“I’m not sure,” I tell him. “Ava was worried that it might be too late to have one, let alone more.” That’s really how she and Myles got together. She decided to try for a baby alone because she was worried about her fertility. Then Myles – who she thought hated her – offered to be her donor.
One thing led to another and now they’re a happy family.
“Imagine if he was a girl,” Liam says, his brows knitting. “We’d have to lock her up in a tower to keep all the boys away.”
“Boys like you?” I ask him.
He tips his head to the side. “Yeah, I guess so.” His eyes don’t leave mine. There’s that silence again, except it doesn’t feel quiet. It feels loud.
I go to apologize because that was rude. But he beats me to it.
“About that night,” he says, his voice thick.
My heart hammers against my chest. “You don’t need to say anything,” I whisper. Mostly because I don’t want to talk about it at all.
He opens his mouth to say something else but Charlie gurgles and a torrent of white comes out of his mouth, spraying all over Liam’s shirt and even getting some on his chin. Liam’s eyes widen, and for a moment I’m stuck between horror and abject amusement.
“Oh My God,” I say, laughter bubbling up in my throat. “That’s breast milk.”
Liam splutters. “Christ! There’s some on my lips.”
I have to cover my own mouth because I don’t think I can control myself right now. Seeing his horror at having his sister-in-law’s regurgitated milk on his mouth is too delicious for words.
“Can you take him?” he whispers, standing. The top of his shirt is plastered to his chest. I grab a cloth from the pile on the dresser and put it over my shoulder. I take another, passing it to Liam as I reach down and take a now sobbing Charlie from his arms.
“Shshsh,” I whisper. “It’s okay. There’s more where that came from.”
“I hope not,” Liam says. He dabs his face with the cloth I gave him and throws it into the laundry basket near the door. I start to clean Charlie up, though luckily he seems to have gotten most of his spit up on Liam. There’s only a few spots on the bib he’s wearing. I take it off and use the dry part of it to pat him dry, then coo at him until he starts smiling.
“He’s okay…” But my words trail off as I see Liam pulling his shirt off. He’s not wearing an undershirt, so his bare chest is there in all of its glory.
And when I say glory I’m kind of underestimating it. Liam Salinger’s chest is a thing of beauty. Defined but not overly built. A smattering of hair but not so much he looks like he’s hailing from the seventies. Against my will, my gaze trails down to his stomach, where a thin line of hair leads to the waistband of his pants. They lay low on his hips, revealing the vee of his pelvis, and I swear the temperature has just risen by twenty degrees.
“Sophie,” he says, his voice low.
“Yes?” I remind myself to breathe.
“He’s just thrown up on you, too.”
Horrified, I look down to see that Liam’s telling the truth. It’s not a blast of spit up like he got, just a little trail but it runs all the way down my left boob. When I glance up again Liam’s eyes are trained on it.
“I’m not taking my dress off,” I tell him.
His lips twitch. “I wasn’t going to suggest you did.” He walks over and grabs yet another cloth from the pile – no wonder Ava has so many of them – and passes it to me. But when I reach for it, Charlie starts to cry again, and I have to stroke his head to soothe him.
So Liam pats the spit up from my chest, his movement surprisingly gentle. He’s so close I can smell his shower gel. Something masculine and musky. I can feel the warmth wafting from his bare chest, too.
My nipple hardens. He stops patting for a moment and mortification washes over me. I bring myself to look at him, but his eyes are trained on my chest.
Specifically my reaction to his touch.
I have no words. None at all. Charlie has quietened, too. It’s just me, him, Liam, and my stupid nipple.
“Stop looking,” I whisper.
“I can’t,” Liam replies, his gaze unwavering.
“Yes you can. It’s just a nipple.”