Page 144 of Vicious Little Snakes

“This,” I whisper over unsteady breath.

Liam looks at me, confused, then follows my gaze down to the bunched tissue in my hand. Everything around us stills as I unfold the tissue carefully until the only evidence of my heart lays exposed in my palm.

“Is that—” Liam reaches for the old worn sticker he gave me when we were kids.

I shoot my hand to my chest, pressing the sticker to my heart, staring him in the eyes.

“I kept this forever. It was special because it was something from you. And just now, when you called me by the name of this damn bear, it reminded me of something. Something I never understood until now.”

It’s hard to speak, so I take a deep breath as Liam tucks my hair behind my ears.

“It reminded me of the day I got it. I was with my nanny, Julia. She told me that you must love me. But I couldn’t believe that. Nobody loved me. You were everything good in the world, Liam, and I was—”

He scowls. “Don’t talk shit about the girl I love.”

I smile, closing my eyes for a second.

“That’s the thing. It’s so much easier to believe the one bad thing someone says about you than the hundred good things. I don’t think I deserve you. But you want me.” I shrug. “You loves me a lot. So how bad could I really be? Right?”

He kisses my lips. “Right.”

My hands come to his chest, squeezing the sticker.

“I’m going to fail a lot.”

“But you’ll try,” he counters.

A bit of relief finds my shoulders as he kisses my lips again, pulling away to touch his forehead to mine.

“Caroline, I’ll lose my nerve sometimes.”

“I’ll force you forward,” I breathe out.

My arms wrap around his neck as his hands dip to my ass to pick me up, holding me close like I’m koala’d onto him.

“I’ll be selfish sometimes,” I whisper against his neck.

“But you’ll be mine.”

I will always be his. Even if I’m a work in progress because nobody in this world is rooting for me harder than the boy that gave me a cookie and Care Bear sticker along with his heart for my twelfth birthday.

Liam—February

“You look beautiful.”

Caroline’s standing in my bedroom examining herself for the hundredth time. But the color of her dress matches her eyes, so all I really want to do is rip it off of her.

“You have to say that because you love me.”

I raise my brows, crossing my feet at my ankles from where I’m lying on the bed.

“No. What did I say, Caroline?”

She smirks in the mirror, understanding what I mean. “Thank you.”

Every day she gets better at listening to only the good stuff. Baby steps.

I shift, getting off the bed, and walk over to her. My arms wrap around her waist as I bend to put my chin on her shoulder.