The Search for Lily Myers ✓

14 | So Much for Summer Love

Amelia nearly choked on her wine when her slow brain finally caught up to the fact that Natasha and Liam were implying that they had dated at some point.

Nat had uneasily slid into the chair across from him, staring down at the grain of the wooden tabletop. Amelia wasn't sure if she was more baffled by the fact that she had missed this particularly pertinent piece of information or the fact that it had ever happened in the first place. As her brain frenetically replayed all of the conversations she'd had with Nat about Lily and Henry, she realized that she was fairly certain she'd never mentioned Lily's boyfriend by name. Even if she had, it wasn't like Liam was an uncommon name. There would have been absolutely no reason to guess that Nat would know him—she was three years older, after all, not to mention that she'd only lived in town for a few years now.

And Liam had been dating Lily for the past two of those. Was the world really so small that all of their paths could already have intersected in so many ways?

Henry quietly added some extra wine to the clean glass he was holding before passing it to Natasha.

"I really do hate to be interrogating you," Amelia addressed them both. "But also—what?"

Nat had allowed her eyes to drift back up to Liam, her fingers nervously toying with the stem of her glass. The rosiness on his cheeks had spread all the way down his neck and to the tips of his ears.

Softly, she cleared her throat. "Um. The least awkward thing to say here that's also remotely true would probably be that it was just a summer thing, but...I don't want to make you sound like a flaky person."

His lips molded back into a self-deprecating smile. "I was back then."

"You were trying really hard not to be."

Witnessing them toss vague these remarks back and forth felt a little bit like watching a game, a match played with words that none of them had braced themselves for. And yet Amelia noticed that they both seemed more sardonic towards themselves than the other person, which didn't completely add up in her head considering that they had obviously broken up and it wasn't sounding like they had ever seen or heard from each other since.

Liam slumped back against his seat, looking defeated. "So, is this just your thing, then?" he asked her. "Always showing up in my life when it's going the shittiest?"

What kind of history did these two have? Amelia tried not to make a face. She hadn't the slightest clue what he could be referring to, though it sounded very serious, so she glanced back at Henry, who appeared to be downing his glass rather quickly just for the sake of hiding his facial expressions.

"I can leave," Nat offered plainly.

But Liam closed his eyes for a second and slowly shook his head. "I'm sorry," he sighed. "That was unfair." His eyelids fluttered back open. "It's...it's good to see you again. I wasn't sure that I ever would."

"It's good to see you, too," she told him quietly. "Is this...are you feeling better or worse than you did back then?"

For a second, he just looked at her with melancholy eyes. "Worse," he eventually told her.

"I'm really sorry."

She didn't say anything else, didn't move, and Amelia found it intensely strange that Nat could probably decipher his expressions much better than she herself could.

After keeping quiet for this entire conversation, Henry finally spoke up. "...Do you two maybe need a minute to catch up?"

"I guess," Liam said; "Sure," Nat answered at the same time.