The One For Me(18)

He is still laughing when I push him. “What were you doing down there, making sure your breath smells alright? Fixing your hair in the mirror?”

I straighten my shoulders and tilt my head to the side. “No. I was just admiring your house,” I lie.

“Whatever,” he whispers and rolls his eyes. “Come this way. I want to make you birth my children. You have great child birthing hips.”

I roll my eyes and follow him down the long hallway. I can imagine a little Liam standing at the end, watching the empty hall after his mother left. What would a child think? My mom has disappeared without me? How would a kid deal with that?

“You coming in or what?” Liam asks, waving his hand in front of my face. I gaze back at him and nod. His room is...not what I expected.

First off, it’s clean. Secondly, there are no naked pictures of girls on the walls. Thirdly, it’s clean.

“Pick up your jaw, Melinda cleans it for me.” He kicks off his shoes. “If it were up to me, I would have clothes everywhere, like you. Well, I wouldn’t have the opened books but I would have the clothes.” He plops down on his bed and turns on his TV. He looks up at me. “You can sit down, I was just joking about the birthing hips.” He eyes my hips. “You are actually a little on the skinny side.”

I ignore his comment. “Your parents won’t be home soon?” I ask, sitting on the edge of his bed. It’s soft. I’m pretty sure his comforter probably cost more than my entire room, with everything in it. I’ve never wanted to sink into material before.

He shrugs and leans back against his pillow. “Don’t know. They come and go as they please. Their never home, really. They are adults, ya know.”

I pick at a piece of fringe on my jeans. “They don’t tell you where their going or anything? They just leave?”

He sighs. I know I’m asking a lot of questions, but sometimes, ya just gotta ask. “I don’t know, I don’t ask and I don’t care. Why are you so worried about when they are coming home, anyway? It’s not like we’re really doing anything, even though that can be arranged.” He wiggles his eyebrows.

Because, I feel sad for you. I shrug. “Just asking, Liam.” Liam rolls over onto his back. “So, what do you do for fun?”

Liam props himself up on his elbow. “You ever play tennis?”

“I have before, why?”

Liam stands up. “Well, that’s what I do. We’re gonna play tennis, come on.” Liam gets up, grabs my arm and pulls me downstairs.

“Are we going up town to the courts?”

Liam opens the back door for me. I stop in my tracks. What. The. Hell. “No, we have our own.” My jaw is open.

“Wowza,” I say.

Liam shrugs and motions for me to follow him. “My dad built it for me when I was young. I guess it was his way of buying me love. Just like the pool,” he says, tossing his head toward the pool to the left. Jeez. The backyard is huge. Liam opens the door to a small building and brings two tennis rackets out, with a packet of tennis balls. “Ready to get schooled?” he asks.

I grab a tennis racket. “I’d like to see you try.”

“Gotta warn ya hot stuff, I’m pretty good,” Liam shouts, while running to his side of the net.



He isn’t lying. He hands me my ass the entire time. We play six games, six of that I lost utterly. I want to crawl into the pool and hide forever. Sweat is dripping off my forehead. “Stop, can’t….breathe.”

Liam smiles and run towards me, hopping over the net. He pats my back hard. “Oh, suck it up ya big baby. I warned you completely.”

“Water,” I croak out. “Dying of thirst. Tell my mom I love her.”

He laughs. “Get up, girlfriend.” He grabs my shoulder and pulls me back into the house. He hands me a glass of water from the fridge. I inhale it.

“Oh, that’s the best water I’ve ever tasted.”

Liam nods and finishes off his bottle. “It’s still early; you ready to go home yet?” I bite my lip. Not really. I look up at Liam. I try to tell myself I want to stay because he is alone, but I really just don’t want to leave at all.

“Well, my dad could still be home,” I twirl my finger along the kitchen cabinet.

“Okay,” Liam says. I can hear the smile in his voice. “You like Jackie Chan?”

We spend the next two hours lying on his bed, watching Rush Hour. When I said I’d never seen it, he almost had a heart attack. They movie was about over when someone barged into Liam’s room. I jumped up. I’m not sure why, it wasn’t like we were actually doing anything other than watching TV. It’s just a natural reaction.