at me as if waiting for me to say more about it.
“Yeah? Do you want to try to sell these?” I looked around the room at all his most recent pieces. There were a lot. He could cover canvases per day if he was inspired.
He shrugged and turned back to his fireplace. “Yes.”
I didn’t expect that. “Well, okay then. I’ll put together a website, and we can take pictures of what you have. Would you like it if people ask you to paint specific things for them or just sell whatever you have already completed?”
He turned back to the stacks of canvases leaning against the far wall and considered it for a moment. “Anything is okay. What they want.”
“Cool.” I thought about it for a minute and wondered if he could do portraits. “Could you paint me?”
He smiled and gave me a shy nod. “Yes.”
“Okay, let’s start with that. If you can do portraits, I bet a lot of people would want to hire you. My mom and dad had a portrait commissioned when I was little. From what she’s told me, it cost a fortune and is one of her most prized possessions.”
Liam pulled the canvas of the fireplace off his easel then went to the closet to grab a blank one. He held up a 20 x 30-inch canvas and looked at me for approval.
I cringed at the thought of hanging something that big…anywhere. “That seems a little big. Do you have anything smaller?”
He put it back and held up something closer to the size of a piece of paper. “Yeah, that’s perfect. I can give it to my mom for Christmas.”
Liam furrowed his brow for a moment and then nodded. “Okay.”
He was still a man a few words and probably always would be. But he said more than enough to get his point across. Anyone who didn’t know about his past would not have any idea that he used to not speak at all. They would probably just assume he liked to think before he spoke.
And they’d be right.
Twenty
“I want…to stay…here.” Liam was at my doorway with his hands on his hips, speaking with more determination than I’d ever seen outside of the bedroom.
I’d just walked him back to his room ten minutes ago, so I hadn’t expected to see him again until morning. “What? Did something happen?”
He shook his head and took a deep breath. “I want…to stay…here. All the time.”
I grinned and crossed my arms over my chest. “Like, live with me?”
He grinned too. “Yes. Can I?”
“Why don’t we talk about this inside?” I took a step back and gestured for him to come in so we could get comfortable. I sat on the couch with one leg crossed to the side and he did the same at the other end. When we were both facing each other with one foot on the ground, I reached for his hand and held it between us. “We’ll have to talk to your parents to see if that’s okay.”
“I did already.” He looked me in the eye with the same intensity he usually reserved for painting or working on a project.
“And what did they say?” I still hadn’t had a conversation with the Brenners about how much longer I’d be staying with them, so I had no idea what their response to something like that would be. Although I didn’t get the impression they were eager for me to leave, I didn’t expect them to pay me to be Liam’s boyfriend forever.
He squeezed my hand. “To talk to you.”
I raised an eyebrow and gave him my best teacher look. He often used broken sentences in order to make his point in as few words as possible. Most of the time, I let it go. But in this case, I wanted to hear everything. “What was that?”
He sighed heavily and swallowed. “They told me…I had…to talk to you. Then we could…talk to them…together.”
I reached for his hand and pulled him so he tumbled forward, right into my arms. His chest pressed against mine and I kissed his cheek. “I’m so proud of you, you know that?” I whispered in his ear.
Liam nodded against my shoulder before we both pulled back.
I held his hand between both of mine and pressed it to my thigh. “I would love to live with you, babe. If your parents say it’s okay for us to both stay here, that would be awesome.”
I got to the main house early the next day to have breakfast