Liam Vale's Arc

Chapter 5 of 7

The next morning Liam swept his own doorstep when the purple-haired woman appeared. She had watched him confess at the herb-seller's stall for days, waiting for his mask to slip. Now she stood at his gate, the small padlock swinging at her throat. His basset hound lifted its head, blinked at her, and went back to sleep on the warm stone. "I followed you home," she said. "I wanted to see where the great liar sleeps." She looked at the merchant's apartment, the polished door, the flower boxes. "Nice. Bought with charm, I bet." "Traded for," Liam said. "Honest work, mostly." He set the broom against the wall. "You came a long way to insult me." "I came because you're doing it wrong." She stepped closer. Her voice dropped, and the sharpness left it. "That woman at the stall. The herb-seller. She'll never love you the way I could." Liam went still. "I've watched you a week," she said. "I saw you leave your mother's locket. I saw your hands shake. No man fakes that." She touched the padlock at her throat. "I keep this locked because people take things. But you cracked yourself open in front of everyone. For her. I kept thinking, why doesn't he do that for someone who'd want it?" She met his eyes. "I want it. I'd choose you tomorrow. She hasn't chosen you at all." It was true. The herb-seller still said she didn't trust him. This woman stood here, offering the thing he'd been begging for. It would be easy. Old Liam would have taken the easy yes. He would have let her love fill the empty place and called it enough. "You're right that she hasn't chosen me," Liam said. "And you're right that you would." He picked a single climbing rose from the vine along his wall and held it out. Then he stopped. He looked at the rose, the same trick he'd played on three women with wildflowers. He dropped his hand and let the rose fall. "I can't," he said. "Not because you're not enough. Because I'd be using you to feel safe. That's the exact thing I'm trying to stop doing." His throat tightened. "I don't want an easy love. I want the one I have to earn." The purple-haired woman stared. The padlock stopped swinging. "You really mean it," she said. It wasn't a question. Something in her face closed again, but gentler than before. "She doesn't know how lucky she is." She turned and walked out the gate. Liam stood alone with his sleeping dog and the fallen rose. He went after her. "Ok let's give this thing between us a chance."