“Hey, neighbor.” He pulled away. “Not that I usually kiss my neighbors.”
I laughed and dropped my gaze, reminded myself we were there to sort things out, not make them more complicated. I had to stay focused, make sure I said what I’d prepared myself to say, not deviate from the script nor improvise, not even in the slightest.
We made our way to the restaurant, where a waitress with shiny butterfly clips in her mass of blond curls brought us glasses of iced water and handed us the menus before rattling off the specials, none of which I could recall.
“I’ll have a Caesar salad,” I said, trying to smile but sort of grimacing instead.
Liam folded his menu and handed it back to the waitress. “Same for me, please.”
Neither of us spoke for a while. This wasn’t how I’d rehearsed things in my head. In my version we were supposed to talk. Decide on a way forward. A separate way forward. I uncrossed and recrossed my legs, and took a sip of water to stop myself from twirling my wedding ring.
Liam broke the silence as he flattened out the serviette in his lap. “I don’t know where to start either.”
I let out a combination of a sigh and a laugh. “I think I’m still in shock.”
“I never expected to see you again, Abby. Let alone live next to you.”
“So how did you end up there...?”
“Nancy did all the research and—”
Panic gripped me. “Do you think she knows something happened between us?”
“Abby, come on. It was years ago...”
I shook my head. “Sorry, you’re right, of course you are.”
“She went to look at the house, then showed me pictures. But if I’d known...”
“What would you have done?” I searched his face. “Would you have moved in anyway?”
“No,” he said quietly. “I don’t think so.”
I felt as if the wind had been knocked out of me and chastised myself. This was good. It meant he didn’t have feelings, it meant—
“It’s torture,” Liam continued. “Living in that house, knowing you’re next door...with him. Nate.”
“I know what you mean.” Oh, shit. Major script deviation.
He stared at me. “Do you?”
I couldn’t help myself. “Yes.”
Before either of us could say anything the waitress brought our salads. She asked if we wanted fresh pepper, which I accepted to buy myself some time, although Liam and I continued staring at each other while she twisted a huge wooden pepper mill that dwarfed her tiny frame.
“Thank you,” Liam said to the waitress, finally breaking eye contact. She smiled at him and wished us bon appétit, and when Liam looked at me again, for once, I couldn’t read him. “Nate seems like a good man.” He fiddled with his glass. “Just the way you described him.”
I swallowed. “He is. Nancy seems—”
“She is.”
“So what now?” I said, unable to wait any longer. “Where do we go from here?”
Liam looked at me. “What do you want to happen?”
“You mean between us?”
He said nothing, continued to stare at me with a slight look of hope. Was it hope? I wanted to reach for his hand, get up, leave the restaurant and never go home. Images of a faraway beach flooded my mind. Us walking across a vast stretch of soft white sand next to a turquoise ocean, both of our bodies smooth and as brown as caramel, our hearts free from guilt and full of love. I looked outside at the gray skies and the damp umbrellas of the people walking by.
“Nate’s my husband,” I said. “And I love him.”
“Are you certain?”
I made sure I held his gaze and stuck to the script. “Yes.” I picked up my fork and attempted to stab a crouton.
Liam sat back in his chair. He hadn’t touched his food. “Then nothing happens.”
“So you’re saying if I said yes, we’d have an affair?” I whispered. “That’s a bit rude, don’t you think?”
“It wouldn’t be the first time.” When I flinched, he exhaled, held up both hands. “Shit, I’m sorry. That was way out of order.”
“Nothing like that ever happened again,” I said, deliberately blocking the memory from my mind.
Liam swallowed. “It didn’t for me either. I’m sorry.”
I put my fork down, leaned in a little farther. “Does Nancy know you...cheated on her?”
He looked away. “No. Does Nate?”
“No.”
“When’s Sarah’s birthday?”
The abrupt change of subject made me flinch, and I looked up at him sharply. His face had hardened, and I could feel mine do the same. “She’s not yours, Liam,” I said quickly. “She’s not.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“When’s her birthday?”
“February fifth.”
He fell silent. I waited as he did the calculation in his head. “You were pregnant when...”
I had to look away. “Barely.”
Liam leaned forward. “When I saw her, I wondered... For a second, you know?”
I kept my gaze steady. “She’s Nate’s. She’s his daughter.”
“She looks like you.” He smiled. “I can see why Zac likes her.”
My breath caught in my throat. “What do you mean?”
“They were texting each other last night. Didn’t you know?”
“No! What did they say?”
“I don’t know. I was in the dining room, doing some work, but Nancy picked up his phone when he went to the bathroom.” He sighed. “It pisses me off when she does that, spying on him, reading his stuff.”
My throat felt dry so I drank some water, my hands trembling as I held the glass.
Liam frowned. “Are you okay?”
“Did Zac say anything to you about Sarah?”
“He only said she surprised him, but that was about it. You know what teenagers are like. He communicates in grunts and huffs most of the time.”
I stared at him. “I don’t want them spending time together.”
“Why? They can be friends.”
“And what if it turns into more than that?” I shuddered. “With our past, it’s just way too complicated. We have to make sure they stay away from each other. Okay?”
“Why not let things run their course? They’ll lose interest in each other soon enough.”
A trickle of sweat slid down my spine. “No. They can’t be involved. I mean it.”
He was smiling now. “Imagine if they got married. Jesus.”
My fingers were squeezing the glass so tight it was in danger of shattering in my hand. I let it go and flexed my fingers. “It’s not funny, Liam.”
“Okay, okay. But I didn’t come here to talk about the kids.”
“Then why did you come?”
“I want to talk to you. Find out how you’ve been.” He smiled at me again. “How are you? Tell me about where you work.”
I sat back in my chair. “Well, I’m okay, I suppose. My job at Sterling’s not bad. I preferred it at Hoskins, but it would have been an impossible commute from here. What about you? Still happy at the bank?”
“Yeah, definitely. The promotion has been...” He put his fork down with a clang. “I can’t do this. I won’t.”
I frowned. “Do what?”
Liam shifted in his seat. “Pretend. Be all polite and civil and so bloody English about it when...it’s just that—”
“Don’t, Liam, we—”
“—you know how I feel about you.” He moved his hand, and for a moment I thought—hoped—he might reach for mine, but he fiddled with his napkin instead. “Ever since I saw you at Rowley’s all those years ago.” He looked away for a second, then his eyes met mine again. “Saturday night was horrible, seeing you wit
h Nate. And bloody worst of all, you seem quite happy.”
My back stiffened, and I struggled to keep my expression even. “We are. Very.”
“And I suppose I’m glad for you,” he said. “Although I was hoping you weren’t. That way I could scoop you up and take you away. Far away. Forever.”
I couldn’t stop a grin. “People don’t talk like that anymore, do they? I feel like we’re in the middle of Gone with the Wind.”
“Give me a break.” Liam laughed. “I’m rusty. And you know what I mean.”
“I’m not going to risk twenty years of marriage for a fling.”
He leaned forward, put his hand over mine, making my fingers tremble. “Who said it would be a fling?”
“That’s enough.” I snatched my hand away, waved at our waitress, indicating for the bill.
“Abby, look, I—”
“Friends, Liam.” I reached for my bag. “That’s all we’ll ever be. I can’t do that to Nate. Or Sarah. It’s not fair.”
Liam folded his napkin and put it on the table. We waited in silence until the waitress came over, and Liam insisted on buying lunch, never mind my protests. “I’ll walk you back,” he said, as we both got up.
The drizzle had stopped, and I squinted at the brightness outside, despite the clouds. I slipped on my jacket as we made our way down the street, our arms occasionally touching. We walked far closer than colleagues or friends would. Anybody who took the time to observe us surely wouldn’t doubt we were, or had every intention of being, far more.
We walked around the corner where Liam stopped and turned toward me. Without saying a word, he slid one arm around my waist and gently tilted my head upward with his fingers. I held my breath as his lips came closer, unable to move away. My eyes closed, my hands moved up around his neck, and there we were, in broad daylight, only a short distance away from my office, completely lost in a kiss I wanted to go on forever.
When we finally broke away he looked at me. “Friends from now on,” he whispered.
And then he walked away, leaving me breathless, and trying to remind myself of why I’d chosen to walk away from him and marry Nate instead.
THEN
ABBY
WE TALKED ABOUT our guilt sometimes. When I woke up screaming for the fifth night in a row, Nate held me. He wept when I whispered it wasn’t his fault he hadn’t been able to save Tom. He seemed so grateful, so overwhelmed I could forgive him, although there was nothing to forgive.
Nate. Kind, caring Nate, who’d returned to Wembley and called almost every day before coming back to see me a month later. I often thought about how we’d ended up in bed together that weekend. How we’d gone out for dinner and, afterward, I’d asked him to come back home with me. What had I been looking for? To thank him? Repay him with sex? No. I cared for him—not as much as he cared for me, that I knew, but there was an undeniable connection, as if ending up together had been inevitable.
The day the judge handed me a suspended prison sentence and took my license for eighteen months, Nate suggested I move to Wembley. “What do you have to lose?” he asked. Nothing, was the honest answer. I’d tried to make things work in Preston, but an invisible yet oppressive cloud had permanently settled over the area, the epicenter, the eye of the storm, firmly taking hold over the Kettle Club and my life there. I’d attempted to ignore the stares and whispers of some customers. Most of their comments probably had nothing to do with me anyway. But from some of their looks, it was difficult to imagine they were anything else.
“Yes,” I said to Nate, “yes, I’ll move in with you,” and a week later we drove south.
Nate introduced me to his brother, and I instantly admired his carefree view of the world. “It must be so hard,” one of Paul’s numerous girlfriends said, fluttering her thick, mile-long eyelashes, “abandoning everything and everyone.”
I smiled, tilted my head to one side and answered, “A little.” A complete lie, of course. “Everything” consisted of a few pieces of furniture in my flat. “Everyone” meant my mother and a dwindling number of friends. And Liam, who I constantly had to shove to the back of my mind.
He’d left me countless messages, written letters, and I was sure I’d seen him on the pavement across the road from the Kettle Club numerous times. But when I’d gotten to the front door he’d disappeared. I didn’t blame him. Actually, I thanked him. It made my decision to move south an easier one. After all, going away isn’t difficult when you don’t leave a void behind.
“Now you’ve been here awhile,” Nate said three weeks after I’d arrived in his two-bedroom flat, with three suitcases and a couple of plastic bags. “What do you want to do?”
We sat in his kitchen, eating boiled eggs and toast, the only thing I made properly. “You mean for work?” I dipped my bread into the waxy yolk.
“Yeah. Not that there’s any rush, okay? No pressure.”
“I thought I’d apply to some coffee shops in town.” When I noticed he’d stopped chewing I frowned. “What?”
“Coffee shops?” Nate was frowning, too. “Is that really what you want?”
“Well, not really.” I shifted in my seat. “But I don’t exactly have fantastic work experience, do I? My qualifications are pants.”
He shrugged. “Then get some.”
I harrumphed as if he’d told me to stroll up Mount Everest in a pair of rubber boots, backward. “It’s not that simple, is it?”
“Why not? What would you have done if you hadn’t left school so early?”
“Dunno.” I stuck out my chin. “Anyway, I had to leave so I could get away from my mum.”
“Sorry.” He pulled a face. “I’m not trying to be a wanker. What would you like to do?”
“I used to help a friend of Mum’s at her office during school holidays,” I said quietly. “She taught me a bit about accounting.”
“Accounting?” he said. “Seriously?”
“Yeah. I know it sounds boring—”
“Hey, I didn’t mean—”
“—but I enjoyed it. Debit, credit. Making sure everything was where it needed to be, that the accounts balanced.”
Nate smiled. “Great. Take a course then. You’ve got time during the day and—”
I laughed. “Er, no. I’m running out of money. I need to get a job.”
Nate reached over the table. “I’ll support you. I’ve still got some cash Granddad left me and—”
“Look, Nate, I—”
“Let me do this for you, Abby. Please. I want to.”
I looked at him. “I’ll think about it. Give me a bit of time.”
“Okay.” Nate popped a piece of toast in his mouth, trying not to grin.
As it turned out, “a bit of time” was a few weeks. Nate’s neighbor helped me find an entry-level bookkeeper job with Hoskins Insurance where a bubbly girl called Olivia took one look at me and declared we’d be the best of friends. Five days later I signed up for an evening course at the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants, which sounded so overwhelmingly posh, I kept whispering it to myself.
Suddenly the next few years were mapped out for me—a situation both new and daunting, yet comforting at the same time. I’d started to belong.
As I got ready the evening of my first class, pondering if I should wear a skirt or trousers, Nate walked into the bedroom. He held out a large parcel wrapped in white-and-green-striped paper that made it look like a giant mint. “Happy first day at college,” he said.
“What’s this?” I took the gift and gave it a squeeze, trying to guess what was inside.
He grinned. “Open it and see.”
I tore into the paper, revealing a royal blue box underneath. “What is it?” I repeated, laughing as I struggled to open the lid, then pushed the white tissue paper aside. “What have you...wow.” My fingers slid over the smooth, brown leather
satchel, glided across the brass buckle.
“I thought you needed something to help you feel the part.” Nate reached for the strap and put the bag over my shoulder, nodding his approval. “It suits you. Definitely not yuppie and not nerdy either. It’s perfect.”
“Thank you, Nate.” I put my arms around him, reaching for his lips with mine.
“You’re welcome,” he whispered as I pulled away. “Why don’t you have a look inside?”
I frowned. “Wait. You didn’t get me the pen I said I liked the other day, did you?” I flipped open the satchel, stuck a hand inside and rummaged around. “It cost a fortune and—” The rest of my sentence died in my throat as my fingers closed over a small box buried at the bottom.
When I looked at Nate again, he was on one knee, staring up at me with a smile. He gently lifted my arm out of the satchel and loosened my fingers to reveal the green velvet box in my palm. Nate opened the box slowly. My heart thumped and my throat went dry as I stared at the solitaire engagement ring inside, gleaming like a little ray of golden sunshine.
“Abby,” Nate said, his eyes shining brightly, “I know you might think it’s a bit sudden. But I know it’s right. I know.” He swallowed. “I love you so much. Will you marry me?”
I couldn’t move. I couldn’t speak. This wasn’t supposed to happen. I didn’t deserve this. I didn’t deserve to be happy. But now Nate, a man who’d seen me at my absolute worst, supported and cared for me without asking for anything in return, wanted to spend the rest of his life with me. Nate had stuck by me, even when I’d pushed, prodded, stepped on and yanked every one of his buttons and levers I’d discovered since we’d met.
I looked at the cowlick in his hair he could never tame, his blue eyes that twinkled when he told a joke, his soft lips that kissed me better whenever I wanted to hide away from everyone.
I hadn’t asked or expected him to fall in love with me. Nor had I even considered I’d ever feel what I did for him, or anyone else for that matter. It wasn’t the explosive, all-consuming, passionate love I’d had—still had—for Liam. Nothing would ever come close. That was a once-in-a-lifetime thing, never to be repeated.
The Neighbors Page 17