When We Kiss (8 page)

“What an obnoxiously arrogant thing to say.”

He exhaled. “I know, right?”

His tone was weary, maybe even self-deprecating, which wasn't the Liam she knew. He was vigorous and cocksure, always one step ahead. Maybe the accident had rocked him more than he realized. Or maybe he did realize it. “Are you taking things a bit easier, then? Maybe just sticking to your motorcycle?” Like that wasn't dangerous enough.

He plugged in the last cable. “I had to take it easy while I healed, but I'm good now.” He rotated his shoulder to demonstrate. “I powered through physical therapy like a champion.”

“Of course you did,” she muttered. He did everything like a champion, damn him.

He flicked her a curious glance but didn't say anything. At least not about her snarky comment. “I did a jump the other day, so I'd say I'm back to normal.”

He'd been skydiving already? “Maybe you should take it easy for a while. As you so accurately put it, you aren't infallible.”

“You worried about me?”

“As someone who cares about your family, yes. You should care about them, too. They worry.”

His brow furrowed. “Did someone say something?”

Yikes. She was not going to throw his mom under the bus. “No. I'm just . . . I just care.”

His features relaxed. “That's good to know.” He turned the TV on and looked around. “Remote?”

She found it on the end table next to the couch and handed it to him.

He flicked through some channels. Naturally, he'd hooked it up perfectly.

“Were you a cable guy in a past life?”

He laughed. “I didn't actually hook up your cable, just connected the box to the TV. It's not that hard.”

Easy for him to say. Aubrey was pretty good with electronics but admitted that she found computers easier to deal with than things like televisions or appliances. God forbid her dishwasher crapped out.

He turned the TV off. “I guess my work here is done.” Did he sound disappointed?

She couldn't invite him to stay. She
wouldn't
. “Yep. Thanks again.”

He handed her back the remote, and this time his fingers grazed her palm. Her entire body jolted with lust. “Why don't you come skydiving with me? You'd have a great time.”

Wait, what? He was inviting her to do something else with him?

“Falling isn't really my thing.” She suppressed a shudder. When she thought of him free-falling from ten thousand feet or however high up they went, she felt queasy.

“Okay, how about a ride on my bike instead? That's not high, and there's no falling.”

“There is if you crash!” She smiled as she said this, realizing she sounded paranoid and doing it on purpose.

He laughed. “I won't. I'll take it easy with you on board. I would hate myself if you got hurt.” His blue-gray gaze pierced into hers, and the pull to invite him to stay for dinner—hell, the night—was almost overwhelming.

“I'll think about it.” She set the remote back on the table. “You're full of surprising invitations today.” This was a thoughtful, considerate Liam—the man she'd spent Labor Day weekend with.

“Maybe I'm just looking for the right one to get you to say yes.”

Damn, he was saying all the right things. Things that were weakening her resolve when it came to keeping him in the Friend Zone. Friends? She'd already decided they weren't friends, but today sure felt like it.

He broke the devastating eye contact and went to the porch, where he picked up his coat. The day was warm, but he shrugged it on because it was likely chillier as he rode his bike. That, and it provided protection, she supposed. Not that he would fall.

“I'll come tomorrow night. Will that satisfy you?” She hadn't meant the question to sound provocative, and maybe it only did to her ears.

His gaze did a slow perusal of her from head to toe. Nope, it had sounded provocative to him, too. “If you think that would satisfy me, you don't know me at all, sweetheart.”

She rolled her eyes. “Knock it off. Flirting will get you nowhere.” That was a bald-faced lie, but she wasn't going to succumb. She didn't want to be his Ribbon Ridge girl. She wanted more than that, and he wasn't the one who would give it to her.

He walked to the end of the porch, and she couldn't keep herself from appreciating the view again. He went down the stairs to the driveway and climbed onto his bike, picking up the helmet first. “You sure you don't want to come for a ride?”

She'd followed him to the end of the porch but stayed at the top of the stairs. She crossed her arms and leaned against the post. “I don't see a helmet.”

He glanced at the small seat behind where he was perched. “You have a point. I'll have to rectify that.”

“Don't, because then I won't have an excuse.” And she needed an excuse.

His eyes sparkled as his lips curved into a seductive smile. “I'll remember that.” He gave her a full-on toe-curling grin before putting his helmet on.

As she watched him go, she had the sense she was still in way over her head, despite her valiant efforts to swim to shore.

L
IAM STEPPED INTO
the kitchen from the back hall. He'd just showered after taking an afternoon bicycle ride with Dad. It was the one sport at which Dad could easily smoke any of his children, but then he'd been cycling since college. Liam credited his Dad's dedication to and love of the sport as having instilled a sense of athleticism and physical drive in his kids.

“There you are,” Dad said as Liam walked toward the beer bar, where Dad was lording over the tap as usual. “Did I wear you out?”

“It'll take more than eighteen miles to wear me out. I run marathons, remember?”

“That's crap,” Tori said, joining them. “When's the last time you ran an actual marathon?” Tori was the runner in the family, but Liam kept up pretty good.

“Just because I don't do as many races as you doesn't mean I can't. I'm busy doing other stuff.”

She arched a brow at him as she raised her pint glass. “Like trying to kill yourself jumping out of airplanes?”

Liam thought of his conversation with Aubrey yesterday. He began to doubt Aubrey's response that no one had talked to her about his hobbies. But he didn't care. It wasn't any of their business. Consequently, he ignored Tori's question—not that it was a legitimate question instead of a gibe. He looked at Dad behind the bar. “What's on tap?”

“My newest IPA. It's a red.” He pulled a pint and handed it to Liam. “Let me know what you think.”

Liam sampled the brew and clacked the glass down onto the granite counter. “So freaking good. When the hell are you going to bottle this?”

Dad shrugged. “You know that's never been my priority.”

“Wait, that wasn't a flat no.” Liam looked at Tori. “You heard that, right?”

She nodded. “I did. Dad, are you actually thinking about it?”

Dad gave them both his best fatherly stare. “No comment.”

Tori grinned and looked between Dad and Liam. “First Liam comes home, and now Dad's considering bottling. I'm afraid to look outside for fear I might see the four riders of the apocalypse that Kyle glimpsed last weekend.”

“Nope, just Aubrey,” Derek said as he guided Aubrey toward the bar. “I found her outside loitering by the back door.”

She smiled a bit tentatively. “I wasn't sure if I should come in that way. Your mom has invited me to, but . . . I don't know, it just feels weird to let myself in.”

“It shouldn't. You ought to be a de facto Archer, like Derek here,” Tori said.

Aubrey looked surprised and maybe a bit horrified. “Well, maybe not like Derek,” she said. “He's actually a member of your family and has been for at least a decade, right?”

“That's about right,” Derek said. “Someone has to bring some normalcy to this crazy group.”

Tori snorted. “You bring as much crazy to the table as any of us.”

“True.” Derek laughed. “It's what makes me fit in.”

Aubrey looked between them. “Another reason I can't join the club. I'm afraid I don't have any crazy to add. I'm just boring Aubrey.”

“I wouldn't call you boring,” Liam said softly. “I call BS. Everyone has crazy. You're just very good at hiding it.” He looked at her intently, as if he could discern the secrets he was sure she had. Why did he suddenly want to know them? And everything else about her?

“Dish up!” Kyle called from the other side of the kitchen. “Show's on in thirty!”

Everyone headed over to the other bar, where several pizzas were laid out. Everyone except Dad, who looked at Aubrey. “Can I get you a beer? It's an IPA. Red, to be specific.” He smiled. “Like your hair.”

Like her hair. Liam loved her hair. When he'd first met her, it had been shorter, but he liked its current length. He imagined it splayed over his ivory sheets and started to sport wood.
Get a grip, Archer. Your dad is right there.

“I love IPA, thanks,” she said. She tugged her light raincoat off. “Can I hang this somewhere?”

Liam took it from her fingers. “I've got it.” He went to the hallway where there were hooks, most of which were marked with one of the Archer kids' names. He hung it on his hook.

When he returned to the kitchen, Aubrey and Dad had joined the others, who were serving up the varieties of pizza. There was barbecued chicken, a pesto base with chicken, a meat-lovers, a veggie-lovers, and a couple of what Dylan was currently calling “foo-foo” recipes.

“Goat cheese is foo-foo?” Sara asked her fiancé. “I love goat cheese.”

“And you are completely foo-foo. I wouldn't have you any other way.” Dylan smiled down at her before giving her a fast kiss.

Being home had been eye-opening for Liam. He hadn't realized how pretty much everyone in the family was in love and had settled down. Only he and Hayden were single, and Hayden had a girlfriend in France, so really it was only Liam. It made him feel . . . strange.

He'd never wanted a long-term relationship. He didn't like the sense of having to be somewhere or do something with someone. He didn't want to have to plan his holidays or sports trips around someone else. Some—including his family—might say it sounded lonely, but he was happy. Or he had been until Alex had decided to pull the biggest dick move ever and off himself. Thinking of that still made Liam so angry. He ought to have progressed to another stage of grief, and he had on occasion, but mostly he was just mad.

He waited until everyone had their pizza and had sat at the table, leaving just him and Kyle, who usually served himself last.

“If Evan and Alaina were back from their honeymoon, we'd have to sit at the bar here,” Kyle said as he tossed a couple of pieces onto his plate.

Liam looked at the nearly full table. There were two open chairs—one next to Maggie, which was presumably for Kyle, and one next to Aubrey. Had his family paired them off? He ought to find that annoying—he hated when they made assumptions about him—but he found it oddly nice. Which was stupid because they absolutely were
not
paired off. Still, had someone picked up on their fling? He hadn't thought so. Hell, for months after Alex's death, everyone had been pretty sure Liam despised Aubrey. He'd certainly been awful enough to her at the reading of the trust.

But all that had changed later that day when he'd gone to her office. Yeah, he'd been pissed all right. That hadn't stopped him from having the most spontaneous and, frankly, exciting sex of his entire life.

“Hey, I need to talk to you,” Kyle said in a low voice. “That gal you were kissing last week. I know who she is.” The low pitch of his blond brows and the tight set of his mouth told Liam exactly what he thought of it, too.

“I wasn't kissing her.”

Kyle blinked at him. “I was there, dude.”

“She kissed me. Big difference.”

“So you don't have a thing with Whitney Parker? Because that would be . . . Dude, I don't even know how to characterize it. Bad form, for sure.”

Liam could simply confirm that he didn't have a thing with Whitney—at least not currently—and that would be the end of the conversation. For now. What if Whitney decided to tell all? She'd already indicated she could be bought—rather, seduced—into complicity. He could see her blabbing their past fling just to be a pain in his ass.

He took a deep breath and hoped he didn't regret this. He couldn't believe he was going to fess up to Kyle, of all people. “We used to hook up. Before . . . before Alex died.”

Kyle's eyes widened. “Seriously?”

Liam kept his voice low. He'd need to come clean with everyone, but not right now over dinner. And not with Aubrey sitting over there casting him intermittent glances that made him wonder what she was thinking. He turned his gaze from her, as if that simple movement could stave off temptation. It couldn't.

He looked at Kyle, who watched him intently. “Whenever I was in Ribbon Ridge, we got together. It wasn't serious. She got clingy, so I ended it.”

“What were you doing with her last week, then?” Kyle asked.

Liam rolled his eyes. “She's still clingy, if you want to know. I went to Ruckus and had a few drinks. She drove me home.”

Kyle picked up a piece of pizza. “And laid one on you.”

“Like I said, clingy. It's not a big deal. Or a problem.” Liam didn't like the look of uncertainty in Kyle's blue-green eyes. “I'll tell everyone, okay?”

Kyle swallowed. “You should. It's just good for everyone to be on the same page. You said she's clingy. Does that mean she's hung up? Like maybe her dad's not the only one who feels scorned?”

Liam picked up his plate and his beer. “How the hell should I know what's going on in her twisted head?” Why didn't he just say that he'd wondered the same thing? Because that would make it more true, and he didn't want to think that he was somehow responsible for this bullshit and the trouble it was causing everyone. In fact, the more he thought about it, the more pissed off he got.