“Are you listening to me?” he asked me.
I turned to him and just started moving my mouth as if I was talking. Liam looked at me for a minute, trying to figure out what I was saying, and then frowned, narrowing his eyes at me.
“That's not funny,” he said, then chuckled. “Well, it kind of is, but that's not the point.”
I smiled, and finished picking up the blocks rather than talking to him. By the time we had picked them all up, Julie was coming back, holding a clotted lump of hair with green gum in the center.
She gave it to me, and curled my hand around it. It was still warm and sticky, like it hadn't been out of a mouth long enough. I grimaced as she smiled.
“Peace offering,” she said to me, and Liam started laughing, laying the box of blocks on the table.
I nodded, squeezing the clump. “Peace offering. I think mine was better,” I told her.
Liam shook his head. “No, this is great. Look, it's a hair piece,” he said, taking the gum from my hands. He stuck it to the end of his chin and then moved his hands to the side. “I always wanted a goatee!” he exclaimed.
Julie began to laugh, and she reached into her back pocket for her phone. “Hold still, dope. Dad is going to drop dead laughing at this,” she said, taking the photo and then moving to Liam's side to show him. He started laughing.
I watched them and was satisfied with that. Julie came to my side though, and held out the phone so I could see. I smiled staring at his dorky face and gum goatee.
“Here you go, man. Didn't mean to steal your hair,” Liam replied, giving me the gum back.
I nodded. “Thank you. I was feeling kind of bald without it,” I told him, slapping it on top of my head. They both erupted in laughter.
“Stay just like that,” Julie told me, and I did as she said. She held her phone up and snapped a picture of me.
Liam was watching over her shoulder, and he gave me a thumbs up when she finished.
“You're very photogenic. You kind of look like Alfalfa, from Little Rascals,” he told me.
“Thanks. I think.”
Julie came to my side and showed me my picture. There I was, green gum hair on my head, and a dorky smile on my face. I looked like someone that had been pieced together like Frankenstein.
Only that smile separated me from being a monster. That odd smile on my face that was only there because of her.
It was all because of her.
“Look at that hunk,” she told me, elbowing my arm.
“Have you had your eyes checked?”
“The only hunk I see around here is me,” Liam said, cocking a brow with a devilish grin.
She furrowed her brows at Liam. “You're more of a dope. And I think you look great,” Julie told me, smiling.
I couldn't bring myself to smile anymore. It didn't feel right to smile, and even though I knew they both were being nice, it felt wrong to agree with them.
It simply wasn't true.
I was saved by one of the kids crying Julie's name behind us. She looked toward them, and frowned. She looked the me, and then Liam. “Let me go see them,” she replied.
A look passed between them, and then she gave me a soft smile as her hand brushed my arm and she went to them.
I felt the goosebumps rise from where she had so casually touched me. I watched after her, not taking my eyes off of her until she was at the kids and down on her knees to hear their problem.
“What's your deal?” Liam asked me.
“I don't know what you're talking about,” I told him.
He wasn't fooled. “Yes, you do. You like her, don't you? You look like you like her a lot,” he said to me.
“She's nice.”
“You think she looks nice too.”
“You don't find this weird?” I asked him, feeling very uncomfortable. “Do you normally talk about your sister with guys?”
Liam shrugged and shook his head. “Julie and I talk about everything. The only thing I find weird is that you look like the most conflicted guy I've ever seen that likes her,” he told me.
That was probably true. I just hadn’t been aware that it came through so prominently.
“I think I know why too, and that's something you'll have to work out. All I ask is that you decide one way or the other rather than stringing my sister along until she finally lets go,” he said.
There was a fierce protectiveness in his voice, and I recognized it as the same that I held for Ava. I wouldn't want any guys stringing my sister along either.
“I wouldn't do that to her,” I told him, and I meant it.
“Maybe not intentionally. You seem like you really like her, but she's already been in a destructive relationship, and I won't watch her clinging to someone that doesn't care how she feels about them again.”
He didn't continue on, and turned around.
I followed him to the mess of coloring books, and we started picking them up. We didn't talk as we did so, but I didn't think he was mad at me. He kept throwing crayons at me, and when I would throw a book at him, he would laugh.
Either he wasn't mad or he was really terrible at it.
♥
After Julie was done with the kid that had called her, she had another pulling at her shirt to come and see what she had drawn. She looked to us, and smiled apologetically as she went off with her.
I worked with Liam, but we didn't talk. It was difficult, I would guess,
