––––––––
Liam stayed gone until late afternoon. When he returned, carrying two fast food sacks and a sparkly purple gift bag, I was curled up on the bed watching TV. “Hey,” he said, setting the bags on the decrepit dresser. He smiled tentatively at me. “Cupcake.”
I stared at him and then chuckled. “Cupcake.” I’d forgotten all about our code word until now. The day was really uneventful, for me anyway. This dimension was wacko. All of their TV shows were about murder and death and evil. I’d walked across the street to the grocery store and tried to find a magazine, but the options were slim and frightening. As was the red sky. Maybe it was all related. The sky was totally unsettling.
Liam set the gift bag next to me. “I got you something.”
“Really?”
He sat down on the bed. “Look—I’m sorry about earlier.”
I waved him off. I wasn’t mad at him. More than anything, I felt bad. “So what is it?”
“Open it,” he suggested, pushing it closer to me.
I dug into the heavy bag and pulled out a shirt and jeans. The shirt was a black button up with a ruffle along the bottom. The jeans were skinny, and the right size. I set them on the bed. He bought me clothes! I wanted to jump up and down.
“Keep going,” he said, a devilish smile in his voice.
I pulled out the tissue paper and found a few pairs of underwear and a front-close bra. They all matched, teal with purple stars. At the bottom of the bag was a pair of black boots, two pairs of socks, and a backpack. Why did that make me want to cry?
“You got me ass-kicking boots,” I murmured, still holding the bra.
“And underwear.” Liam took the bra from me, dangling it by the strap from one finger. “Want to model for me?”
I slapped his arm. “You’re a pervert.”
He snickered. “You’re the one who mentioned make-up sex.”
“I was angry!” I admonished, snatching the bra out of his hand.
“Are you still angry?”
No. I wasn’t. In fact, the clothes just upped his hotness factor by, like, a hundred. It was sweet and thoughtful, and I knew he was sorry for being an asshole. Besides, the clothes I had on were a little worse for wear, and there was blood smeared across the front of my tank top. Every time I looked at it, I saw Gavyn—saw myself.
But even if he hadn’t bought me clothes, I wouldn’t be angry. It was hard for me to stay mad at anyone. My mother always said it was because I had a pure soul.
I wondered what she’d think about my thieving and murdering.
“I’m going to shower,” I informed Liam, taking the bag of clothes with me.
“So you’re not mad?”
I leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. “Thank you for the clothes, Liam.” I disappeared into the bathroom.
***
I came out of the bathroom an hour and a half later. I wasn’t trying to be a shower hog, but I couldn’t get the damn shirt buttoned by myself. I’d bent into every position imaginable. It just wasn’t happening. I’d even tried taking it off and buttoning it, but then I couldn’t get it over my head.
If I was at home, this wouldn’t be a big deal. Mom would button it for me and we would get on with our lives. But I wasn’t at home. And it kind of was a big deal. Because it was Liam that was gonna have to button my shirt.
Liam.
As embarrassing as that was, I was kind of glad it was him. It gave me a ridiculous thrill that zinged through my stomach and up my spine. As angry as he got and as cocky as he was, I was still totally into him. I loved his badass attitude. Who knew? One-armed Ginger Gavyn liked bad boys. I was learning all kinds of fun stuff on this little interdimensional adventure.
Liam’s eyes lifted from the television as I crossed the room. I kept my head held high and wouldn’t meet his gaping stare.
“I think you forgot something,” he said after I stood in front of him for what felt like an eternity.
“No,” I argued, “I think you forgot something. Or just did it on purpose.”
“Did what?” He stared at me where the teal bra showed underneath the unbuttoned shirt. His gaze felt like fingers on my skin, warm and inviting.
I pointed to my left stump.
Liam’s eyes finally lifted to mine. “Are you coming on to me?” His cheeks turned a balmy shade of pink.
I sighed. This was not going how I’d envisioned. At all. In my mind there were two options. The first was Liam laughing hysterically while he mocked me for not being able to button my own shirt. The other was both of us being unbelievably embarrassed.
Instead, I felt turned on. Turned on? Did I even know what that meant? My palms were sweaty and my heart pounded faster than a hummingbird’s wings. My stomach tickled and tightened.
“Liam...” I swallowed. Why was this so hard? “I can’t button my shirt.”
His eyes dropped once again to the offensive shirt. “Why not? Not that I’m complaining.”
Eek!
“In case you hadn’t noticed, I only have one arm.” My voice was remarkably calm. Inside, it sounded something like this: Ohmygod, ohmygod, ohmygod, ohmygod, ohmygod.
“Yeah, so?”
I licked my lips. My hand clenched and unclenched at my side. “I can’t button this shirt with only one arm.”
He looked away from my chest again and realization dawned on his face like the sun rising on the eastern horizon. “Oh! Oh. Sorry.”
He continued to sit there like an idiot.
Did I seriously have to spell it out for him? It looked like he was having trouble breathing. In fact, he looked like I felt the first time we’d kissed. “Do you want me to pinch you?” I joked.
“What?”
I giggled, a nervous sound that bubbled out of my constricted throat. I put my hand under his chin and forced him to look at me. “I need you to button my shirt.”
Turns out, the hard part wasn’t walking from the bathroom with my shirt unbuttoned. It wasn’t even standing in front of Liam like that. It wasn’t having to tell him to button my shirt.
The hardest part was watching him do it. Feeling it.
He stood and lifted his shaking fingers to the bottom button. It took him four tries—I counted. He moved on to the next one. His fingers grazed my bare stomach and I sucked it in with a gasp.
“Sorry, sorry,” he muttered. He moved higher, hands still unsteady. He pushed my damp hair back over my shoulders. My skin puckered in the cool air.
“You’d think,” I said, watching his hands and not his face, “that you’d be really good at this...with all your womanizing.”
“You’d think,” he agreed, struggling.
His touch did funny things to me. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to laugh or cry or just collapse on the bed in a heap of nerves and gangly inexperience. Before Liam, I’d never kissed a boy. Never held hands with a boy...never slept in a boy’s arms...never been shirtless (or almost) in front of a boy.
I wished Lena was here so I could tell her all of this. I wished I could talk with her until the early morning about what it felt like. I wished I could tell her how good Liam’s butt looked in jeans. And how he made me feel safe, even though I’d watched him kill a guy. And how his arms felt and his mouth tasted...
Before Liam fastened the final two buttons, he leaned over, breath fanning my chest, and brushed his lips gently across my collarbone. I grabbed his shirt, trying to hold myself upright. I closed my eyes and swallowed hard.
What the hell was he doing to me? Every time he touched me my heart slammed against my ribs like it wanted to jump outside my chest. My head felt like it’d filled with air and was going to float away. (Bad example, I know, but accurate.)
“Gavyn?”
“Hmm?”
“I’m done.”
I opened my eyes. Liam still stood before me, one eyebrow lifted, face flushed. He was holding my arms, I realized. His right hand was wrapped around my stump. I pulled it away and stared hard at the floor as if the shitty brown carpet was the most interesting thing I’d ever witnessed.
“Well that was awkward,” I blurted, feeling my cheeks blaze. God, I was a moron. I peeked at Liam, but his expression was unreadable. “I’m, uh, gonna eat something.” Why didn’t he speak? Say anything to make me feel less like an idiot? Gah!
I hurried to the dresser and yanked open the greasy white bag, pulling out whatever was in it and unwrapping it in one quick motion. It tumbled across the top of the dresser and I scrambled to snatch it up and shove it in my mouth. Burger, I decided.
Liam stood in the same spot, watching me with his blank expression. What’s going on in there? I wondered, glancing over his eyes.
My stomach churned unhappily as the cheap meal hit it, but I continued to bite, chew, and swallow. I needed to eat. Eating was good. Eating was distracting.
Liam cleared his throat. “We need to do some serious shifting tonight.”
I nodded. “Okay,” I said around a huge bite. “Sounds good.” Mentally I let out a breath. Apparently we were done being weird.
“I’m going to run over and check out the house. Make sure that Nevin isn’t hanging around.”
“Okay.” I swallowed. “Let me put my shoes on.” I wadded up the wrapper and threw it in the trash.
“No,” Liam said, staring hard at the floor. I guess he liked the ugly carpet too. “You should stay here,” he glanced at me, “just in case.”
I put my hand on my hip. “In case of what? In case someone’s dead? In case Nevin is there to kill me? To kill you? In case of what?” He was not going to leave me behind. I’d already spent all day staring at the television and the four walls of our hotel room. I was going stir crazy.
Not to mention that I was afraid for him to go alone.
He nodded. “All of those.”
“But we’re already at Gavyn: one, Dead Bodies: three!”
Liam was lacing his boots. He paused to stare at me. “What are you talking about?”
I rolled my eyes. Jeesh, it would be so much easier if everyone’s brain worked like mine. “I’ve already seen everyone dead, Liam. How much worse could it get?” Just to be irritating, I started listing them. “First there was Nevin, and then Liam Number Two, and then Gavyn. What’s that saying? Seen one, seen them all.” Of course, I faked the bravery. I was going to have nightmares forever about those people. About the blood...
My already upset stomach curdled.
“You’re not coming,” he said.
“You can’t make me stay here.”
He strode towards the door. Damn, I hadn’t even started putting on my new kick-ass boots. I hurried across the room, but Liam caught my arm.
“Don’t push me, Princess.”
“Or what?” I demanded. “You gonna punch me again?”
Liam winced and I immediately regretted my words. The bruise was still dark and angry across my jaw. His eyes flicked to it.
“Stay here. Don’t open—”
“The door,” I cut him off. “Asshole,” I added, just to make myself feel better.
He stalked out of the hotel room and I locked the dead bolt.
Man, he really knew how to push my buttons.