Read Online Light the Lamp by Catherine Gayle - Free Book Online

You make me smile. You make me laugh. You make me feel things I haven’t felt since Liv died. You make me feel alive—and glad that I am.”
    He was overwhelming me; I couldn’t process it all. He’d known me for less than a day, and already he was pinning all of that on me. How could I be responsible for any of that? I hadn’t done anything but let him give and give and give while I took and took and took.
    “ I’m not sure how to respond to that,” I finally said.
    Liam swallowed hard. “I know. Trust me, I know. I don’t know how to deal with it myself.” He dragged a hand down his face. “Please just stay? Give me a chance to prove I’m not crazy. Give me a chance to show you how much you’re giving to me, too.”
    Whether I stayed or left, I still didn’t have a job. I didn’t have a plan for what I’d do tomorrow, let alone in the next month or so before Ethan and Chris came back to Portland for their summer break from school. It wouldn’t hurt anything to stay for now while I worked that out—at least not if Liam would let me make myself useful in some way or another.
    That was just it, though. I needed some sort of equality or I would be taking advantage.
    I did enjoy it when he flirted with me. Not to mention when I flirted with him. I didn’t get a chance to do that, much. It’s hard to have time or energy for flirting when you spend so much time trying to sort out a plan for surviving until the next day.
    “ How about we make a deal?” I suggested.
    “ What kind of deal did you have in mind?”
    That was an excellent question.
     
    Four weeks, with the understanding that she could leave after a week if she was absolutely sure it wasn’t going to work out—or, more realistically—if she thought she had been wrong, and that maybe I really was a serial killer.That was how long Noelle had agreed to stay. Granted, she could leave whenever she wanted. I couldn’t force her to stay with me…but this was the compromise we had come to.
    After haggling over it for a while, we had eventually settled on four weeks because that was how much time was left in the NHL’s regular season. After that, the playoffs would start—and depending on how the Storm did over the next few weeks, I might be staying here to play in the postseason, or I might be heading back to Sweden to start my summer earlier than any of us wanted.
    We were right in the thick of the playoff chase at the moment. This year, it looked as if for the first time in five seasons, the Portland Storm would get in. Nothing was guaranteed, though. We couldn’t let up. We couldn’t back off. We were going to have to fight tooth and nail every game for the rest of the season, and even then we might be on the outside looking in once we got to the end.
    But Noelle was going to stay at least until then…unless she decided I actually was a serial killer. She had agreed to let me provide her with a place to stay and food and clothes and all the other essentials a person needs, and in exchange, I would help her find ways to feel useful during that time.
    She was already helping me just by being here, but she didn’t understand that. But maybe if she hung long around enough, I could make her understand how different I was with her in my life. That was what I hoped for, at least. I couldn’t think about forever—she was right in that we didn’t really know each other at all, and so agreeing to anything beyond a few weeks was ridiculous—but I wanted to at least think about the immediate future.
    Now that I’d been around her for a couple of days, I didn’t like the thought of her just waltzing out of my life, never to be seen or heard from again…and I was pretty sure she could do that to me.
    I wasn’t ready to lose her. I didn’t even really have her yet, but I definitely wasn’t ready to let her go. Noelle made me feel as if I had someone in my life worth holding on to for the first time since Liv had died, so I couldn’t screw this