My heart’s a jackass.

“You’re probably wondering if a sniper is forcing me to do the dishes at gunpoint.” I beam at Liam without really expecting him to smile back, because—Liam. He’s next to impossible to read, but I’ve long stopped trying to see his amusement, and I just let myself feel it. It’s nice, and warm, and I want to bathe in it. I want to make him shake his head, and say “Mara” in that tone of his, and laugh against his better judgment. I want to push up on my toes, reach out to fix the dark strand of hair on his forehead, burrow into his chest to smell the clean, delicious smell of his skin.

But I doubt he wants any of that. So I turn back to rinse a cereal bowl hiding under the colander.

“I figured you were being mind-controlled by those parasitic spores we saw on that documentary.” His voice is low. Rich. I will miss it so, so much.

“Those were barnacles— See, I knew you fell asleep halfway.” He doesn’t reply. Which is fine, because—Liam. A man of few smiles and even fewer words. “So, you know the neighbors’ puppy? That French bulldog? He must have gotten away during a walk, because I just saw him run toward me in the middle of the street. Leash hanging from his neck and all.” I reach out for a towel and my hand bumps into him. He’s standing right behind me now. “Oops. Sorry. Anyway, I carried him back home and he was so cute . . .”

I stop. Because all of a sudden Liam is not just standing behind me. I’m being crowded against the sink, the edge of the counter pressed into my hip bones, and there’s a tall wall of heat flat against my back.

Oh my God.

Is he . . . Did he trip? He must have tripped. This is an accident.

“Liam?”

“This okay, Mara?” he asks, but he doesn’t move away. He stays right where he is, front pressed against my back, hands against the counter on each side of my hips, and . . . Is this some kind of lucid dream? Is this a heart-hiccup-generated cardiovascular event? Is my brain converting my most shameful nighttime fantasies into hallucinations?

“Liam?” I whimper, because he is nuzzling my hair. Right above my temple, with his nose and maybe even his mouth, and it seems deliberate. Very much not an accident. Is he—? No. No, surely not.

But his hands spread on my belly, and that’s what tips me off that this is different. This doesn’t feel like one of those accidental brushing of arms in the hallway, the ones I’ve been telling myself to stop obsessing over. It doesn’t feel like that time I tripped over my computer cord and almost stumbled into his lap, and it doesn’t feel like him gently holding my wrist to check how badly I burned my thumb while cooking on the stove. This feels . . . “Liam?”