“Okay. You’ve given me a lot to think about.”

“Why don’t you go celebrate, get really drunk tonight, have fun, and then in the morning, get to work?”

8

Emma

I finally get home hours later. The air is crisp and cool from the unlikely rain that fell last night.

The sidewalk near my home is slick with little puddles. Los Angeles gets very little rain year round so there are no storm drains for the water to escape. If there is enough rainfall, it simply collects on the streets making it difficult and dangerous to drive until it dries.

I walk up the stairs to my apartment holding onto the railing feeling my body sway from side to side. I haven't had this much to drink in a long time.

I can't wait to get out of these restrictive clothes and climb into my warm bed.

Tomorrow is Saturday and, God willing, I’m going to sleep half the day.

I search for my keys in my purse, rather unsuccessfully. Then I drop it down onto the floor and use the flashlight on my phone to try to find them.

When I finally open the door, I climb out of my ankle boots, throwing them haphazardly by the stand-up mirror near the window and toss my purse onto the couch.

To turn on the light, I have to walk all the way across the room and I stumble again catching myself on the dining room table, which I use as my office, right near the couch.

My studio apartment is rather spacious and though I don't have a door leading to my bedroom, I do have a separate living space.

I grope the lamp up and down searching for the string.

After I turn it on, and the light engulfs the apartment, I see him and scream.

“What are you doing here?” I ask with my breath lodged in the back of my throat.

“I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare you,” he says calmly.

Liam sits in the La-Z-Boy recliner that I found at the Angel View Thrift Store down the street.

He has a book open face-down on his knee and he carefully puts it back on the bookshelf, face up, before approaching me.

“How did you get in?” I demand to know.

“I read the article,” he says.

I swallow hard and take a step away from him. I doubt that he's a subscriber, but the online version just came out and the article has been cited and reprinted in a variety of other online magazines.

“Do you have a Google alert set up for your name?” I ask.

“Of course.”

“How did you get in?” I ask again, staring directly at him.

He's tall and broad shouldered. His hair is a little on the longer side, but lustrous and thick.

The light from the faux Tiffany lamp twinkles in his eyes and I see something resembling a smile form around his mouth.

“I came here to talk to you,” he says nonchalantly. “You came to my house, so I thought that I would return the favor.”

“I knocked on your door. I waited for you outside. I didn't sneak in and sit in the dark like some sort of kidnapper.”

“I'm only here to talk,” he says, pointing to the couch as if he's the one hosting me and not the other way around.

Liam is dressed in jeans with scuff marks and tears at the bottom. They fit on his body so well that it's really a toss-up as to whether they are one of those $200 a pop kind with specific designed holes for aesthetic reasons or the ones that have developed naturally.

He's wearing a white V-neck shirt that frames his thick pectoral muscles perfectly along with a leather jacket.

“Do you want to sit down and tell me what happened?” he asks.

Suddenly I feel like I am back in school and I've been called to the principal's office.

Who does he think he is?

“No,” I say, turning on the balls of my feet and heading to the kitchen.

With anger coursing through my veins, I flip on the light with so much force that it actually pricks my index finger.

“Ouch,” I say and pop it in my mouth.

“Are you okay?” Liam asks, leaning on the frame of the doorway.

When I was a teenager, I was really obsessed with the 70s and I saw a movie once where they had all of these beads strung in the doorways instead of doors.

They are not only pretty but also useful, creating the illusion of separation. A while ago, I was looking for some interesting things to decorate my apartment with and I spotted one of them on Amazon.

Little did I know that a man who could ruin my career and who I wanted to kiss more than I ever wanted to kiss anyone would be peeking his head through these liquid turquoise beads and watching me pour a glass of orange juice.

“Do you want any?”

“No thanks.”

I take a few big gulps and then add some water to it. It's a bit too sweet, throwing an unwanted party on my taste buds.

“You didn't have the right to publish any of that,” Liam says, getting right to the point.

He walks into the kitchen and stands right in front of me, blocking my exit.

There's nowhere to go.

There's a small window looking outside, but my apartment is two floors up and I would never be able to squeeze out of it anyway.

“I had no choice,” I finally say.

I should apologize.

I should beg for his forgiveness.

I should do anything in my power to try to convince him to not make this public, but somehow instead of being nice and polite, I feel like making it a fight.

“What do you mean you had no choice?”

“Exactly what I said. I wasn't going to write it after you said that everything was off the record. Then I came back and my boss and her boss were there talking about the article. The magazine isn’t doing really well and I couldn’t say no. I had no idea it was going to blow up like this.”

“I don't care about that,” Liam says. “You had no right to do what you did.”

His voice is calm and collected.

I wish that he would get mad and yell at me, but he doesn't.

Somehow, it's scarier this way.

“What do you want me to do?” I ask.

“I want that article to not exist.”

“Well, I can't do that. It's done.”

He turns around on his heels and walks out of the kitchen. I wait for him to come back, but he doesn't.

A few moments later, I follow him. I'm still drunk and dehydrated.

I don't think that I'm making sense and I'm not really saying the right things.

I know that I should apologize, but for some reason I can't.

“You know what,” Liam says, pointing his finger in my face, “I thought you were different. I thought that you weren’t like the rest of them.”

“The rest of who?”

“The rest of humanity. I thought that you weren’t a liar. I thought I could trust you.”

This takes me back.

I realize that I have hurt him, perhaps even more profoundly than I thought, up until that point.

“I wasn't going to write the article,” I say. “I drove back and I was really just going to forget that we ever had that conversation. Especially after that awful offer you made me.”

He tilts his head a little bit to the side but doesn't erase the smirk off his face. He waits for me to continue.

“You agree that your offer was ridiculous, right?”