We continued to watch the stars long after the supernova had come and gone.

"Maybe we can go on a picnic at night and stargaze for real some time?" Liam suggested.

"I'd like that." I turned in his arms, looked around furtively to make sure we weren't being watched, and pressed a quick kiss on his lips. "What else do you have planned for the day?"

"There's still some more exhibits left to see. Or," he said, sneaking his hand down my back to cup my ass discreetly in the darkness, "we could go back to my place and I could cook you dinner?"

His place. Alone. Together.

My insides throbbed and pulsed.

"I could go for a nice home cooked meal," I said.

The hand on my ass snuck under my skirt. Calloused fingers trailed between my inner thighs. My stomach muscles clenched.

"Let's get out of here," he murmured in my ear.

I nodded eagerly.

The drive to his place wasn't long, but it seemed to take ages. I was surprised when we pulled up into a house and not an apartment or condo building. The place looked huge, three stories with a gated driveway.

"I thought your band never hit it big?" I asked.

"Hm?"

I nodded to his home. "I know it's not a mansion or anything but it's still pretty impressive."

"My parents are well off," was all he said. I was surprised at how curt he sounded. Then he flashed a small smile. "You should see the house my sister bought."

When we walked inside, I was even more impressed. This wasn't some frat-house bachelor pad. The decor was all clean lines, modern furniture, and a state-of-the art kitchen with marble countertops.

I'd noticed Liam tended to wear brand names and order expensive drinks, but his parents must have been more than well off to give their son enough money to buy a house like this one at his age.

I thought about the shitty apartment my mom had rented. I didn't want to feel intimidated, but this was the first time since I'd met Liam that I felt almost ashamed of how my brother and I had grown up.

I shook it off. It didn't matter how much money our parents made and it didn't matter how we'd grown up. The only thing that mattered was the here and now.

Liam went to the fridge and started taking out a handful of items.

"Are you really going to cook dinner?" I asked. "I thought that was just an excuse."

"I'd never let a lady go hungry," he grinned. "Is pasta okay?"

"Sure." I was even more impressed now than I knew Liam could cook. At least that meant he didn't have some sort of private chef. That would have been too much for me to handle.

I leaned against the island counter and watched him work, putting a pot of boiling water on the stove and chopping fresh vegetables like tomatoes and bell peppers.

"I like seeing this other side of you," I said. "You'd make somebody a good house-husband."

"Is that how it's going to be?" He looked up from the chopping board and smiled. "You bring home the bacon and I make sure there's dinner on the table every night?"

The thought of such an arrangement sent my heart pounding. I knew he was just teasing but the idea of me and him living together, of enjoying that kind of domestic bliss…

My stomach flipped. I didn't know whether it was from panic or excitement.

"You're pretty handy with that knife," was all I said.

"I learned to cook a long time ago," he explained. "My dad made sure of that." He sounded oddly sad as he said it. I wondered…

“Is your dad…?” I trailed off.

“He's doing good,” he said. "He's a lawyer. Actually helped read through my first record contract."

"And your mom?"

He paused, the hand holding the knife hovering in mid-air.

“She’s across the country. Her and my dad split when I was a kid. That's why it was dad who taught me to cook. Mom wasn't around."

“They divorced?”

“Yeah. It's fine.” Liam shrugged but his pained eyes belied his casual pose. “They weren’t happy together anyway."

"Lots of fighting and yelling?" I guessed.

He cast his gaze down before retuning to the cutting board.

"No. I had no idea things were bad. Until—"

Liam pressed his lips together and sliced through a bell pepper with more force than needed.

I hesitated. "Can I ask what happened?"

"She left him for another guy. Left us. Went off and started another family. Haven't heard from her in years." Liam said the words so fast I also thought I misheard.

“I’m so sorry.”

“It’s fine." He shrugged, but he clearly wasn't. His mother leaving him had hurt. "I have some good memories of growing up. Like my dad teaching me to cook.” The tension between his brows softened. "My sister and I used to stand on a little stool and watch him in the kitchen when we were young. He never wanted us living off frozen pizzas and take out when we grew up."

A pang of jealousy shot through me, even though I knew it was petty.

“My dad bought me my first guitar," he continued. "He was sure it was just a phase and I'd never put the time in to practice, but I insisted I was serious about it. When he saw my band perform for the first time, he admitted he'd been wrong." He smiled softly. "He was so proud of me that day."

A hollow feeling ate at my stomach.

"What about your parents?" he asked. "Did they support your music?"

"Not really," I murmured. "My mom raised us alone. She was young. She tried her best, but…" I shrugged. "A young single mom working two jobs who went out partying every weekend with her friends didn't really have time to worry about nurturing her kid's hopes and dreams."

Liam's expression turned sympathetic. "It sounds like you and your brother raised yourselves."

"It seemed normal at the time," I said. "All our friends growing up had similar stories. It's like we used to say: broken homes and broken windows."

"Broken windows?" Liam repeated with a furrow brow. "Did you grow up in a bad part of town?"

"I suppose," I said reluctantly. "It wasn't the sort of place you'd want to wander around at night, that's for sure."

His eyebrows now shot up. "You're saying it was unsafe? Just how bad was it? Drugs, violence?"

Unsafe. Violence.

Every muscle in my body immediately tensed. This conversation was wandering too close to all kinds of stuff I didn't want resurfacing.

"What kind of pasta are you cooking?" I came around the island counter and popped one of the cherry tomatoes into my mouth. Liam batted my hand away with a light swat.

"No sneaking bites before dinner." He was eyeing me curiously. "If you didn't have much growing up, where you'd get your first guitar?"

"Borrowed it." If he wasn't going to let up on the questions, at least the subject had taken a U-turn. "My friends and I went to this youth center after school. It kept us kids off the streets and out of trouble. They had some instruments donated. At first we were just playing around, but a few of us got serious about it."

"You and Morris?" he asked.

My throat closed. I nodded.

"Yeah. We had a great thing going on," I managed to say.

"Hm." He went back to chopping vigorously, as if just hearing Morris's name had offended him somehow. "So the two of you have always been close."

I had to wonder just how well Liam thought Morris and I knew each other. There had never been anything between us. For me, there had only ever been Harper.

The pot of water boiling hissed as it bubbled over the rim. Liam cursed and hurried to the stove. I was grateful for the interruption of his game of twenty-questions.

Even though Liam and I were together, talking about my past still hurt.

I couldn't imagine that hurt ever going away.