He closes his eyes. Then he opens them and nods. Once. “I won’t leave my job—”

“Oh, come on!”

“—till I have another lined up. But I will start looking around.”

I smile slowly. “Wait—for real?” I did not think this would work.

“Only if you apply for the leader position.”

“Yes!” I clap my hands. “Liam, I’ll help you. Are you on Linked-In? I bet recruiters would be all over you.”

“What’s LinkedIn?”

“Ugh. Do you at least have a recent headshot?”

He stares at me blankly.

“Fine, I’ll take a picture of you. In the garden. When there’s good natural light. Wear the charcoal three-piece suit and that blue button-down—it looks amazing on you.” He cocks his eyebrow, and I instantly regret saying that, but I’m too excited at the idea of this weird professional-suicide pact to blush too hard. “This is amazing. We’ve got to shake on it.”

I thrust out my hand, and he takes it immediately, his own firm and warm and large around mine, and—it might be the first time we touch on purpose, as opposed to arms brushing while we’re working at the stove, or fingers grazing as he sorts out my mail. It feels . . . nice. And right. And natural. I like it, and I look up to Liam’s face to see whether he likes it, too, and . . . there are a thousand different expressions passing on his face. A million different emotions.

I can’t begin to parse even one.

“Deal,” he says, voice deep and a little hoarse.

He uses his free hand to turn on the microwave—which, lo and behold, is working again.

Eight

One month, two weeks ago

Rain is my favorite kind of weather.

I am most partial to summer storms, their strong winds and hot air, the way they make me feel like I’m sitting on the humid inside of a balloon that’s about to burst. As a kid, I’d run outside as soon as the rain started just to get all wet—which seemed to outrage my mother to no end.

But I’m not particular. It’s barely February, early in the night, and the hard drops beating a tattoo on the plastic of my umbrella, they just make me happy. I smile when I unlock the front door. Hum, too. I walk down the hall, listening to the rain instead of what’s happening inside the house, and that must be the reason I don’t hear them.

Liam and a girl. No: a woman. They are in the kitchen. Together. He’s leaning back against the counter. She’s sitting on it, at his side, close enough to lay her cheek on his shoulder while she shows him something on her phone that has both of them smiling. It’s the most relaxed I’ve seen Liam with anyone. Clearly a very intimate moment that I should not be interrupting, except that I can’t make myself move. I feel my stomach sink and remain rooted to the floor, unable to retreat as the woman shakes her head and murmurs something in Liam’s ear that I cannot hear, something that has him chuckling in low, deep tones, and—