Chapter 55: GRWM?
Liam freshening himself up took to ten minutes, this included a shower.
Liam moved through it with the efficiency of a man who knew exactly where everything was and had never needed to think twice about it. Of course he did, it was his freaking house.
Fresh jeans, dark and clean. A fitted white shirt that sat well across the shoulders without trying to announce itself. He ran a hand through his hair, checked the result once in the mirror, and reached for the deodorant on the dresser.
Creed Aventus came next.
He’d bought the bottle a couple of months ago during a period when the salary had been reliable and the future had looked like a straight road. It was the kind of purchase that felt indulgent at the time and justified itself every time he opened the cap — clean and deep, cedar underneath, something smokier beneath that, the whole thing settling into skin like it had been designed specifically for it. He applied two measured sprays to the neck and one to the wrist, capped the bottle, and set it back exactly where it lived.
He looked at himself in the mirror one final time.
Liam looked presentable, clean. Put together without appearing to have tried.
He walked out of his bedroom shortly after.
Sophia was standing at the window when he came into the living room, her phone in one hand, his shirt still falling to her mid-thigh. She turned when she heard him and the sentence she had been forming visibly dissolved before it arrived.
She recovered in approximately one second, which he noted.
"Okay," she said.
"Okay what?"
"You smell—" She stopped. Tilted her head slightly, like she was verifying something. "What is that?"
"Creed."
"Creed Aventus?"
"No, Assassins Creed. Of course Aventus!" This made her scoff in annoyance.
"I know what it costs," she said, which was its own answer.
Liam crossed the room toward her and before she fully registered what was happening, he had his arms around her — a full, brief hug, unhurried, his chin just above her damp hair. She made a sound somewhere between a protest and a laugh and pushed back against his chest with both palms.
"Liam—"
"Two more seconds."
"What are you—"
"There." He released her and stepped back. "Now we both smell good."
Sophia stared at him with an expression that was fighting very hard not to become a smile. She looked down at herself, then back up.
"You just—" She pressed her lips together. "You hugged me so your cologne would transfer."
"Bingo!"
"You’re so weird!"
"It worked though so is it actually weird?"
She brought her wrist up and smelled it, and the smile she had been containing broke through completely. She turned her face away from him and laughed quietly at the window and Liam stood with his hands in his pockets and let it happen.
"You’re ridiculous," she said, still facing the window.
"You keep saying that but you’re still here."
She turned back. The laugh had settled into something warmer, less defended. She looked at him the way she had looked at him in the gym — the quiet reassessment, the small recalibration happening somewhere behind her eyes that she didn’t fully know he could see.
"Are you going to change?" Liam asked, nodding at the shirt.
Sophia looked down at herself. A beat passed.
"Give me a minute," she said.
She moved to the hallway mirror with the focused energy of a woman who had already formed a plan she hadn’t announced yet. Liam watched from the living room as she turned left, then right, studying the shirt’s drape, fingers moving along the fabric at her waist.
"Do you have a belt?" she called.
"Wardrobe. Top drawer."
He heard the drawer. A pause. Then: "You have six belts."
"Pick one."
Another pause, briefer. She came back thirty seconds later wearing the slimmest of them — a dark tan leather, narrow enough to look deliberate — cinched at the waist over the shirt, the fabric gathered just enough to give it shape. The belt transformed the whole thing. What had been a man’s t-shirt was now something else entirely — structured at the waist, loose above and below, the hem falling at just the right point on her thigh.
She stopped in front of him.
"Well?" she said.
Liam looked at her for a moment without performing the looking.
"Not bad, not bad at all," he said.
Sophia smiled and picked up her gym bag from the sofa.
-
She was in the passenger seat before he’d finished locking the front door, the gym bag at her feet, one arm resting on the window ledge with the ease of someone who had stopped calculating the situation and simply settled into it. Liam got in, started the engine, and pulled out into the street.
They drove in comfortable quiet for a block and a half.
"You know," Sophia said, watching the city move past her window, "I came to the gym this morning to work out."
"You did work out, now you’re spending the rest of the day with mini Mike."
"Mini Mike!? Seriously!" Sophia burst out laughing.
"Besides, we do look good together, don’t you think?"
She looked over at him. He kept his eyes on the road.
"You planned this," she said. It wasn’t entirely an accusation.
"I planned nothing. You stopped your own treadmill and wanted a free ride." Liam said, dramatically shaking his head in disapproval.
She faced forward again. Outside, the city was doing its afternoon thing — unhurried, ambient, the particular quality of Seattle when the sun was trying and the air was carrying the faint possibility of rain that never quite arrived.
Liam could feel it without looking at her.
The gravitational thing. The slow, quiet shift of someone who had arrived with their guard assembled and was now carrying it loosely in one hand rather than wearing it. She was relaxed in his car. She had used his products and worn his shirt and laughed at his jokes with the unguarded volume of someone who had forgotten to manage their reaction.
He didn’t push it.
He just drove, and let the afternoon do what it was already doing on its own.
If he wanted to, he thought quietly, he could close this tonight.
He kept both hands on the wheel and said nothing about that at all.