Chapter 159
“I don’t,” Liam replies, watching me with that quiet intensity again. “But you said you wanted to remember. So I did.”
Hook up at him. “This is… this is so-” I shake my head, because I genuinely don’t have a word for it. “God, who even are you?”
His lips twitch. “Your fake boyfriend. Who’s maybe hoping to upgrade.”
I stare at him, startled.
And just like that, he nudges the final bag toward me.
Black..
There’s a weight to it. Like whatever’s inside might actually matter.
–
My fingers fumble slightly as I peel the tissue paper back — and then
pause.
Inside is a key.
Just a single silver key on a simple black ribbon.
I look up at him, confused. “What is this?”
He shifts, suddenly sheepish. “My spare. To my apartment. In New York.”
“Liam…”
“I’m not asking you to move in,” he says quickly. “I just- I wanted you
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to know that I want you around. That I want this-” he gestures between us “-for real. No pretending. No faking.”
My breath catches.
“Emilia,” he says, voice softer now, steadier, “will you be my girlfriend? Officially? Fully? No take–backs?”
And before I can even form a response, the door creaks open behind
- us.
We both freeze.
“Liam?” a voice calls out brightly. A second later, the door opens with horrifying ease.
“I’m back-!”
We spin around just in time to see a woman step in, pause mid- sentence, and stare.
She’s elegant, impeccably dressed, holding a makeup bag in one hand. Her blonde hair flows in waves, her brown eyes are mesmerising. And she’s looking directly at me – half–wrapped in a towel, red–eyed,
—
—
clutching a key with the kind of expression that says ‘this is exactly what I think it is, and I do not approve‘.
Somehow, Oldie’s descriptions didn’t do her justice.
Liam’s mother.
His actual, real–life, very judgmental–looking mother,
Tuli arches a perfectly plucked brow. “Surely,” she says, still smiling at Liam with all the warmth of a snowstorm while gesturing towards me, “it isn’t Jessica’s replacement?”
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EMILIA
It
That alone is enough to knock the air out of my lungs from pure shock. “Excuse me?”
She gives me a tight, diplomatic smile. “You’re excused. Quickly, please. I need to speak to my son.”
Wow.
Meeting your boyfriend’s mother half–naked isn’t exactly the dream scenario, but the look in her eyes tells me this isn’t about my towel.
Her gaze drags over me like a lint roller: wet hair, flushed face, damp towel clutched like armour, and – cherry on top – the key still clenched in my fist.
And then it lands. That look. I know it. The one that calculates the precise number of rosaries it’ll take to spiritually fumigate this room.
—
the kind of tilt only women
She tilts her head, slow and deliberate with Pilates abs and generational wealth can pull off. Her voice is all satin and side–eye when she turns to Liam. “Darling,” she says. “What, exactly, is that?“.
Not who.
What.
Like I’m an infestation/
And just like that, I want to laugh. Not because it’s funny, but because it’s so absurdly on–brand for the universe. Of course the moment Liam asks me to be his girlfriend, his mother shows up to audition for Worst
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Possible Timing: A Tragedy in Three Acts.
My grip tightens on the key. My towel slips a little.
Liam steps forward, jaw tight. “That,” he says, voice clipped, “is. Emilia.”
There’s a beat of silence.
I lift my chin. “Hi.”
Tuli blinks at me like I just barked. Then smiles. “Charming.” Then, to Liam, with a voice dipped in honey and arsenic, “I just didn’t realise your… tastes had changed so drastically.
The air stills.
-11
Liam blinks once. Then twice. Like he’s making sure he heard her right. Like he’s giving her a second to walk it back.
She doesn’t.
Liam steps fully in front of me and exhales sharply. “Emilia,” he says, voice low and sharp, “go get dressed.”
I pause. I don’t want to leave him alone with her. But I also don’t want to stand here wrapped in a towel while this woman picks me apart.
“Okay,” I mutter, still gripping the key. I turn and walk into the bathroom. The door shuts behind me, but it doesn’t matter, it might as well be paper for how thin the walls are in this place.
“Mother,” Liam says, carefully. “What are you doing here?”
“I came to drop off the cologne I got for you in Berlin. The one you always pretend to hate, and then take from your father anyway.”
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Liam doesn’t respond.
“Is she the reason you’re skipping Veronica’s recital?” Tuli asks.
“Don’t.” Liam says. Flat.
“She wasn’t even wearing clothes, Liam.”
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