthe person who'd fucked off and crushed you,andthe man you were going to divorce in the morning, alcohol was sort of required.
“Chicken and peppers alright for you and me?” I asked, grabbing the pasta pot from the drawer by the stove.
“Yeah, fine.Shit. I didn’t think.” Liam pushed the hair off his forehead. He still looked exhausted. “Hazel had her burger, but I could have gotten takeout for us—”
“In this town?” I smirked. “Takeout means pizza, and even then, you have to order it before seven. Besides, it’s fine. I like cooking.”
“Hmm,” he said. “I didn’t know that. I also didn’t know your favorite pie was apple.”
“I don’t expect you to know shit. The sum total of all the things we don’t know about each other is probably twenty times the things we do know, right? Orknew. We’re basically strangers.”
Which was absolutely true… and also the world’s biggest lie.
I got out all the ingredients for the chicken and a salad to go with it, and Liam immediately started washing and chopping produce on the opposite side of my center island. Meanwhile, Hazel settled on the rug in the living room with crayons and paper, humming quietly to herself.
I’d expected it to be weird. Uncomfortable. But it was… companionable.
And yeah, weird and uncomfortablebecauseit was so companionable.
I could count on one hand the number of people who’d been out here over the years—Parker, when he’d brought me some old bookcases he and Jamie were clearing out of their house, and my parents when they’d stopped by on their way to a Jets-Bills game last winter, just long enough for my dad to approve the floors I’d refinished and my mom to offer me every knickknack in her home to “liven up the place.”
If anyone had asked, I’d have said that had beenplentyof visitors because I valued my solitude.
But now, looking at Hazel sprawled on the rug, and listening to Liam as he picked up Hazel’s tune—which I now recognized as a Christmas carol—it was… nice.
I mean, I didn’t hate it.
“Oh my Goddddd!”Hazel’s scream echoed through the downstairs and Liam dropped his knife to the counter with a clatter, but when she came running into the room a second later, she seemed fine.
The ball of orange-yellow fur in her arms, however, looked a bit harried.
“Daddy! It’s akitten!”
Liam looked at the cat strangely. “So it is.”
“That’s Fia,” I said. “She’s my buddy. I forgot to mention her when you got here.”
“Iadorecats,” Hazel said. “Can I play with her?”
“Sure. If she’ll let you.”
Liam held out a hand for her to sniff and she hissed.
“Gah!” He pulled back sharply.
“She doesn’t like you, Daddy.”
“She doesn’t like strangers and doesn't believe in being polite for the sake of politeness,” I said. She was a lot like me that way.
But of course she letHazelpet her, and even laid down on the rug and curled herself around Hazel’s waist when she went back to coloring pictures. Liam watched them with narrowed green eyes.
“So, it’s notallstrangers she has a problem with. I think you’ve been showing the cat my picture and training her to attack,” Liam said.
“You caught me. It was hard to do, considering I don’t have a single picture of you, but I used my psychic abilities”—I tapped a hand to my temple—“and beamed your image into her brain. Pleased to see it worked.”