“I’ll come with you.”
He doesn’t wait for an answer, and I don’t argue. Outside, thenight air is beginning to cool. Liam’s flashlight sweeps a soft beam ahead of us. Halfway to my SUV, I stop and turn toward him. The flashlight beam tilts slightly.
“Liam?”
He glances over. “Yeah?”
“I just wanted to say … thank you. For telling me. And for … letting me in, even just a little.”
His eyes find mine in the dark, steady. “You didn’t push. That made it easier.”
I reach out without thinking and take his free hand.
“I’m really sorry. I still can’t believe it. Logan was always so … alive.”
Liam nods slowly. “Yeah. He was.”
I squeeze his hand gently. Then I clear my throat and gesture toward my SUV. “Let me grab my bag.”
He stays close while I open the back door and rummage through for my duffle. As I zip it closed and sling it over my shoulder, a strange tightness blooms in mychest again. Not fear. Not exactly grief. It’s that same too-full feeling. The sense that life has shifted quietly, but permanently.
Back inside, I pause in the hallway, bag still over my shoulder.
“I think I’m going to take the guest room instead,” I say. “Not that Logan’s room isn’t fine and wonderful, but…”
Liam nods before I can finish. “Too much?”
I nod back. “Yeah. I don’t think I’d sleep.”
“I get it,” he says. “No problem.”
He shows me the other room across the hall. It’s simpler with no signs of previous occupancy by someone who’s now gone forever. There’s a white quilt, sturdy oak dresser, the faint scent of cedar. No relics in this one to serve as a consistent reminder. I step inside, drop my bag beside the bed, and turn back toward him.
“Thank you again, Liam.”
His smile is faint but warm. “You’re welcome,Montgomery.”
I roll my eyes. “You’re really going to keep calling me that?”
“It fits,” he says. “But maybe I’ll ease up eventually.”
I smile and close the door behind me. As I settle in and switch off the lamp, I stare at the ceiling for a while, thinking about Logan, about Liam. My heart is caught in the space between yesterday and now. I wonder if this is how Liam feels too.
Chapter 7
Liam
The soft click of her door carries down the hallway. I stand there for a moment, dish towel in my hand.
I didn’t expect her to take the guest room. Honestly thought she might stay in Logan’s for the night, try to muscle through it. But the truth is … I’m relieved. Not because I minded her being in there, but because I know what that room does to a person. I live with it. She doesn’t have to.
I turn off the kitchen light, deciding to leave the living room lamp lit in case she gets up in the middleof the night.
I make my way to the bathroom, jump in the shower and think about her. Why am I thinking of her so much?
I lean back, hot water pulsing over the crown of my head. Tessa Montgomery is sleeping twenty feet from me. Or trying to, anyway. That thought shouldn’t knock the wind out of me the way it does.
She’s not a kid anymore. She’s not Logan’s little tagalong with scraped knees. She’s not the totally shy girl who used to sneak glances at me from behind her sunglasses, like I wouldn’t notice.
