Tell Them Lies (Three Little Words Book 3) (21 page)

And with each experience, each decision that Maggie made, each conscious decision she stepped towards, the beast within Liz grew and grew, until she couldn't ignore it for a moment longer. Just make one decision at a time, that was all she needed to do.

So she found an author she'd recently discovered and enjoyed, and sent her a message, offering a free content and line edit of something she was working on, to give her an idea of Liz's capabilities. Her hands shook the entire time she wrote it. And she thought she might vomit when she hit send.

But it was one decision. And it had been her own, not made from fear or doubt.

When she received a message back, agreeing to try it out, she'd cried. Sent Casey and Rachel a text letting them know, and then went to Maggie's house to tell her and Kieran.

"Well she'd be an idiot to say no to you, Angel. You're a total book ninja." That had been Kieran's reaction, and three days later, Liz was still smiling about it. In fact, she was smiling when she walked into the library and gave her boss a four week notice, because only two weeks seemed rather premature.

And that evening, she and Kieran, Maggie, Casey and Rachel ate Chinese takeout and drank champagne in celebration. Sitting on the floor, eating straight from a carton of beef and broccoli, Liz looked around the room at all the love surrounding her and started crying.

"Oh geez," Rachel drawled as she refilled her champagne. "Here she goes. It was only a matter of time."

Liz threw a chopstick at Rachel, sniffling a laugh when it missed her by about two feet. "I'm happy. Honestly, I don't remember the last time I've been this happy."

Casey and Maggie smiled from where Casey was sitting on a chair right next to Maggie's wheelchair. Kieran gave her a soft smile, the crooked one where only one side of mouth lifted, and it did strange things to her heart. Only Rachel was unaffected, lifting her glass in a toast.

"I know when. It was the day you became friends with me."

They all laughed, and Kieran stood, motioning Liz to follow him. While staying at Maggie's, he'd taken over the guest room, and Liz hovered in the open doorway. Since they'd labeled themselves friends, she'd hesitated to put themselves into any non-friend situations. Together in his bedroom just might count as one of those.

"I don't bite, I just have something for you." And he lifted up a wrapped shirt-box. Liz smiled and walked over to him, hand outstretched. He pulled it away right before she could take it.

"Hey."

"Don't be so greedy. I don't give many people presents, you know." Liz sat on the edge of the bed, folding her hands in her lap and adopting a polite expression. He rolled his eyes, but extended the box towards her again. Liz set the perfectly wrapped box down and looked up at him before she opened it.

"No speech to go with it?"

He dug in his hands into his jeans pockets and shrugged. "Nope. It's pretty self-explanatory."

"Did you wrap this yourself?"

"You're so judgey. What makes you think I can't wrap a perfect present?"

Liz laughed, carefully pulling up the corner of the silver and white paper.

"But no. I didn't wrap it. Turns out my mom's social worker is a whiz at wrapping paper."

They smiled at each other, and Liz willed her heart to settle and slow. A friend giving a friend a congratulatory present was perfectly acceptable. Holding her breath, she lifted the cover of the box, then let it out a huge rush.

"Kieran," she whispered and then lifted the heavy, ornate gold framed picture out of the box. It was a beautiful, intricate drawing of colorful swirls and flowers, and right in the middle was a quote that she instantly recognized from
Voyage of the Dawn Treader
by CS Lewis.

Courage, dear heart.

She covered her mouth with her hand, then looked up at him. "It's so beautiful. Where did you get it?"

"Silas drew it. I asked him to. I figured that since you won't get a tattoo, you might as well have a good reminder somewhere else that you can see it."

Liz shook her head, and carefully set the frame back in the box, tracing the words with her finger before tucking the tissue paper around it again. Then she stood and walked straight to him, wrapping her arms around him. His arms came around her, the muscles in his back bunching underneath her splayed hands.

"Thank you," she whispered into his chest, where she'd buried her face.

"You're welcome," he whispered back, his lips touching her hair as he said it. "I'm really proud of you."

She smiled, breathing in his scent while she did. And she smiled because she was really proud of herself too.

K
ieran tossed
the phone down onto the kitchen counter, rubbing the back of his neck. He'd only gotten about three hours of sleep last night, since he hadn't started any book work for the gym until after his mom was asleep. She'd gone downhill the last three weeks.

No more outings to cross anything off her list, though she'd managed to do all but one of them anyway. Swimming nude in the Dead Sea had been put on there just to torture Kieran anyway. She spent her days in bed, slept more and ate less.

Thankfully, his employees were awesome, covering so much more than they had to so he could spend most of his time at home with his mom. Jeanette, the hospice nurse, was very honest about the fact that it could be days or weeks before she passed. And that sometimes family held on, because they didn't want to pass away in front of anyone.

Too damn bad. If his mom wanted to die in a quiet room, she could kick his ass out. The only times he left the house was if anyone from hospice was at the house with her, or if Liz had camped out on the couch with her laptop. She'd picked up a few authors willing to give her a shot, but Kieran knew that money was definitely tighter for her than it had ever been. But she was so damned happy.

Always smiling. Always. Unless she was crying reading one of her books, which made him mock her to no end. They had no plans to see each other today, because she'd been at the house for about five hours the day before. She'd made dinner for them, even though his mom hadn't touched a bite of the enchiladas.

Kieran shook his head. Obsessing over every little thing that Liz did was not helping anything. Since they'd hugged a few weeks ago, she'd barely touched him. Hadn't held his hand. Hadn't rubbed his back or shoulders. Nothin'.

It suuuuuuucked.

"Kieran?" his mom said from the living room, where they'd moved her bed last week because she said she wanted to be able to look out into her backyard.

"I'm here. Do you need something?"

Walking into the room, it still jolted him a little every time he saw her so thin and pale.

"Just bored. Talk to me?"

He stretched out in the chair next to her bed, and shifted a little so he was facing her. "What do you want me to talk about? The weather? Because it's humid as shit out there, so it's not the most pleasant story."

She lifted her mouth in a ghost of a smile, then closed her eyes for a few seconds. Kieran just watched her chest rest and fall rhythmically. "Is Liz coming over today?"

"Not today. She had a manuscript she needed to finish up. And you're really distracting, so she had to stay home and work."

Another smile, this one a little bigger, and Kieran couldn't help but smile too.

"I don't worry about you." She said it so quietly, that he didn't understand her at first.

"Ma--"

"Don't you interrupt me, Kieran James."

"Yes ma'am." But he still leaned forward and plucked her bony hand from the white sheet, and laid it in between his own. The skin was still warm around her fingers. Another good sign according to Jeanette. Cold extremities was when he should start worrying

"You know I love you, and you damn well know I'm proud of you. But one thing you might not know is that I don't worry about you. I did. For quite a few months, actually. I worried how you'd take it when I died."

He closed his eyes, rubbing her fingers a little just so he had something to do.

"But I don't anymore. You know why?"

"Why?"

She turned her head and met his eyes with a directness and clarity that he hadn't seen in weeks. He sat up straighter so she knew he was really listening.

"Because of seeing you with her the past couple months. You're putting that girl before you, before what you want. You and I both know, and probably her too, that being friends isn't all you're cut out for. But you're doing it, because it's what she needs right now."

"Yeah," he replied, and his glum tone made her smile even bigger. "Glad my misery amuses you."

"You're not miserable. Because you know that I'm ready to go home. And you have her, maybe not in the exact way you want her, but you have her."

He started to protest, but she lifted a hand to shush him.

"I'm ready to go, Kieran. I'm just dragging it out now. And believe me, if I could snap my fingers right now to make it go faster, I would." Kieran dropped his head, blinked back the moisture that was building up in his eyes. "And that has nothing to do with you. Okay?"

One of her hands landed on the side of his head, and he looked up. Her eyes were shiny too, and he lost the battle with one tear. Just one stupid ass tear. The first one he'd let her see through this whole process.

"Okay," he said, voice gravelly.

"I want you to be happy, son. But I'm proud of you for putting
her
happiness first."

Shoring up with a deep breath, he sat back up and nodded. "I can't say that it doesn't suck. But I'm trying."

"So what happens if her happiness doesn't include you?"

"You saying that there's anyone better for her than me? I'm everyone's best chance to be happy."

She laughed, and it quickly dissolved into deep, hacking coughs. He went and got her a small cup of water, knowing she wouldn't drink much more than that. After she took a sip, she handed it back and he set it on the table where she could reach it. Laying her head back, she closed her eyes again, but she didn't look quite as peaceful as before. And in a small little part of him, he knew why.

So he sat again, reaching for her hand.

"I love you, oh mother of mine." She opened her eyes and smiled at him, patting his hand with her free one. "And I'll be okay. When you're gone. You're right not to worry about me."

And the look that slipped over her face, the smoothing of her forehead, he knew he was right. A tear slipped down her temple and disappeared into the thinning hairline. He smoothed it away with his thumb and kissed her on the forehead.

"I love you too. Now let me take a nap. You're wearing me out."

He smiled and walked back into the kitchen. About thirty minutes later, the hospice aide knocked at the door, and Kieran updated her on his mom after he let her in. His phone beeped, and he pulled it from his back pocket, smiling when he saw that it was Liz.

I realized that I never answered your text from a couple months ago. I missed you too, Kieran. And I'm glad that I don't have to anymore.

He yelled his goodbyes to his mom, and sprinted out the door.

S
ending
the text had been risky. Maybe not for most people, but for Liz it was. It had seemed like such a harmless Friday afternoon, sitting on her couch, making notes in a manuscript about breaking up a long sentence, reducing some of the unnecessary adjectives when she'd looked up and caught a glimpse of Silas' drawing from Kieran where she'd put it on her fireplace mantle.

She'd stared at it for an inordinately long time, at the curves of the letters, at the designs framing them. Then she had stood from the couch, looking through her bookshelf until she found the book it came from, flipping towards the back, where she knew the quote was.

Dragging her finger along the words, she read them with a smile. And when Aslan whispered that, so only Lucy could hear, Liz felt a warm, bright burst of bravery that she hadn't felt since she left her job. So she grabbed her phone and sent the text to Kieran before she could overthink it.

Risk was a concept she'd been so unfamiliar with, even six short months ago. And the hard part of it was the subjective nature of the word itself. What was risky behavior to one person would be tame to another. All of the separate actions living in shades of grey, a constantly shifting definition from person to person.

Liz may never want to go bungee jumping, or hurl herself out of a plane, but opening herself up to the one person who held the power to hurt her more than anyone else was quite possibly the riskiest thing she could think of.

Kieran himself was safe. She trusted him, because after so many months of uncertainty, she
knew
him. And he knew her. How he'd react was unclear, he may laugh it off as if she didn't mean it the way she really meant it. But she could
show
him that she meant it.

So she'd sent it off to him, and curled up on the couch again. The knock on the door pulled her head up from her laptop, and she checked her phone to make sure she hadn't missed a text about someone stopping over, but the screen was blank.

Smoothing a hand over her ponytail, she didn't even check through the peephole before she answered, and she definitely should have. Because Kieran was standing there, with his hands braced on her door frame, eyes boring into her with the kind of intensity she hadn't seen in months. At least not aimed towards her.

"Hi."

"I got your text," he said, not moving an inch.

"Oh." Maybe it hadn't been a good idea, maybe he was happy with the friendship they'd formed. "Do you want to come in?"

"What did you mean by it?" Still not moving an inch.

"Why don't you come in, Kieran. It's hot out and I'm not paying to air condition my front yard."

That granted her a small crack in his serious facade, just a slight curve of his lips. Then he dropped his hands and walked past her. She turned after carefully closing the door, and he was already sprawled on her couch, arms stretched across the back, head resting backwards and staring up at her ceiling.

"How's Maggie doing?"

"Good."

She clasped her hands in front of her, feeling unsure around him for the first time in weeks. "Would you like something to drink?"

"Liz. What did your text mean?" His eyes were closed now, like he couldn't bear to look at her, and her heart pinched.

Did it matter if he didn't want her to ruin the friendship? Really? Because she missed him, sometimes when she was sitting right next to him. And she'd have to be okay with ruining it if it meant being honest with him. So instead of answering him, she walked towards the couch, not stopping until she sat in his lap. His head snapped up, and his eyes widened almost comically.

"What the..."

She laid a hand over his mouth. His eyes finally lost the surprise and warmed with affection, maybe some lust, but definitely happiness. Dropping his hands from the back of the couch, he laid them on her hips and positioned her so that she was straddling him.

"I mean," she whispered, using her pointer finger to trace his lips, "that I missed you. The
you
that I got for a little while, but you didn't get the real me in return. Not fully. And I think that we should make that happen. Don't you?"

"Yes--"

"That was a rhetorical question, Kieran, because I assumed you would say yes. Especially since you made me sit like this on your lap." He grinned and she leaned forward, touching her lips to his. Over and over, their lips met, not deepening the kiss, just reacquainting themselves. His beard tickled against her face, it was different, but definitely very good. Both of his hands slid up her back in a proprietary manner, tangling in the ends of her ponytail, then used that to tug her head back so their lips separated.

"I missed you, too. Like, I
couldn't even admit it in front of any other guys
kind of missed you."

She laughed, feeling both sides of his beard with her fingertips. "I like this."

"Then I'll keep it forever," he said immediately.

"I never imagined myself with a man who has a beard."

"Want me to grow a man bun, too? Because I'll totally do it. I'd probably look awesome with a man bun."

With a grin, she leaned forward and kissed him again. "No man bun necessary, unless you really want one."

"We can talk about it later. Right now I want to be very busy making up with you."

"We weren't fighting, Kieran."

He smoothed his hands up and down her upper arms, then cupped the back of her neck. "I know. But it still felt like we were separate, you know?"

Since she was only capable of nodding, with the sweeping feelings of happiness coursing through her, she did just that. Then she kept smiling at him, dragging the tips of her fingers over his face, memorizing his features.

"What?" he asked.

"You're different than any hero I've ever read in one of my books. Not because you were unexpected or opposite of what I would have picked for myself." She kissed him again, this time using the pressure of her lips to make him open up to her, reaching out to touch her tongue to his. He responded immediately, tightening his grip on her and taking the kiss deeper. Liz pulled back, smiling at him and then kissing the tip of his nose, then his cheeks and wrapping her arms around his neck so tightly that he may have had trouble breathing. "It's because the reality of you is so much better than any story I could ever read."

Drawing his hands up around her shoulders and pulling her back so he could see her face, Kieran was wearing a smile that she'd never seen on him. It was unapologetically bright and wide and happy.

"Elizabeth Peters, are you trying to say what I think you're trying to say?"

She shoved at his shoulder and couldn't help but laugh. "Maybe."

"Hmmm, so you're saying that..." he lifted a brow and waited.

Liz swallowed roughly and held his jaw again with both hands. "I'm falling in love you, Kieran. For just precisely who you are."

Kieran dropped his head backwards onto the couch again, letting out a deep exhale. "Thank goodness. I was afraid for a second that I was setting you up to tell me that I was better than Mr. Darcy."

She giggled and went to wrap her arms around him again, but he stopped her.

"I am better than Mr. Darcy though, right?"

Liz tapped her chin, pretending to think. "I don't know, he's pretty epic. The things he says to Elizabeth Bennet? Hard to be topped."

Immediately, Kieran’s facial features turned fierce, his mouth flattened out and his eyes burned into her. He smoothed one hand up her torso, between her breasts and laid it on the skin over her heart.

"
This
,
your heart, is perfect and good." He moved his hand over her collarbone, up the side of her neck, and dragged his thumb along her bottom lip. "And your smile makes me happier than I should probably admit out loud."