Chapter Fourteen
Liam heard the barking even before he answered the doorbell. He opened the door to find Starr trying to bust a hole in his screen door with her little paws. Starr was attached to a giant bag of groceries, which was attached to Joanna.
This was a lot to take in. So he stood there, taking it in, while Starr continued to bust.
“Hi,” Joanna said after a while, and Liam realized he had been staring at her. He didn’t want to be rude; he just wasn’t sure she was real. But she’d just spoken, so she had to be real, right?
“Hi,” he said back. Man, I hope she’s real, he thought.
“Um . . . I don’t suppose you made other plans for dinner?”
Dinner. Oh, dinner. He knew about dinner. That was the meal he was going to start eating now. Well, as soon as he opened the box of mac and cheese.
“No . . .” He realized that he sounded skeptical. But, well. What was she doing here? Every time he saw Joanna, she acted like he’d done something to piss her off. Except for the times when she didn’t, and they chatted and laughed like two people who were interested in getting to know each other. But the rest of the time . . .
“I just thought—Starr! Knock it off!” Starr did not knock it off.
“Come in, come in,” Liam said. “Before Starr breaks down the door.”
As soon as the door was open wide enough, Starr shot into the living room. Joanna dropped the leash with a curse, and the bag wasn’t far behind. Liam threw the door the rest of the way open and reached for the grocery bag.
And ended up with a handful of Joanna’s chest.
Well, this is awkward.
“Um,” she said.
“Right,” he said, whipping his hands away from her breasts and onto the grocery bag. “Let me help you with that.”
She gave up the bag and, if he wasn’t mistaken, gave a snort. He couldn’t tell because he was headed into the house, where Starr sat on the back of the couch, panting happily. “Make yourself comfortable,” he said.
“Wait, I’m supposed to—” She took the bag back from him. “I’m going to make you dinner.”
“You are?”
“Why did you think I came over with a bag of groceries?” She raised an eyebrow. She was making fun of him.
“I thought you wanted me to do you a favor and mind my own business.” He matched her, raised eyebrow to raised eyebrow.
“Yes, well. I may have been a little . . . listen, you shouldn’t just run up to people in the street like that.”
“Why not?”
“It’s just . . . it’s rude, that’s all. It’s rude to make conversation that early in the morning.”
“And that night at Chet’s?”
She blushed. He wasn’t sure why, but she was definitely blushing.
“It’s also rude to . . . Ugh.” She hung her head, and he thought the grocery bag was done for. “I’m doing this wrong. Hold on.”
She turned on her heel and went out the front door. Starr lifted her head from the couch but otherwise was not bothered by the fact that the person who had brought her over was now leaving.
Liam was bothered by it. Sure, Joanna had bitten his head off, but he still liked her. He was attracted to her and he was curious about her and she did things like tell him to mind his own business, then show up on his doorstep with a bag of groceries.
And her grandmother’s dog.
The doorbell rang.
Starr gave a halfhearted bark.
“Some guard dog.” Liam opened the front door, and there was Joanna. With her bag of groceries.
“Hi,” she said brightly.
“Hi. Uh. This is a surprise?”
“I messed up the last time. I’m starting over. Okay, here we go.” She threw her shoulders back. “Hi, Liam. Sorry I was such a bitch this morning—you kind of caught me off guard. Instead of running away like a weirdo, what I meant to say was, hi, you seem nice, I would very much enjoy having dinner with you this evening.”
“Okay.” He stepped back as she walked through the door.
“I thought, since I owe you a grovel, that I would cook for you.”
“Okay, wow. Great.” Then he saw her headed for his kitchen, which . . .
“Oh.”
Yes. When Liam couldn’t sleep, he watched home improvement shows. He couldn’t sleep last night because of the town council and, okay, fine, Joanna, and then he was inspired to change his kitchen cabinets. And this afternoon, after Joanna brushed him off so coldly, he needed to burn off some frustrated energy, so he’d started.
He hadn’t gotten much further than taking the doors off their hinges when he realized that this was a ridiculous idea because he barely used the kitchen, so what did it matter what it looked like? But when he tried to put the doors back on, they would not go. Somehow, in between his taking them down, grabbing a burger for lunch, and coming back home and to his senses, the hinges had shrunk. Or moved. Or done something.
So now he had no cabinet doors. Well, he had cabinet doors, they were just on the counters. And he had pretty crappy counter space to begin with.
Also, his dirty socks were on the floor. In his defense, they were very close to his washing machine. Still.
One of the things that didn’t help was the sheer number of Hostess cake wrappers he had on the counter. In his defense, it was his favorite post-running snack. He just . . . he just liked them, that was all. A lot.
“Cute.” Too late. She was already in there, putting the bag on the only spot on his already small countertop that was not covered in cabinet doors or junk food wrappers. She stuck her purse next to it.
“I was in the middle of cleaning,” he lied, but made a beeline for the dishwasher anyway and started to put clean dishes away.
“I meant the pink.”
Right. The pink. The primary reason for his nocturnal renovations. Maybe it did matter what his kitchen looked like. “You get used to it.” And he had. It took a few months, but he was used to it. “You should see the bathroom.”
He still was not quite used to the pink toilet.
She held up an empty cake wrapper.
“Guilty pleasure,” he said, and grabbed it from her and started frantically collecting the rest of them. He shoved them in the garbage can under the sink, and when he turned back around, she was unpacking her bag.
Onions, mushrooms, zucchini . . . it looked like she had robbed a farm stand.
His stomach growled.
But wait. Had he even invited her in? How was she suddenly rooting through his kitchen drawers, pulling out knives and peelers and things he had forgotten he even had?
“I could have other plans, you know.”
She froze, knife in midair.
He could have timed that better.
And the look on her face told him that she did not get the joke.
Also, the fact that she unfroze and started tossing the vegetables back in the bag, muttering apologies and curses.
“No! I was kidding. I don’t have plans. Please, make me dinner.”
She looked at him with narrowed eyes. “It’s fine, I get it. I shouldn’t have just—”
He grabbed her shoulders. “Please, Joanna. I want you to stay.”
* * *
Well, that was definitely not open for interpretation.
Joanna tried to calm her gut instincts, which were still in the fight-and-also-flight mode she used in awkward situations. First, throw in a few angry jabs, then run away. It was her patented method of conflict resolution.
Well, not so much of resolution. But it was the best way she had found to deal with conflict.
Well, not the best way. But it was her way, dammit.
But then there was Liam. Liam who didn’t react to her fight with more fight, and who expressed clearly and with words that he was not into her flight. Her guts were telling her that there was some trick here. People didn’t just say what they meant. What was he, mature or something?
His eyes, at least, were sincere. And blue, and clear, like the desert sky. He had nice eyes, this librarian. And his eyes said they meant it. His were the eyes of a guy who did not have a lot of practice saying what people wanted to hear so he could get what he wanted.
Unusual eyes.
She took a deep breath, willing her guts to chill the fuck out. “Okay,” she said. “Sorry about that.”
“You don’t have to apologize for my bad joke.” He let go of her, just when she was thinking it would be a good idea to lean into him. Of course, she was still holding a knife.
“So,” he said, taking a further step from her toward the counter. “What culinary masterpiece do you have planned?” He lifted a set of . . . were those cabinet doors? Also, were those his biceps?
She shook off her haze of attraction. Come on, Joanna. The librarian? Get real.
“That’s probably overstating it,” she said.
“Masterpiece?”
“And planning. I just kind of bought what looked good. And pasta.”
“I like pasta. And cheese,” he added, holding up the block of pecorino.
“Well, good.” She started unpacking the vegetables, briefly reconsidering the onion. But no. No reason to get her hopes up. What was she even thinking about, hopes?
* * *
Liam knew he shouldn’t get too excited when he saw her hesitate with the onion. Because no onion meant good breath, which meant smoochin’. But that was ridiculous. She’d come over here to apologize and cook him dinner, not to make out. Besides, Joanna did not strike him as the sort of person to go for a subtle suggestion. He imagined that if she wanted to make out with him, she would grab him by the collar of his shirt and just—well. He didn’t need to worry about that. Not when she was holding a knife.
Never mind the fact that watching her leaning over the kitchen counter like that filled him with the sudden image of her there, waiting for him, wearing fewer pants.
“Are you gonna help, or just stand there and watch me?”
That was Real Joanna, not Naked Fantasy Joanna. He stepped up to the counter and awaited instructions.
* * *
Dinner wasn’t terrible. She’d made the dish hundreds of times before. “Dish” was probably too formal a word for it. She just picked up whatever vegetables looked good, sautéed them, threw on some tomatoes and whatever Italian-ish cheese was on sale, and tossed it over pasta. Tonight it was zucchini and mushrooms and, in the end, onion. The pasta came out perfectly al dente, despite the fact that Liam, who was in charge of the pasta, was sort of dreamily watching her stir the veggie pan. If this guy had fantasies of domestic bliss, he was barking up the wrong tree.
And yet, she liked feeding him. She liked the appreciative sounds he made when he was eating, and she liked that he went back for seconds, and thirds. Nobody ate three helpings of something they were only pretending to like.
Now he leaned back in his chair with his eyes closed. “Can you come over and cook every night?”
She snorted. “This is pretty much my specialty. You’ll get sick of it after a while.”
“Doubt it.” He leaned in and grabbed another piece of bread to soak up the last drops of sauce on his plate.
“Maybe you should cook next time.”
“Okay. I hope you like pizza.”
“Homemade pizza? Love it.”
“What if it’s homemade in a pizza shop? And I pay the nice man who delivers it to us?”
She laughed. “Depends on the pizza shop.”
“You look really pretty when you laugh.”
She froze, fork in the air, mid-laugh. “Are you going to tell me I should smile more often?”
He held up his hands. “No. Just that you look pretty when you laugh.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“Uh. Just . . . that . . . you look pretty. When you laugh.”
“Hmph.” She shoved her forkful of food in her mouth before she got even madder. Because, really, it was a compliment. He couldn’t know that people telling her to smile more was a major pet peeve.
“Will you kill me if I also tell you that you look really pretty when you scowl?”
“Maybe,” she muttered.
“Okay. Then I won’t.”
“Good.”
He was smiling at her. Usually when guys smiled at her prickliness, she felt patronized and, as a result, got even more prickly. Only Liam seemed to be, she didn’t know, just enjoying watching. And he enjoyed talking to her. And he enjoyed her cooking.
Joanna’s palms started to sweat. She looked for Starr, who would maybe need a walk or a swift return to the real world where people did not find her charming.
“So. Do you want to watch a movie or something?”
“A movie?”
“Yeah, or listen to some music?”
“Music?”
“Sorry, is that a sore subject?”
Oh, God, he knew, too. She shouldn’t be surprised. With the entire town itching for her to fail, someone was bound to share it with the beloved librarian.
But, what? She wasn’t ever going to listen to music again? Or talk about it?
“Okay, music. Anything but Bunny Slippers.”
“Ha.” He stood up, then took her hand and led her to the living room. Starr lifted her head, then put it back down again, apparently unfazed by the total weirdness of Liam holding her hand.
All the weirdness stopped when she looked up to see a massive bookcase. How had she missed that when she came in? Because it wasn’t a bookcase at all. It was an entire wall of shelving, full of CDs and records.
“Whoa.”
“I know. Trina built them for me.”
Trina had? Why hadn’t she said anything?
But then, why would she?
“What do you feel like listening to?”
“God, how will you find it?” She pulled out a record. Otis Redding. Cool. Then she looked closer at the collection. “Oh my God, are these in alphabetical order?”
“How else am I supposed to know where anything is?”
“I don’t know, but I still want to laugh at you.”
He threw his hand over his heart. “You wound me.”
She bumped her hip with his. He didn’t move away.
“Oh! How about this?” He leaned down and pulled a Patti Smith album out.
“Yes, I love her.”
“You kind of remind me of her.”
“And now I love you.”
She was just joking, clearly. She didn’t love him. But that didn’t stop her from looking at him a little too long, to see what he would say.
“My plan worked,” he said, and he turned to put the record on.
* * *
Six hours and many records later, Joanna started to feel tired. She looked over at Liam, leaning into the corner of the couch, eyes closed, Starr on his lap.
He’d been like that for a while. She’d thought he was getting into the Magnetic Fields, but maybe he was just asleep.
“Hey.” She gave his knee a gentle shake. He bolted up. Yup, definitely asleep. “I’m gonna go.”
“Okay.” He rubbed his hand across his face. “Okay. God, sorry about that.”
Part of her—a big part of her, the part with hormones—wanted to suggest that, hey, maybe I could just stay.
Wouldn’t that be perfect? Troublemaker Joanna comes home and throws herself at the poor, innocent librarian.
“Come on, Starr. Let’s go for a walk.”
“You walked?”
Joanna shrugged. “I know kung fu.” She winked and punched his arm.
“It’s kind of late.”
Ha. Clark was such a city boy. She hooked Starr onto her leash and waited while the dog finished a massive yawn-and-stretch. Then she opened the door, turning just to give him a parting joke. “This is Halikarnassus. All of the criminals are long abed.”
“Or they’re about to get up. It is technically morning.” He followed her out the door, shutting it behind him.
“I can take care of myself.” She started walking. He started walking beside her. She guessed that meant he was walking her home.
“Oh, I have no doubt of that. But don’t you want my big, intimidating presence to ward off any would-be attackers? So you won’t even have to take care of yourself.”
“You better take off your glasses for that, Clark.”
“Clark?”
“Uh . . . nothing.” Oops. That was supposed to be an inside-only joke.
“You do know my name is Liam, right?”
She shoved him playfully. He barely broke his stride.
Strong librarian.
“Yes. Liam Byrd.” It’s a Byrd, it’s a plane . . .
A short, companionable silence fell between them.
“Not gonna tell me?”
Joanna kept her mouth shut. For once.
But only because she did not want to admit to any fantasy life involving the hot, strong librarian with excellent taste in music.
Man, in her dreams, though. He was a great kisser.
She was so lost in her thoughts of dream-kissing Liam the Librarian that she barely noticed climbing up the three steps to Granny’s front door.
“Hey,” she said stupidly. “We’re here.”
“Where did you think we were going?” His eyes were all scrunched up in confusion, but he was smiling. Damn, he was cute.
Good thing she didn’t do cute.
Except in her dreams.
Sigh.
“And see? My tall, manly presence warded off potential attackers.”
“You can’t prove that.”
“Did you get murdered on the way home?”
“You have a point. I am alive.”
He bowed gallantly.
“This isn’t going to be a thing, is it?”
“Chivalry?”
She gave him a bitch-please look. “You’re not going to, like, make me your personal mission? To save me from myself so you’ll be sure I never walk home alone again? Because I laugh in the face of danger, but really it’s because I can tell when there’s danger, and there has probably never been danger in Halikarnassus.”
“Uh . . .”
She opened the front door to let Starr in before she barked the whole neighborhood awake. “Because I can take care of myself, you know. Everyone has this idea that because I was a screwup in high school, I’m automatically an incompetent adult. Just because I’m not ‘financially successful,’ it doesn’t mean I can’t cross a baseball field at night. I’ve crossed that field hundreds of times, and I’m sober this time.” Her rant was spiraling quickly into a pity party, and as she spoke, she couldn’t seem to stop it. “God, you break a few rules when you’re sixteen and you’re an incompetent for the rest of your life. That’s why I hate this town. That’s why I never wanted to come back here. It’s been ten years, ten years! Do you know how much can change in ten years? A lot! A lot changes! If other people can get married and have kids, why can’t I—”
Her rant was abruptly stopped by Liam’s mouth.
This was good because she was getting majorly off track with her point about . . . well, she couldn’t remember the point. It took her about three seconds to go from rant to surprise to OMG. His lips were gentle, but they were packing some kind of wallop. He had her face cupped between his big hands, and she tilted with his guidance, letting the kiss deepen. She was just reaching for his arms to steady herself.
And then he was gone.
“Sorry. Oh, God, sorry.” He was flushed and his eyes were dark and his hair was flopping across his forehead and Joanna had never been into cute before but this guy was seriously changing her mind.
“Whu?” she asked. In stopping her ranty spiral, he had also robbed her of all speech.
That kiss. That was . . . that was even better than Dream Liam. And Dream Liam was pretty damn great.
“You were talking. That was rude. But I . . . uh. I don’t have a good explanation, I just kept watching your lips and—”
Joanna knew the start of a good verbal spiral when she saw one. And maybe it was rude of him to kiss her instead of listening to her babble about the same old shit she always complained about. But mostly she was just concerned that that was going to be their only kiss, that short, intense, midsentence kiss. They could do so much better.
So she threw herself at him.
He caught her, his arms going tight around her waist as she flung hers around his neck. He recovered fast, that Liam, and before she could tell him to shut up, his mouth was on hers again, hot and insistent, and she battled his tongue as it snaked into her mouth. His hands at her waist tightened and she shifted her pelvis up and into his. He moaned, or she moaned, somebody made some kind of noise.
And then the porch lights came on.
And Starr started barking.
Joanna stepped back, grateful that Liam kept his hands on her hips because she was pretty sure that was the only thing holding her up right now. She wanted to melt into a puddle of desire, and she guessed by the dark look in Liam’s eyes that he was totally willing to take a dive in.
She was about to suggest that she walk him home, for safety, when the front door opened and there was Gran, balancing on her crutches and squinting out into the night.
“Jo Jo?” she asked, confused and rumpled. Joanna marveled at how fast burning desire could cool to molten shame. She still wanted to melt into a puddle, but this was more a disappearing puddle. Anything so her grandmother, disheveled and confused by sleep, wasn’t standing at the door in her nightgown watching her grope the librarian.
“Gran, you should be in bed.” Joanna opened the screen door, edging around Liam to get hold of her grandmother before she noticed.
“Starr was barking.”
“Starr barks at everything,” Joanna said with more levity than she felt. Since she felt no levity at all. Just melting.
“Is there someone else out there?” Gran asked, leaning around Joanna’s shoulder. Joanna caught her before she tipped herself over.
“Hi, Peggy,” Liam said and Joanna wanted to kick him. Instead, she shot him a dirty look. He just shrugged. And he looked cute doing it, damn him.
“Liam? What are you doing here! Come in for a cup of tea, won’t you?”
“No, Liam was just leaving.”
“But what is he doing here?” Gran asked Joanna. “Why are you blushing?”
This was definitely not a conversation Joanna ever wanted to have with her grandmother, the one where she explained that she was in fact a sexual being and she was being a sexual being with the librarian on the front porch. She especially didn’t want to have the conversation on said front porch, with the door open and the lights on for all the neighbors to see, with said partner sexual being standing awkwardly by with a pretty visible erection.
There had been plenty of times in Joanna’s life when she was wrongfully ungrateful for Gran’s hospitality. Glancing down at the crotch she was just shamelessly grinding against, she realized this was another one of those times.
She shot Liam an apologetic look and closed the door gently in his bemused face. Hopefully, Gran would just forget all about this by the time it was actually morning.
Ha.