“Would you stop with this! She’s like my sister—I don’t want to think about her naked!” Liam presses his eyes shut as if he’s trying to block out the mental image this is giving him.
My mind drifts back to a night in college when Liam and I had stumbled home from a party. He’d been walking me back to my dorm and I’d tripped. He’d tried to grab my arm and we’d both nearly fallen into some rosebushes near the student center. In a romantic comedy–like moment, we’d drunkenly looked into each other’s eyes and he’d leaned in to kiss me. “Stop! You’re like a brother to me, silly!” I’d said, giving him a fun-loving swat against his chest.
“I know how you can convince me this is real!” he says now, still looking almost exactly like he did in college, a mop of brown hair that’s always in need of a cut, with just a few more lines around his eyes. “How about telling me tomorrow’s winning Powerball numbers. Or better yet, who wins the NBA finals? I’ll put some money on it.”
As I stare at the doubtful look on his face, I begin to deflate, my shoulders sagging as I realize that Liam, a skeptic who is always the first to punch a hole in any story, wasn’t going to be as easily convinced as Jules. “Forget it. I’ll just let you see for yourself when he leaves me at the rehearsal dinner,” I say, my cheeks damp with the tears I didn’t realize were waiting to fall. I take the back of my hand and wipe them away, but they keep coming.
“Hey, don’t cry. It’s okay. Just swear on Thai Elvis and I’m in.” His lips start to curl into a smile and I know we’re both thinking of the last time we were here, when Elvis pulled me on stage and made me sing a line of “Jailhouse Rock,” Liam laughing so hard he’d spit out his beer.
“You’re tough,” I say as I hold up my hand. “Fine. I swear on his blue suede shoes.”
He reaches over and hugs me. “I can’t believe Max would do that to you. What a prick,” he says.
“That’s what you said after it happened. You were so pissed at him!” I say into his chest, and he looks at me as if he wants to say more, but doesn’t. “So do you really believe me?”
He exhales deeply. “I believe that you believe it,” he says carefully, keeping a solid grip around me.
I pull my head back. “I can prove it.”
Liam shakes his head. “It’s okay, you don’t have to prove anything to me.”
But I did. Liam had always been my rock—he’d always understood me without explanation or justification. I couldn’t go through this month with him just humoring me, bobbing his head up and down when I needed his support, but rolling his eyes when he thought I wasn’t looking. I wanted him to be all in like Jules. I pulled my phone out of my purse. “So this new girl, Angie? You into her?”
He takes a beat before responding. “She’s okay. For now,” he says before leaning in. “But she doesn’t appreciate fine dining establishments like this one,” he says sarcastically, clinking his beer bottle against mine. “And that may turn out to be a deal breaker.”
I shake my head. Typical Liam. Each girl he dated was just one minor fault away from being dumped. There was Andrea who liked cats but not dogs. Then there was Emily who liked dogs but not cats. And who could forget Hailey, who was allergic to both. I had begun to think Liam was allergic to serious relationships. And often wondered why he really was so hesitant to let himself fall in love.
“What about Nikki Day?” I ask, referring to the actress Liam had crushed on since they filmed a commercial for oatmeal, playing the mom and dad of a toddler who would throw a tantrum unless he ate sugary cereal for breakfast. Well, that is, until he tried Oats for Tots and “forgot” about his addiction to high fructose. Nikki had just been cast as a brainy blonde in a sitcom they were calling the next Big Bang Theory, and was recently listed in Us Weekly’s “30 Under 30 to Watch”—I had to pry the magazine out of Liam’s hand at the pool the day of the rehearsal dinner, shaking my finger in his face as Angie slept beside him.
Liam puts his hand dramatically over his heart. “What about her?”
“What if I could make that happen for you?” I ask, a smile playing on my lips.
“You mean you could make a wish that she’ll go out with me? Please! Her last boyfriend was on the Olympic swimming team! She’d go from that kind of guy to me? I mean I know I’m a hunk and all, but she barely even said hi to me when we shot that commercial. And now she’ll be my girlfriend?”
“Not girlfriend—date. I’ll wish for her to say yes to a date with you, but then it will be your job to work that famous Liam charm on her,” I say, thinking again that no one should be forced to feel anything they don’t actually believe in their heart.
Liam rolls his eyes.
“Listen, I get that it sounds like I’ve gone cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs here, but do you really think I could—or would want—to make this stuff up?”
“You’re in advertising, isn’t that your thing?” he taunts.
“Do you want a chance with Nikki Day or not?”
“All right. I’ll bite.”