38. Liam

38

LIAM

“ L iam?” Marley looks up at me from her laptop, her hair a mess, a year’s worth of stress eases out of her face and fuck it if it isn’t the best thing I’ve ever seen.

“I thought I’d offer my help if there is anything I can do.”

She springs up from her chair and throws herself against me. I catch her and hold her like she’s the most precious thing on earth and honestly, to me, she is.

I stoop to kiss her lips and smell the delicious scent of coffee and vanilla on her lips.

A soft moan escapes her, and she melts into me as our lips and tongues reacquaint themselves with each other. It seems more like years than hours since I’ve held her.

I’m not certain if I’d ever let her go or broken this sweet kiss if Fin hadn’t cleared her throat. “Hey Liam,” she says with a soft wave, trying but failing at covering her amusement.

“Hey,” I answer back. “How is everything going?”

“We’re almost done,” Marley gushes, flitting toward her laptop like she’s had a month’s worth of caffeine in one day. I would wager all of my savings that she has. “We are just checking how the website works from different devices before we schedule the live push.”

I can’t tear my eyes away from her, the flushed look of excitement, the lift of pride on her lips, the electricity that she and Fin accomplished an impossible thing in an impossible amount of time. I’ve known it for awhile now, but I know for sure after seeing her flush with achievement. I love Marley Green.

And I think I’m going to have to tell her very soon or it’s going to pop out at a very inopportune time. Like right here, in front of Fin.

I pull my phone from my pocket. “Tell me what to do and I’ll look at the mobile site.”

“Perfect.” She sends me a link through text. “If you will check everything, that would be a big help. “Everything,” she restates. “Every link, every tiny thing anyone could possibly click on. Fin is working on different browsers and I’m editing what I’m finding.”

I give her a little salute, finding that I kind of like her giving me orders. In a way I’d like to explore later when we’re home alone.

As she goes back to work, I settle into a wheeled chair near Marley, not too close—I don’t want to impede her concentration, but I also can’t seem to move too far away.

I click the link she sent me, and my eyes fly open as the website appears before me with the masthead Marley designed. It’s gorgeous, sleek and inviting, and I’m so proud of my girl. I’m bursting as I click through all the links.

Everything works smoothly: every page, every link, every widget. And that’s not even to mention the incredible writing. The introduction and welcome at the beginning, written by Marley is a singular work of art and Fin’s first article on the history of Paintbrush is clever, funny, and poignant.

When I’ve finished looking through everything, I look at Marley in amazement. I knew she was brilliant, I knew she was a good writer—I snuck a look at some of her early work—sue me. But I didn’t know she was capable of taking my breath away with words. Suddenly, revitalizing the Paintbrush Post makes sense.

In two articles, I appreciate Paintbrush more than ever and I know, looking at the woman I want to spend the rest of my life with, that I want to do it right here.

She seems to sense my stare and turns to me with a face of trepidation. “Well? Is it bad?”

“Bad? God, no. It’s brilliant. The layout, the ease of use, the writing. My God, it’s incredible.”

Tears well up in her eyes in an instant. “Really?”

I smile at her and nod my head. “Really. And the writing, I can’t do it justice with words.” I look at Fin. “Both of you were born to write.”

Fin inhales a shaky breath before tears fall down her cheeks. She covers her mouth with both her hands. “Do you really mean that?”

“I do,” I assure her. I hold up my phone. “This paper is going to do so well. I guarantee the town will love it. And both of you.”

Fin flops back in her chair, her entire body limp with relief. Marley’s reaction is similar.

“Oh my God,” Marley tells me, “You have no idea how good that is to hear. This whole time I’ve been sitting here worried that all this work would be for nothing. That it would be a flop.”

“It won’t be, I guarantee it.”

Fin takes a few moments to lift herself back up to a sitting position and it hits me that she was truly worried about her first article and fully doubting her writing skills. She has nothing to worry about—she has a bright future ahead of her and an incredible teacher in Marley.

“Thank you for saying all of that,” Fin finally gets out, her voice thin with emotion.

“You’re welcome. Is there anything else I can do?”

Marley hands a laptop to me. “Can you run it on some of the more obscure browsers? I have a feeling there are people in this town that still use some dinosaurs.”

I chuckle and flip the machine open, happy to settle in for work. “Of course.”

It dawns on me that I feel truly happy. Not because I’m supposed to be, but because I actually am. When Redpoint opened and succeeded, I made happy faces. I told everyone I was happy, but I didn’t really feel anything. Not like this. Not the simple joy of sharing a room with someone, of watching them succeed and stand in the light.

Nor have I felt still like I do now. In a good way, as if I’m exactly where I need to be with the person I’m supposed to be with and as my heart swells with love for Marley beyond what I ever imagined, I finally get why my father was so devastated when my mother died.

And more importantly—why it’s worth the risk. Because even these quiet minutes just being near her fill me in a way I never thought possible. And to live my life without knowing the warmth of her, of us , would be worse than never seeing her smile again.

Is it terrifying? One thousand percent. Does my throat close off when I think about the possibility of losing her? Absolutely. But the thought of not experiencing any of it, of missing this. Is worse.

Gus is right. I have a lot of work to do in therapy. But for the first time, I see a road through my pain. I see a light at the end of the tunnel. I see hope.

And though I’ll never put away my running shoes, I think it’s very likely that I’ll never run because I have to, but because I want to.