Compliments and gestures were my love languages and those were the two areas he was weak in. Our relationship had disaster written all over it and I was too blinded by what I thought was love to see the red flags but I still missed him and what we had.
“Do you want anything to drink?” Liam offered as he rotated the burgers, hot dogs and chicken on the grill.
“Not right now, thank you. I will probably want one when the food is done barbequing. Need any help?” I kissed him on the cheek.
“No, I’m good. The drinks are in the cooler down here if you change your mind.”
“Great!” I yawned as I stretched out on one of the pool chairs. “Where're your folks?”
“Da is getting some petrol for the Shelby with mum and Oliver. They are going to pick up desserts and some champagne to celebrate.”
“Your dad finished the Shelby?” I asked.
“Yeah, we finished a couple of months ago. I’ve been helping him out. Today’s the first day they’ve taken it out besides the occasional test spins we’ve been going on. She’s a real beauty, wait until you see her.” Liam explained.
“Wow, I still can’t believe your dad actually fixed and owns a working 1966 Shelby Cobra. I’m so jealous.”
It was true, I was actually jealous. I was such a car fanatic but I was not an expert by any means nor did I know how to fix anything. I just loved cars enough to appreciate them for what they were. The last time I was here, Mr. Collins had just bought the rundown vehicle and had it towed from the junkyard.
It was missing a lot of parts and the body of the vehicle made it look like a rust bucket. I never really took it seriously back then because even I knew it was a huge undertaking and I didn’t really think Liam’s dad would actually restore it to pristine condition.
Liam chuckled at me realizing I was now eating my words, “We could go for a spin if you want. I’m sure Da would let me drive it.”
“Sure he would.” I shook my head as I opened up the cap of the suntan lotion.
“He would!” Liam insisted. “He would let me drive it around the block, once.”
“Now you’re talking.” I winked.
“I think I’m done here and they should be back soon. Fancy a swim while we wait?”
“Yeah..we..” I said as I looked up to see Liam taking off his t-shirt after putting the food in the house. Holy moly, when did Liam get so buff?
Unaware of the fact that I was checking him out from top to bottom, Liam grabbed the suntan lotion I brought with me and started applying it all over his shoulders, arms, chest, and stomach. There was something enticing about the way he slowly rubbed in the white lotion over his abs.
“Can you put some on my neck, back, and legs?” Liam asked as he finished rubbing the lotion all over the front of his legs. “Hello, Mags?”
“Yeah, what, I’m sorry?”
“I asked if you could help me out and put some on the back,” he repeated.
“Oh, yeah…sure. Sorry.”
“You tuned out for a minute there. What were you thinking about?” he asked as he placed a towel on the pool chair and laid on his stomach.
“I’m sorry, what?” I grabbed the lotion, my hands shaking from nervousness.
Liam chuckled and propped his chin on his arms, “What’s with you today? I asked what you were thinking about just then.”
“Oh.” I chuckled nervously. “I wasn’t really thinking of anything…shit,” I muttered to myself when I realized I squeezed too much lotion into my hands.
“What happened?” he asked.
“Nothing just squeezed the tube a little too hard but it’s fine.”
“I’m sure it is, I’ve got a lot of body to cover.” he laughed.
You sure do. Was I actually sweating? Okay, stop it, Maggie. This is Liam we’re talking about.
Gingerly, I applied the lotion on to his quads and calves and rubbed it in so that every inch of exposed skin was covered. If he thinks, I’m going to be responsible for any possible sunburns just because I couldn’t get my head on straight and do this like a normal person, he had another thing coming.
After finishing his legs, I couldn’t help but feel a little guilty for enjoying this too much. What was I? A grade-a pervert?
Carefully squirting the white cream onto his back, he flinched a little at the cold until I rubbed it into his neck and then… oh God, oh crap…what the heck am I doing…taut muscles of his back.
“Mags, it’s not a medical procedure. I don’t think I’ll get burned if you missed an inch here and there and you could afford to be a little faster.”
Inches matter with some things…
“Okay, stop.” I cursed to myself as I finished up.
“What?” Liam asked as he sat up.
“Um, right…right, sorry, Liam. I just was…talking to myself.” I shook my head in shame.
“Are you sure you’re okay? If you’re not feeling well, you should go to bed, I can bring over some soup later.”
“No, I’m not sick. It’s okay, I’m fine. Can you put lotion on me?” I said changing the subject.
What is with me today?
Liam squirted the lotion on to his hands and rubbed it gently but swiftly all over the back of my neck and shoulders.
“Lie down a bit, yeah?” Liam asked.
“Oh, sorry.” I apologized as I lied on my stomach.
Liam began to work his hands all over shoulders and upper back, carefully avoiding the area that my bikini strings covered, “You can untie it if you want. I don’t want weird lines anywhere.” I found myself saying.
“Of course not,” Liam noted as he untied the yellow strings and worked his hands over my back and sides before moving onto my legs.
Just when I was beginning to get completely relaxed by his pseudo massage, he announced he was finished, tied my bikini again and then cannonballed into the water, splashing me.
“Sorry about that, Mags,” he said laughing as he brushed the water out of his face. “Are you coming in for a dip?”
“Yeah, you better watch out because I’m going to get you back for splashing me,” I warned.
“Oh yeah?” he asked with raised eyebrows.
“You are in so much trouble, Liam. When I catch you, I’m going to dunk you in the water.” I threatened.
“That sounds very unthreatening.” he grinned.
“Oh, it’s very threatening!” I slid into the pool. Liam made it way too easy to catch him just standing there next to the pool ladder.
“Come here you nut!” I grabbed his head and tried to dunk him but Liam resisted by pushing my hand away and then stepping back making it hard for me to grab a hold of him. “I said come here!”
“No.” he grinned and went under the water and grabbed me by the waist and tossing me over his shoulder as he climbed up the ladder.
“Liam put me down,” I screamed.
“No.”
“I said put me down.” I wiggled my legs as hard as I could causing Liam to lose his balance and we both fell back in the water.
That’s what he gets.
I saw through the reflection in the water that he was swimming underneath towards me, possibly to kidnap me again so I scrambled for the ladder as fast as I could and climbed out. Liam was quick and nearly grabbed my foot to pull me into the pool again but he missed and I started screaming as I ran trying to get away from him but he was too fast and caught up to me and grabbed me from behind and started tickling me. Liam knew it was my Kryptonite.
“Oh my god, Liam, stop! I’m ticklish! I can’t take it anymore.” I laughed hysterically. No matter how much I squirmed I couldn’t get away from his grip so I started trying to tickle him back which was his Kryptonite too.
“Oh, no you don’t,” Liam stated trying to push my hands away from his sides before he picked me up and carried me over his shoulder again. I continued to scream my head off as Liam tickled my feet until we heard a car door slam.
“Hey Margaret, how are you?” Ba
rb, Liam’s mother asked as they walked through the gate onto the back deck.
“I’m doing great, Ms. Collins,” I said as Liam put me down.
“That’s great dear. Liam, did you finish the barbecuing?”
“Yes I did, I put everything inside. I didn’t want the bugs to get it.”
“Great, you kids must be hungry. Why don’t you two get cleaned up and come back outside? Everything should be ready for us to celebrate my babe’s good work today.” she said and kissed Liam on the cheek.
“Okay.” I agreed. “I didn’t really bring a change of clothes so I’m going to rush home real quick but I’ll be back.”
“See you soon, dear.”
FIVE
After I took a shower to freshen up a little, I returned to Liam’s house to join them for dinner out on their deck. Spending time with them was like spending time with my own parents, so it wasn’t a surprise that they were kind of like my second family. I was very lucky to have the support of a few people close to me that cared a lot and would be there for me if I ever needed their help. It felt good to be loved unconditionally and with no strings attached because I almost forgot what that felt like.
Liam’s parents had everything in the backyard decorated beautifully with the string of lights that hung over the table, jazz music playing in the background and the cherub inspired fountain gurgling nearby. The dimmed light only added to the relaxed feeling they were trying to provide. The food was amazing and we spent the next couple of hours talking about their old family memories when Liam was Oliver’s age and the trouble he always got into during high school. It felt great to laugh again about everything I’ve forgotten about.
After dinner, Oliver brought out the Scrabble board and insisted that all of us play together once we cleaned up after ourselves and the dishes were washed and put away. It didn’t take long due to the collaborative effort between the five of us and afterward, we congregated around the coffee table in their living room as Oliver set up the board. Liam said as we were cleaning up after dinner that it wasn’t always Oliver’s favorite game to play but after working with him over a few months with his English homework by playing endless rounds of Scrabble, Oliver started improving on his vocabulary tests and even started beating Liam at Scrabble a few times.
This only increased Oliver’s love of the game and was determined to beat Liam every single time and had this lofty goal of beating his father who was a famous writer by trade. He was the man to beat and Oliver wanted to do it by the time he turned fourteen.
“Mags, you need to either put some letters down or pass,” Liam commented an hour later.
I had been staring at the same seven letters for the past few minutes: I-O-N-C-E-U-X. What in the hell am I supposed to spell with that?
The only words I came up with were ion, cone, eon, ex, cue, one, nice and ice. They were all two, three and four letter words that were only going to amount to a few measly points. It was embarrassing and I refused to put any of them down.
“Do you need some help?” he asked again leaning over to view my tiles.
I quickly covered my letters with both of my hands, “Hey, don’t look at my letters. That’s cheating.”
“Then put something down.”
“Fine, I will.” I exhaled and I started to put letter tiles down to spell the word c-o-n-e, cone.
“See that wasn’t so hard.” Liam lamented as Oliver giggled at my word choice.
“That’s what I was trying to avoid.” I pointed at Oliver.
“Oh come on, if you expect to get good letters you either need to trade in some or use them besides you know by the time we get to the last round of the game, it’s going to be hard to put down letters that do any good.”
“I know, I know.”
It was Oliver’s turn next and he was in third place, only a few points behind Liam and his father who was winning yet again. After thinking hard for a couple of minutes, Oliver slowly put down all of his letters and utilizing one of the “d” tiles already on the board.
“E-x-p-u-n-g-e-d which spells expunged. That’s 19 points, which means I won! I actually beat Da and Liam!” Oliver jumped up and cheered.
“Well done my boy! Can you tell us what expunged means?”
Oliver sat back down and thought for a second before answering, “It means to get rid of something.”
“Very good, Oliver, we’re very proud of you. I think this calls for a celebratory bowl of ice cream.”
“Yes!” Oliver jumped up and went into the kitchen with Harry.
“Do you kids want any?” Barb asked as she followed them into the kitchen.
“No thank you, Barb.”
“I’m fine, mum,” Liam answered.
“Wow, you were right. He has gotten a lot better,” I admitted as I helped Liam put all of the Scrabble pieces away.
“He’s a competitive lad, once I figured out one day that he would try harder when he started to gain ground on me. He wanted to really see me gutted if he won. He’s very sadistic.”
“I think it’s cute the way he still looks up to you. He’s going to be a heartbreaker too.”
“Great.” Liam rolled his eyes. “Did you want to still want to grab a pint? They are going to turn in pretty soon.”
“Nah, I’m pretty stuffed still. Thank you for grilling today, it was very good.”
“Thank you.” he smiled. “Want to hit the cinema?”
“We’ve already missed most of Chaplin. How about we just go for a walk to burn off all the food we ate.”
“Sure, let’s go.” Liam agreed. “Mum, Da, we’re just going to go for a walk. We’ll be back in a bit.”
“Alright, don’t stay out too late.”
Liam and I walked in silence as we strolled down towards the old playground where he spent many nights pushing me on the swings until it went as high as it could go. We were always perfectly content in each other’s company without feeling forced to say something just for the sake of doing it but tonight was different. Not necessarily in a bad way but something didn’t quite feel the same as if he had something on his mind.
I’d like to think that I knew Liam well but too much time had passed and I didn’t have the slightest clue as to what he could have been thinking. Perhaps he was overwhelmed at the possibility that his career was on the verge of exploding and once it did his whole life would change.
“Sit on the swings so I can push you,” Liam suggested when we finally reached the playground.
“Okay but not too hard, I don’t want to be nauseated.”
“Don’t worry, I am an expert swing pusher.” he gloated as he pushed.
“Hey, can I ask you something?”
“Sure.” Liam agreed.
“Why didn’t you follow through with the Peace Corps?” I asked.
“What?”
“Your mom told me you never joined the Peace Corps and she told me you donated all of your stuff.”
“Yeah?” he stopped pushing.
“Why did you? You were so ready to make a difference.”
“Just changed my mind,” he answered as he sat in the swing next to me.
“Yeah…I don’t really believe you. Tell me something then, is it because of me?” I asked suddenly.
“What? Why would you think that?”
“I don’t know. Just a feeling I keep getting.” I explained.
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know, it’s just that ever since I’ve been back everyone’s been saying that I should have never left. If I didn’t leave then Roger wouldn’t have…well, you know.” I shrugged.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Liam asked as he rubbed my back for comfort.
“Not particularly, besides I’m over it.” I stood up frustrated with the direction of the conversation was headed even though I started it.
“Are you sure? We have all night.”
“Nope, I have a curfew remember.” I laughed.
“Right, I better get you ba
ck home before your da lectures me about you again.” Liam joked as we headed back home.
“What do you mean again? Has he lectured you about me before?” I asked.
“Nearly every day back then. My favorite one of all time was the hour-long ‘I don’t want Margaret to be a teen mother’ conversation and I was never to touch you, or I’d lose my hands.”
“Wait, I thought they loved you.” I was surprised.
“They did, I mean they still do but not at first.”
“My dad is a sneaky bastard. I’m going to have a serious talk with him. I’m sorry they gave you a hard time.”
“Don’t worry about it. It was only because they cared about you loads and didn’t want anything to happen to you. I was a Slick Rick back then, who knew what I was capable of.”
“A Slick Rick, huh?” I laughed.
We finally reached my front door and I was a little glum to see the night coming to an end. I really wanted him to stay over but Liam hadn’t done much of that since New Year’s Eve.
“Hey, do you want to stay over tonight?” I found myself asking.
“Better not stay over so much, your da would break my knees.”
“Well, I won’t let him. Don’t start chickening out on me after you’ve stayed over nearly a thousand times. Now, come on it is cold out here.” I unlocked the door and pulled Liam inside.
We jogged upstairs quietly because my parents were probably in bed already asleep and I really didn’t want to wake them up.
“We have to be quiet, I think my parents are asleep,” I said feeling around for my light switch.
“I don’t have anything to wear,” Liam stated when the lights came on.
“I don’t think your clothes from senior year will fit you.” I laughed.
“Definitely not, I’ll just wear what I have on.”
“You will not, Liam. It’ll be uncomfortable, and you won’t get any sleep. Just take off your clothes.”
“What about my underpants?” he asked.
“You’re keeping those on, I’m not going to see you naked, you pervert.” I shoved Liam.
Every Day I Loved You Page 4