CHAPTER 17
CERYS
“The poor guy comes all the way here to see you and you leave him with your daughter, why?” asks Phoebe.
“He came to see Ella,” I reply, pulling the cork from the longed-for wine bottle. Until everyone leaves, I don’t want to talk to Liam. I hope he realises how much the gossip mongers will love this and wonder why the hell he doesn’t care about press attention. He recently walked out on his wedding day. People will follow him. I knock back a glass of wine. The three mums remain rooted in the lounge; all the other kids have been collected but theirs, so they have no excuse to be here. No excuse apart from the man under their scrutiny.
“Isn’t it nice of Uncle Liam to visit you on your birthday?” I announce loudly, taking the party bags to the mums.
“Oh, is he your uncle?” asks Julie, a deceptively friendly woman with short blonde hair who I know is the centre of gossip in the mothers of the group.
Ella doesn’t respond; engrossed with Liam who sits on the floor next to Ella, politely focusing on the new books she shows him. Again, his natural ease around my daughter strikes me as odd for someone who barely interacts with kids.
“Anyway! It’s getting late and I need to get tidied up!” I announce, handing out the bags to nearby children with brick-like subtlety.
Once I hurry them out of the door, I turn my attention back to the kitchen where Phoebe hovers with her glass of wine. She watches me as I shovel rubbish from the kitchen counter into a bag.
“Ella’s not his, is she?” she asks.
“No! Jesus, Phoebe! I’ve never had sex with the man! We’re friends.”
Phoebe sips her wine, but the expression meeting me over the top of her wine glass is one of doubt. “Then why are you behaving oddly?”
“I’m worried people will think the same as you. Did you see the expression on Julie’s face?”
“The three witches? They’ll have it all over Facebook tonight. I hope they didn’t take pictures.”
“Crap, I never thought about that.”
“He couldn’t take his eyes off you, Cerys,” she says quietly. “When everyone was busy and you were with Ella, I saw how he looked at you.”
“What do you mean?” I pause in my tidying.
“I mean, this man came to see you, not your daughter.”
“I doubt it,” I mumble.
“I know, none of my business.” She drains her glass. “I guess from your cagey behaviour you have something to talk to him about. I’ll leave you in peace.”
Phoebe walks out of the kitchen and claps her hands, calling her son, Jordan. The brown haired boy sits on the sofa devouring the contents of his party bag. Grasping the plastic bag in his hand, he waves at the distracted Ella and leaves with his mum. Not before Phoebe blows me a kiss and indicates Liam with her head.
This leaves me, Liam, Ella, and a lot of unanswered questions.
I retreat to the kitchen as the front door closes and pour another glass of wine, ignoring the remaining mess of party aftermath. Sentences run through my head of what I’ll say when he inevitably comes into the room. I’m dazed by the fact he came but also hold the frustration that he never contacted me. I need to close him out; he can’t do this.
The noise of the TV travels through to the kitchen. A few moments later, Liam walks into the confined space of the room.
The man who re-entered my life at Christmas holds a presence I’m sure affects other girls as well as me. Especially, if he looks at them with the misplaced affection I see in Liam’s eyes. I’m unused to seeing men with so many tattoos, especially across biceps like his. I don’t hold his gaze but stare at his long fingers, the ones that touched and caressed me so gently. If I look at his arms, I can avoid looking at his face and the mouth I remember on mine.
Liam steps closer.
Crap.
I turn to gather half-empty paper plates and throw them in a white bin bag.
“How are you, Cerys?” His Welsh accent holds an edge of American, the amusing drawl he used around Ella at Christmas to make her laugh is there.
“Fine, thank you. You?” I place the last plate in the bag and look around.
“Better than I was a few weeks ago.” Liam rests against the Formica counter and stretches his long legs halfway across the room.
“I heard about that.” I want to elaborate on ‘that’ and mention his failed wedding day but the wary look on his face edges the questions away. “Been back in Wales long?”
“Just today. I’m staying back in London,” he replies.
“Oh, okay, are you going for a home visit?”
He picks up a paper cup and puts it into the bag I’m holding. “I wanted to see the girl who needs to know I haven’t forgotten her.”
“Ella is definitely happy you came.”
Liam doesn’t respond, but the connotation behind his words is in his intense look. “Sorry I took so long to reply to Ella’s letter. It got lost in the Blue Phoenix fan mail.”
“She’d forgotten about you.”
“Really? She seemed to recognise me when I arrived today.” Again, the undertone of our conversation hangs in the air.
“I don’t think you’re forgettable to a five year old, Liam. Not many men look like you.”
He grins. “Yeah, always with the hair.”
“I couldn’t imagine Liam Oliver without his signature locks,” I say and smile. I really didn’t want to smile.
“How are you really?” he asks.
“Single mum of a five year old with no life. You?”
“Bass player for Blue Phoenix and occasional pirate.”
This space is too small, the awareness of Liam’s presence too big. “Why are you really here?” I ask him.
“I said I’d come.”
“That makes no sense. Why would someone like you come to a five-year-old’s birthday party?”
“I told you. I said I would.” He pauses and rubs his cheek. “And I wanted to see you again.”
I can’t. I grab some cups and put them in the sink, ignoring the breath knocked out of me. He can’t.
“Cerys?”
“It was very sweet of you to come to Ella’s party, thank you.” My hair sweeps across my cheek and I push it behind an ear. No, no, no. He can’t say more. “Do you want a drink?” I ask, turning back. “Or do you need to get going?”
“You want me gone?”
“I don’t want you upsetting Ella. She’ll think this is like Christmas again and you’ll be around for a while. I don’t want her hurt when you leave again.”
Liam pulls himself forward and moves to the very edge of my personal space. I don’t need him to say the next words because they echo mine.
“I wish it was like Christmas again. I wish you hadn’t left. If I’d known...”
“Known about what?”
“If I’d known you and Ella’s dad didn’t stay together after Christmas, I’d never have gone back to my own stupid relationship with Honey.”
I close my eyes and swallow the rising lump in my throat. “Liam, Christmas was just...a thing.”
“A thing?”
“Some fun.”
Liam doesn’t reply so I open my eyes again. “You really believe that?” he asks.
“I believe that if it was more than fun, you’d have got in touch with me.”
There’ve been many nights wishing Liam were lying beside me in bed, dreaming about what would’ve happened if I’d made the decision to go into his room that night. What would Liam have done, what would sex be like with a man whose touch seared my skin, and who kissed me like I’ve never been kissed before? The heart skipping moments when I came across him on TV; the unwarranted tears when I saw him in magazines with Honey. All of this has eaten away at me.
“I’ll have that drink you’re offering, and then I want to talk to you before I go.” He moves back to the counter.
I side glance him. “Talk about what?”
“A lot.”
Liam asks for coffee because he’s driving, so I leave my glass of wine and pull out two mugs. As I’m making the drinks, he asks if I want him to put Ella into bed because she’s asleep on the floor. How is he like this? How can a man who lives a life of excess come to my small house in Cardiff and know not to leave her sleeping on the floor? It’s as if he’s doing it deliberately to worm his way into my affections. Not that he needs to. I tell him to put Ella onto her bed.
I place Liam’s coffee on the table and curl up on the brown armchair with my mug. Gift wrap and trampled-in food surround us, balloons from the walls now on the floor. Liam returns and sits. He picks up a balloon and twists it around in his hands.
“A bit different to my usual parties,” he says.
“Yes, I bet you have women lying around on the floor not balloons at the end of yours.”
He smirks. “In the old days, we’re not that bad anymore.”
“Sure, you’re not.” I return his smile.
“I’m over all that; believe it or not, that shit gets boring after a while.”
“Is that why Blue Phoenix split?”
“We haven’t,” he says tersely. “We needed a break after the months of crap that went on.”
I sip my coffee. “So what are you doing on your break? When you’re not running from weddings.”
“Why are you angry with me?” he asks.
“I’m not angry with you. Why would I be?”
“Cold then.”
“Do you want me to be honest with you?”
Liam pushes a strand of hair from his face that’s strayed from his ponytail so I can see his concerned eyes more clearly. “Yes.”
“How could I believe Christmas meant something? You told me your engagement was off; and then two weeks after Christmas, you were with Honey behaving as if nothing had happened.” As if I never happened, I want to say.
“You walked away,” he says quietly. “I didn’t think there was a chance for us. Yeah, maybe I did the wrong thing going back to Honey, but I thought she’d fill the hole you left.”
“Wow, don’t I feel special,” I mutter.
“You left and I never heard from you until the letter,” he presses.
“I don’t have your number.”
“I was surprised when I heard you’d gone back to Cardiff with your ex.” Liam pauses then adds quietly. “I heard he’s out of the picture now.”
“He’s Ella’s dad; he’ll always be in the picture. We split less than a month after Christmas and this time he was reasonable. This is his place really. I think the reason his family lets us stay is because he’s worried I’ll move away with Ella and he won’t see her. To me, staying in this place is temporary because I need to stand on my own two feet.”
Liam shakes his head. “This is standing on your own two feet, Cerys. You’re looking after a five year old on your own and doing an awesome job by the looks of it.”
“No, I want a job so I can take care of Ella. I’ll start looking once she starts full-time school in September. If I can figure out a way, I want to train to be a nurse. Maybe not now but—”
“A nurse?” interrupts Liam, “Tough job, Cerys.”
“It was what I’d planned before...” I bite back the words. “I paused my life, and now I’m pressing play.”
“You’re amazing,” whispers Liam. “Your strength blew me away when I met you. The fact you let me in just for those few days made me feel special, too.”
I close my eyes. “Don’t, Liam. Please.”
“I have to tell you this, just listen to me and then I’ll go.” His tone is stronger than I’ve heard from him before and quiets me. He rubs a palm across his temples. “I thought it was because of when we were younger and that I was reconnecting with that past because I was pissed off with my present. But it wasn’t. I came home for Christmas; but only when I kissed you, did I feel I’d really come home.”
His words push through my barrier against him and I fight to fix the hole before he finds his way inside. “And then you left.”
“You left.”
“No, when the girl died.”
“Oh. But I came back and you weren’t there.”
“I realised I was living in a fantasy world and went back to my reality, Liam. So did you. After Christmas, we’d have gone our separate ways, even if I hadn’t gone back to Craig.”
Liam leans forward, elbows on his knees. “I’d have taken you with me or made things right for you.”
“What? Don’t be ridiculous!”
“I mean it; I was going to help you. I wanted to stay in your life, get to know you better. You accused me of playing games. You talk about reality. It wasn’t a game and it was real. The beginning of something that could be special, Cerys.”
I grip the coffee cup. “No.”
“No to what?”
“If that were true, you wouldn’t have left it so long. You’d have tried to contact me. Louise has my number.”
“Yeah, right, I’m going to start phoning you when you’re trying to patch things up with your boyfriend of six years.”
He’s right. I stand. “You still went back to Honey. Please, Liam, stop this. I don’t want to think about that time again.”
Shaking his head, Liam presses on. “As soon as I got Ella’s picture everything changed. Then I found out you were on your own again and the thought of marrying another woman went. I wanted you.”
I look down at the sincerity in this man’s eyes, head spinning. “Simple as that?” I say hoarsely.
“No, look at what I did. I fucked up with the wedding. But I waited afterwards; I didn’t run back here in case I was somehow using you as an excuse to get out of it.”
I make a sound of disgust and pick my cup up. “Thanks.”
Liam stands too. “But that’s the point. A month later and I’m here. I can’t stop thinking about Christmas. About you.”
“So you thought you’d turn up out of the blue and what? Hope I let you into my life? What if I say no? Will you go back to Honey again? I think you’re confused and don’t know what you want.”
Liam sighs. “We should talk about Honey because she’s in the room with us, isn’t she? I want you to hear everything about Honey and me, even stuff other people don’t know. I need you to understand why I chose to do what I did; and why I will never, ever go back to her.”
The vehemence of his tone surprised me. Has he spoken to anyone about this because it sounds like he has a lot bottled inside? “You don’t need to explain to me.”
“I do.” He continues. “I didn’t intend to get married so soon. I told Honey we’d see how things go when we got back together after Christmas; and the next minute, she’s set a date and everything is just careering out of control. There was other shit going on in the band; we were touring, life just passed by. My head was fucked and I just went with the flow and didn’t think.”
“You don’t get married because you go with the flow! You must’ve loved her!”
Liam shakes his head. “I don’t know if I did. I wanted to love her, but I think I’d been in love with the idea of her. When we first got together, she was sweet and caring, a bit vulnerable; and I wanted to take care of her. I know what everyone was saying about her; but she’s not a stupid airhead. A girl who reinvents herself, moves to LA, and finds her way into the acting and music world is determined and smart. But emotionally, she’s a wreck. She’s insecure and so am I; we helped each other.”
“She cheated on you!” I blurt.
“Yeah, I know. That’s the point I realised her self-esteem was zero and more than insecurity. If I was away from Honey, she’d freak out and accuse me of seeing other girls. She claims she started the affair with Mason because I was neglecting her on the tour; because she thought I didn’t love her. Maybe Honey’s half-right. Things were getting too hard with her possessiveness.”
“I couldn’t do it,” I whisper. “If someone cheated on me, I could never, ever go back to them.
“I know. Huge mistake. I never forgave her; I just fell back into it. I’m a coward and a f-ucking idiot.” He rubs his eyes. “Can I talk about us now?”
I blink at his question and dismissal of the events that just screwed up his life. “Us? Liam...”
“I said I want you. Us.” He reaches out a hand and touches my face so I step back. “I don’t expect you to fall into my arms. I get that, but I thought while I was here, I’d ask you out.”
The day takes a step from the mundane and stressful to the unreal. He launches into a monologue about his ex, then this? “Ask me out?”
“Yeah, you know. Go out, have fun.” He looks at my mouth. “If I’m lucky, you might kiss me.”
His eyes hold that amused sparkle that disarms me.
“Yeah, right.”
“I’ll take you anywhere you want. How about tomorrow?”
“I can’t drop everything for dates with rock stars. If I did agree, I’d need time to organise a babysitter.” Liam’s disappointed look tempers my mood. “Next weekend, maybe.”
“Oh.”
“What?”
“I’m going back to the States on Wednesday, doing some session work for a few weeks.” He sighs. “I’d offer to take you both out somewhere tomorrow but I’m selfish. I want a date with you, not you and Ella.”
“When you get back then,” I say lightly, but the excitement churns into nausea. Like Christmas, he could go back to the States and Honey.
“I guess I could come back tomorrow and take you both somewhere if that’s the only way I’ll get to see you.”
I drag my brain back to reality. “It’s Monday tomorrow, Ella has school, and I have things to do. Nothing a rock star with free time on his hands could be involved in. Plus I’m not letting you into my life out of the blue.”
In a daze, I head to the kitchen, before I allow myself to change my mind. Liam. Here. Wanting me.
“Do you want me to go?” he asks from behind.
“I need to think about all this. I can’t just accept you walking into my life and saying these crazy things.”
I turn back to him and this time when he steps forward, I don’t move. “Okay, I’ll go and leave you to think about what I’ve said.”
“Thank you.”
“But aren’t you going to wish me happy birthday before I go?” he whispers, touching my hair.
The sensation tingles my scalp and my cheeks heat. “Crap. That was rude of me. Sorry, Liam. Happy birthday.”
“Thank you.” He grins.
“So you’ll be celebrating tonight?” I ask. “What do rock stars do on their birthdays?”
He glances around. “Well, I missed the ‘pass the parcel’ which is a bit disappointing.”
I pout at his teasing and grab a plastic bag from the box. “Have a party bag instead then. Sorry, we only have princess ones left.”
Liam peers into the bag and a slow smile crosses his face. “You gave me lollipops. Do you still think I’m a sweet guy?”
Suddenly, I’m there again, with Liam in the snow and the heart-thumping need to touch him returns with the memory. “Yes.”
He shakes his head. “I haven’t done anything sweet recently; I’ve been a bastard to Honey.”
“The heart you have in there is huge, Liam.” I place a hand on his warm chest, against the steady thrum of his heartbeat. “You just have to give it to the right person, and that wasn’t Honey.”
The unspoken words of who he wants to give his heart to are in his eyes and I wish I hadn’t said anything. “Would you kick my backside if I asked for a birthday kiss?”
I stare at Liam’s mouth, shocked by his forwardness and hold myself back from doing what he asks. “If I kiss you again, will you come back this time?”
“Will you wait?” He shifts closer and slides an arm around my waist.
“I’m not going anywhere.” I press myself against his chest, brain screaming at my stupidity.
“I’m sorry,” he says.
“For what?”
There’s no hesitancy in Liam’s kiss this time; he releases my waist and seizes my head in both hands kissing me as if he’s suffocating and my lips are the air he needs to survive. Momentarily, I’m surprised but the overwhelming passion of his kiss, the strength with which he holds me isn’t frightening, it jolts long-forgotten desire, my body aching in a way I haven’t experienced since Christmas. I stumble backwards into the door, which closes behind me and Liam continues to hold my face, tongue exploring mine. Then as suddenly as he started, he stops and releases my head.
“For that.” Liam runs his tongue along his bottom lip. “And for not having sweet thoughts about you.”
“Don’t be.” I curl my hand around his neck. “That’s the best kiss I’ve had since, well, Christmas.”
Liam kisses a spot on my brow between the eyes, with a calmness not matched by his rapid breathing. “I want you, Cerys. I don’t just mean I want to do things to you that I’ve thought about for months, but you. Can we get to know each other better?”
I laugh. “That’s very polite of you following a kiss like the one you just gave me.”
“I’m trying to be realistic. I don’t want to scare you away.”
I could stand here in my tiny kitchen with this larger than life guy all evening and it wouldn’t be enough. He angles his head toward me. “Don’t kiss me again,” I tell him.
“Why?”
“Because I couldn’t cope if you never came back.” And I couldn’t stop myself; if he so much as brushed a finger against my skin, I’d be his. Here. Now.
“I will come back and this time every day I’m away from you, I’ll be in touch so you know I haven’t forgotten you, even if it’s just a text.” He takes my hand. “Let me have your mobile number and I promise.”
Is this happening? Has Liam really walked into my house, told me he wants me, and kissed me in a way that blows my mind again? The loneliness of the months since I spilt with Craig – no, the loneliness I had even before we spilt – lays my raw heart open looking for someone to heal the empty pain. How easy would it be to let go and give in to the swell of physical need surging me toward Liam, to allow the promise in our lips from that night to find the natural conclusion.
The unspoken hovers because we don’t need to express the words exchanged between us; there’s more intimacy in the shivering feeling of Liam looking directly into my heart and soul, a place nobody has touched before. The reason I know Liam sees mine is that his are reflected back in his emerald eyes.