“Mark was an idiot too,” she said. And then she leaned forward, closed the small, rain-soaked distance between them, and kissed him.
Nora’s lips twitched. “Oh, God. This song.”
“Neither should you,” he said. “But here we are.” maroon 5 she will be loved
And something shifted. It was subtle, like the first crack of light under a door. Nora turned on her stool to face him fully. The towel fell from her shoulder. Her hand, still trembling, reached out and rested on his forearm.
Nora closed her eyes. A tear slipped down her cheek. “I thought he was the one,” she said. “I thought if I just tried harder, was prettier, funnier, more —he’d stay.” “Mark was an idiot too,” she said
Liam’s heart was a drum kit falling down a flight of stairs. He looked at her—really looked—at the freckles scattered across her nose, the small scar above her eyebrow from a bike accident when she was twelve, the way her sadness made her more beautiful, not less.
The opening guitar riff was soft, familiar. Maroon 5’s “She Will Be Loved.” “Oh, God
“Deal,” Liam said.
The song reached its chorus, the one that had been played at a million weddings and a million heartbreaks: “She will be loved.”
She was behind the bar, but she wasn’t working. She was sitting on a stool, a towel draped over her shoulder, staring at a crack in the wall as if it held the secrets to the universe. Her name was Nora, and Liam had known her for exactly three years, two months, and four days—not that he was counting. She was his best friend’s younger sister, the one with the wild curly hair and the laugh that sounded like wind chimes in a storm. The one he’d been politely, painfully in love with since the first time she’d stolen a fry off his plate and said, “You’re not going to eat that, are you?”
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