for a second, he didn’t turn in the direction of the familiar voice. if he did, it made this moment real, it made her real, and he wasn’t sure he trusted himself with that still. but he still moved his head towards her, heart almost skipping a beat as he saw her, doing his best to keep his smile under wraps as his demeanor softened. there were few people in this world that could make him feel at ease.
"breaking and entering now?" he joked, as his eyes shifted towards the bottle in her hand before looking at olivia. "i was gonna stick around and pretend i didn’t have anything better to do," he replied as he wiped his hands on a rag out of habit. "fix a bike that doesn’t need fixing, catch up on this month's expenses." and think about her, the usual.
but yeah," he added, "i’ve got time. what's our poison tonight?" he asked, before looking at the bottle she had brought.
There were very fews things in her life that Olivia dwelled one, or rather, that she regretted. But this, the distance between them, how she handled things, it plagued her nights. Not that she ever let Liam, or anyone, know. Her godmother had an inkling, Olivia never talking about what happened, but she lived with her for months and she could sense it. But to the rest of the world, Olivia Walker just walked out of town one day and didn't care to look back. Now that she was older, now that she knew she would handle things differently, the woman didn't see what good it could be to tell Liam what happened. Maybe she wanted him to hate her to way she hated herself. Except that she knew him, knew he didn't, which made coming back to him all that easier and yet harder.
"Wouldn't be my first time," she shot back teasingly. This place was filled with memories of them, of Olivia silently watching Liam as he worked and learned. Of her asking too many questions and being impatient to have him all to herself. This place never changed, even when they did. "Fixing the bike sounds more fun." Balancing the books was the thing she hated the most and avoided at all cost until it couldn't be anymore. "Swiping bottles from my own bar is less fun than when we used to steal them from my dad, less of a rush of adrenaline." Olivia had brought his favorite, her own fucked up way of showing she still cared. "I saw Maeve in town," she said, almost hesitantly. "Is she really staying for good?"












