How to Steal Your Best Friend's Fiancé - London Casey Page 0,36
like shit,” he said with burnt crumbs falling from his mouth.
“How do you know what shit tastes like?” I asked.
He laughed.
He dropped the cookie to the tray and it sounded like someone dropped a brick from the roof of the building.
“Come on,” he said.
“Where?”
“We’re going to buy your neighbor some cookies,” he said. “Right now.”
“Liam…”
He took my hand. “Let’s go, Em. Let’s have a little fun tonight.”
“To get cookies? That’s your version of fun?”
Liam winked at me.
My heart did that whole leaping thing again.
But that was only because I was still jumpy from the fact I almost burned down the apartment building.
Right?
“You really do that for your neighbor?” Liam asked.
“Yeah.”
“That’s special.”
“Is it?”
“Yeah,” Liam said. “You don’t think so?”
“I think it’s just… I don’t know. Being human.”
“I don’t know, Em. A lot of humans don’t give a shit about anything but themselves.”
“Call me a freak then,” I said. “I’m different.”
“You’re not a freak,” he said. He looked at me and smiled. “Not even close. That woman is all alone and you go out of your way to help her. You know you can’t cure her cancer. You know she’s going to die. Yet you show up and make the best of it.”
“Okay, enough of that talk,” I said. “I’m still emotional over the cookie incident.”
“Aw, Em,” Liam said. He put his arm around me. “You know… there’s no need to cry over burned cookies.”
“I thought it was spilled milk?”
“Well, you didn’t spill any milk.”
I rolled my eyes. “You’re sometimes a big dork, you know that?”
“There’s nothing dorky about me,” Liam said.
“Sure. You just deal with paperwork all day. Dork.”
Liam’s lip curled a little.
As we turned the next corner, three kids with skateboards were on the sidewalk.
Liam stopped me.
One of the kids did some kind of jump move and flipped the skateboard in the air and landed right back down on it.
“I can do that,” Liam said.
“No, you can’t,” I said.
“You’ve seen me do that before.”
“A long time ago, Liam.”
He broke away from me and whistled at the kids.
“Hey, my man,” he called out. “Can I borrow that for a second?”
“Liam!” I yelled.
He waved back at me.
Next thing I knew Liam was talking to the three kids.
And by kids… they were probably nineteen or twenty.
Liam then held a skateboard in his hands.
“Ready for this, Em?” he asked me.
He walked out into the street.
I followed.
He put the skateboard on the ground and began to ride it.
I held my breath for a few seconds.
But off he went.
Down the street.
Turning.
Coming back.
He looked at me and pointed.
I gently clapped my hands together.
“Now, watch this move,” he said.
He kicked his left foot to the ground and picked up speed.
When he tried to mimic the move the kid had done, the skateboard flipped into the air… and so did Liam.
I gasped and started to run toward him.
He hit the ground with a hard thud and grabbed for his left wrist.
He looked at me and mouthed the word fuck.
Jokingly, I called out, “Hospital time?”
I didn’t expect Liam to nod back…
Chapter Seventeen
Liam
I sat on the edge of the hospital bed in the triage room and stared down at the bright floor. I cradled my left arm, afraid to move any part of it as I waited for the doctor to come see me.
You got on a skateboard for the first time in how long? What the hell were you thinking?
“Hello there,” a cheery voice said.
I looked up and saw one of the nurses standing there.
“How are you feeling?”
“Sore,” I said with a grin.
“We’re going to get something for that very soon, okay? I promise.” She pointed to the empty chair next to the bed. “Is your wife okay?”
I looked at the empty chair.
I smiled.
Wife…
“Oh, Emily? She’s…” I looked at the nurse. I nodded. “She’s fine. She just stepped out for a second.”
“Doctor should be in shortly,” the nurse said.
The nurse left and I settled back into listening to the business of the hospital.
Emily and I should have been doing something much better than this. We could have been having a drink. Some coffee. We could have found some little hole in the wall place to look around at antiques or something to kill time. Or we could have gone into that club… the one with the music I saw when I was-
I heard a snorting sound and watched as Emily came back into the triage room.