“I don’t think I want to, Mara.”
“Right.” My heart hiccups. “You wouldn’t enjoy good food and pleasant conversation and getting laid.”
“Is that how your date went?” he asks softly, not looking at me anymore.
“I just meant—” I’m flustered. “You might enjoy dating the right person.”
“Stop channeling Helena.”
I laugh. “Gotta keep up the household tradition of being nosy about people’s personal lives.” Something occurs to me, and I gasp. “You know what’s really shocking?”
“What?”
“That Helena never tried to set us up. Like, you and me. Together.”
“Yeah, that’s—” Liam falls silent abruptly, as though something occurred to him, too. He stares into the middle distance for a moment and then lets out a low, deep laugh. “Helena.”
“What?” He doesn’t answer me. So I repeat, “Liam? What?”
“I just realized that . . .” He shakes his head, amused. “Nothing, Mara.” I want to insist till he explains what revelation he appears to have reached, but he puts a controller in my hand and says, “Let’s play.”
“Okay. Who am I supposed to kill, and how do I do it?”
He smiles at me, and a million little sparks crackle down my spine. “I thought you’d never ask.”
Ten
Three weeks ago
When Liam arrives home, I can barely feel my toes, my teeth are chattering, and I am more blanket than human. He studies me from the entrance of the living room while pulling off his tie, lips pressed together in what looks a lot like amusement.
Asshole.
He observes me for long moments before coming closer. Then he crouches in front of me, widens the gap between the layers of blankets to better see my eyes, and says, “I’m afraid to ask.”
“Th-th-the heat isn’t working. I already looked into it—I think a fuse has b-blown. I called the guy who fixed it last t-time, he should b-be here in half an hour.”
Liam cocks his head. “You’re under three Snuggies. Why are your lips blue?”
“It’s freezing! I can’t get warm.”
“It’s not that cold.”
“Maybe it’s not that cold when you have six hundred pounds of muscles to insulate you, but I’m gonna d-d-die.”
“Are you.”
“Of hypothermia.”
He is definitely pressing his lips together to avoid smiling. “Would you like to borrow my baby-seal fur coat?”
I hesitate. “Do you really have one?”
“Would you want it, if I did?”
“I’m scared to find out.”
He shakes his head and sits next to me on the couch. “Come here.”
“What?”
“Come here.”
“No. Why? Are you planning to steal my seat? Back off. It took me ages to warm it up—”
I don’t get to finish the sentence. Because he picks me up, Snuggies and all, and lifts me across his lap until my ass is resting on his thighs. Which . . .
Oh.
This is new.
For a moment, my spine stiffens and my muscles tense in surprise. But it’s very brief, because he’s so deliciously toasty. Way cozier than my stupid spot on the couch, and his skin . . . it smells familiar and good. So, so good. “You’re so warm.” I let my forehead fall against his cheek. “It’s like you generate heat.”
“I think all humans do.” His nose touches the icy tip of my ear. “It’s physics, or something.”
“First law of th-thermodynamics. Energy can be neither created nor destroyed.”
His hand travels up my spine to cup my nape, and the temperature is suddenly five, ten degrees higher. Heat licks down my spine and spreads around my torso. My breasts. My belly. I almost whimper. “Except by you, apparently,” he says.
“It’s so unfair.” Liam’s thumb is tracing patterns on the skin of my throat, and I have no choice but to sigh. I’m already feeling better. I’m glowing.
“That you are where the heat goes to die?”
“Yeah.” I burrow closer into his chest. “Maybe my parents are secretly shark shapeshifters. Of the cold-blooded, poikilothermic variety. They forgot to warn me that I inherited zero thermoregulation skills and should never live on dry land.”
“It’s the only possible explanation.” His breath chuffs against my temples, a fine, pleasant itch.
“For my pathological inability to maintain thermal homeostasis?”
“For how little they appreciate you.” He’s suddenly holding me a little tighter. A little closer. “Also, for how rare you like your steak.”
“I . . . Medium rare.” My voice shakes. I tell myself that it’s because of the cold and not the fact that he remembers the things I told him about my family.
“Please. Basically raw.”
“Humph.” No point in arguing with him, not when he’s right. Not when his hand is running up and down my arm—a warming, calming gesture, even through the blankets. “Do you think he’ll be able to fix the fuse tonight?”
“I hope so. If not, I’ll run to the store and get you a heater.”
“You would do that?”
He shrugs. There are about ten layers between us （Liam vastly underestimated the number of Snuggies I can put on at once）， but he feels so warm and solid. A few months ago, I thought him cold, in every possible way. Back when I used to believe that I hated him. “It feels like less work than driving you to the ER for frostbite treatment.” His cheek curves against my brow.
“You’re not as heartless as you think, Liam.”
“I’m not as heartless as you think.”
I laugh and lean back to take a look at him, because it feels like he might be smiling, a whole wide grin, and that’s a rare and wondrous phenomenon that I want to savor. He’s not, though. He’s staring at me, too, studying me in that weighty, serious way he sometimes does. First my eyes, and then my lips, and what is this, this moment of heavy, full silence that has my heart racing and my skin tingling?
“Mara.” His throat moves as he swallows. “I—”
Loud knocking makes us startle.
“The electrician.”
“Oh. Yeah.” My voice is both shrill and breathless.
“I’ll get the door, okay?”
Please, don’t. Stay. “Okay.”
“Do you think you can avoid hypothermia if I let go of you?”
“Yes. Probably.” No. “Maybe?”
He rolls his eyes in that put-upon way that reminds me so much of Helena. But his smile, the one I was looking for earlier—here it is. Finally. “Very well, then.” Without letting go, he stands and carries me all the way to the entrance.
I hide my face in his neck, humming with warmth and something else, unfamiliar and unidentifiable.
Eleven
Two weeks ago
I get the phone call on a Wednesday night, before dinner but after I’ve returned from work.
I am remarkably composed throughout: I oh and ah in all the right places; I ask pertinent, important questions; I even remember to thank the caller for sharing the news with me. But after we both hang up, I completely lose it.