Loathe to Love You by Ali Hazelwood

            Rain is my favorite kind of weather.

            I am most partial to summer storms, their strong winds and hot air, the way they make me feel like I’m sitting on the humid inside of a balloon that’s about to burst. As a kid, I’d run outside as soon as the rain started just to get all wet—which seemed to outrage my mother to no end.

            But I’m not particular. It’s barely February, early in the night, and the hard drops beating a tattoo on the plastic of my umbrella, they just make me happy. I smile when I unlock the front door. Hum, too. I walk down the hall, listening to the rain instead of what’s happening inside the house, and that must be the reason I don’t hear them.

            Liam and a girl. No: a woman. They are in the kitchen. Together. He’s leaning back against the counter. She’s sitting on it, at his side, close enough to lay her cheek on his shoulder while she shows him something on her phone that has both of them smiling. It’s the most relaxed I’ve seen Liam with anyone. Clearly a very intimate moment that I should not be interrupting, except that I can’t make myself move. I feel my stomach sink and remain rooted to the floor, unable to retreat as the woman shakes her head and murmurs something in Liam’s ear that I cannot hear, something that has him chuckling in low, deep tones, and—

            I must gasp. Or make some sort of noise, because one moment they’re laughing, arms pressed against each other, and the next they’re both looking up. At me.

            Shit.

            I try really hard not to let my eyes take in how cozy and comfortable he looks, how familiar and at ease. It’s nothing like what happens when he and I accidentally bump against each other in the hallway, like that charged, electric tension that seems to crackle between us when we forget ourselves and our hands happen to brush together. But that’s the point, right? Any physical contact between me and Liam is probably unwanted on his part, while this . . .

            This is mortifying. I want to get out of this room and never come back. Buy an insulated lunch bag and a camping stove, shove them in my bedroom, and be completely self-sufficient.

            The woman, though, doesn’t seem nearly as unsettled, or self-conscious about the fact that she’s currently perched on a piece of furniture in a home that’s not hers, her skirt riding up to show long, toned legs. She smiles at me, and somehow, somewhere, I find my voice. “Sorry. I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt . . . I wanted to get something to drink, and I . . .” And I? And I will now go to my room to flush myself down the toilet. Good-bye, cruel world.

            “I thought you’d be . . .” Liam’s voice seems deeper than usual. I wonder if they were about to take whatever this is to his bedroom. Oh God. Oh God, I just interrupted my roommate and his girlfriend. I’m such a loser. “Out. I thought you’d be out.”

            Oh. Right. I was supposed to go on a date myself. With Ted. Something I agreed to do the other day under the impetus of: meh, why not? This morning I told Liam why I’d be home late, except that I ended up canceling because . . . I didn’t really feel like going.

            For some reason.

            That is unclear to me.

            “No. I mean, yes. Yes, I was. But . . .” I gesture vaguely in the air. As good an explanation as I can come up with.

            “Oh.”

            “Yeah. I . . .” I should really go to my room and do that self-flushing thing. But it’s hard, with Liam staring at me like that. Half-curious, half-happy to see me, half–something else. It’s the first time I find him with someone who’s not Calvin or another one of his dude friends he’s obviously known since forever, someone who’s clearly . . . Okay. He’s on a date. With a woman. About to get laid, probably. And I interrupted. Shit.

            “I’m . . . I’m gonna go now, so you guys can—”

            “No need,” a voice says.

            A voice? Ah. Yes. Right. There is a third person in the room. A beautiful woman with long dark hair who’s still sitting on the counter, glancing with captivated interest between me and Liam, and . . .

            “I was just about to leave,” she says. But it’s a lie. She was definitely not about to leave. “Right, Liam?” She and Liam exchange a silent, loaded look that I’d give half a kidney to be able to decipher.

            “Oh, no. You don’t have to leave,” I say weakly. “I—”