Mickey came back with the most forlorn look on her face before she smoothed it out for my benefit.

I haven’t seen Hawk at all.

“Liam?” Tara calls, coming down the stairs. “Will you do me a big favor and grab another bottle of red wine from the cellar?”

“Do I look like your maid?” I ask, even as I stand.

“Your hair’s a little shorter.” She sticks her tongue out. “Please?”

“Alright.” I pass her and keep my voice low. “Will you keep Mickey company? I’ll explain later.”

“Yeah.” She says, and there’s something in her voice that makes me pause, but I figure I’m just being weird. “Go straight, take a left, it’s the brown door.”

“Got it. Just one bottle?”

She glances back at the group, and someone’s pulled out twister and cards against humanity. “Maybe two.”

“Cool.” I follow her directions and open the door, feeling my way along the wall down the stairs because there’s no light.

Apparently, that’s only at the top though, because a light’s on when I get to the bottom.

Now to find the red wine.

There are a few rows, and I hear a scuffle and pause.

There better not be any creatures down here.

“Tara, I can—,” Hawk comes around one of the rows and we both freeze. “What the hell are you doing down here?”

“I thought I was grabbing wine.”

If looks could kill, I’d be bleeding out right now. He looks like he wants to smash my face into the wall, and because I’m a stand-up type of guy, I’m going to give him the opportunity to.

Then we need to talk.

“She’s meddling.” He says darkly, face tight.

“If she told you to come down here, I’m betting the door is probably blocked or something until we get some things out in the open.”

“What is there to get out in the open? The woman I was falling for chose you over me. That’s the entire story right there.”

“That’s only part of the story and you know it.”

“It’s the only part that matters.” He sneers, turning around. “Out of all the goddamned people in the world, you had to know my best friend.”

“Funny how things happen isn’t it.” I sit on the bottom of the stairs because if Hawk’s stubbornness is any indication, we’re going to be down here for a while. “I’m glad we get to talk again, actually.”

“Oh, so you can tell me how much I don’t know Michaela again?”

“I might’ve been a little out of line.” I grin, leaning my elbows against the steps.

“You’re pissing me off.” His hands clench at his sides and I roll my eyes. The man is full of tension, so I stand.

“I’m giving you one free punch. But I’m warning you, the second one is gonna cost.” For a second, I don’t think he’s going to take me up on it, then he gets this dead-set look in his grey eyes.

“Don’t give me free anything.”

I shrug. “If that’s what you want.” We start circling each other, and I duck when his right fist swings towards me. I throw a low jab that hits him in the gut and he grunts, but now the adrenaline is flowing.

“Come on, I thought you hated my guts.” I laugh a little because I know it’ll push him, though when my head snaps to the side because of his quick hook to my jaw, it still catches me slightly off guard. “Fuck.”

“Keep talking shit.” He growls, and I rush him, sending us both flying to the floor and grappling with each other. I get a good punch to his face, busting his lip and I can feel a little blood on my face, though I’m not sure where it’s coming from.

When we’re both breathing too hard and our vision is too blurry to beat each other’s asses anymore, we sit on the floor heaving. Hawk pulls down a rag that’s sitting on the box we’re leaning against and wipes his face with it, passing it to me.

“Thanks,” I grunt, dabbing the blood and touching my tongue to my swollen lip.

“No problem.” He rests his elbows on his bent knees and hangs his head. “I don’t know if I want another woman. Shit, my jaw hurts.”

“You’re preaching to the choir, man. You were right about me playing fast and loose usually. It didn’t take long for me to realize that’s not where my mind was really at with Mickey.”

“I was gutted when she left that night. Did she…did she go to you?”

I don’t pretend to not know what night he’s talking about. There seems to be tentative respect between us now and I don’t want to fuck it up.

“Yeah, and she was a mess. It was a different experience holding her while she cried over another man, I’ll tell you that much.”

“Is it shitty that it makes me feel better that it wasn’t easy for her?”

“I think it’s human. You care about her, and she cares about you.”

“And you care about her.” He looks at me and I nod slowly.

“Yeah. I do. Which is why I want to bring something up that you might not like.” I stand gingerly because my head’s a little foggy, and pluck a bottle of vodka from the shelf, opening it.

I slide back down next to Hawk and take a swig, passing it to him. He takes a drink and drops his head back against the wood.

“You don’t want to make her choose.”

I glance at him, not completely surprised. “Yeah. Have you been thinking about it?”

“Yes and no. It’s popped up in my mind a few times after what you said at the shoot, but I’ve brushed it off. Tara suggested it earlier though.”

“Oh yeah, she and Wes do something similar.”

“Am I the only one who didn’t know that?” He scowls, tipping the bottle to his mouth again before he passes it back to me.

“Probably.” I laugh. “You do strike me as a little on the traditional side.”

“I was raised by a mother who made my siblings and I believe that if we masturbated, our hands would fall off. Traditional is a hard thing to shake.”

I whistle. “That’s tough. My mom was pretty miserable. I think I would’ve preferred if she said shit like that, would’ve meant she cared a little bit.”

“Well mine is a bit of a narcissist, the forever victim, you know? When Leslie and I moved to New York, she had dizzy spells for weeks. Said we were abandoning who we were and New York is filled with sin. The crazy thing is she’s not even that religious. I think she’s just getting a little crazier as she gets older, but at least she’s visited us a few times now. Are you better with yours?”

“She passed when I was about 17. I haven’t spoken to my dad in a long time and I don’t expect to anytime soon.”

He passes me the bottle again silently and I drink from it, thinking about how crazy it is that we’re sitting here shooting the shit now.

“That’s what being able to make connections is for. Building some type of family of your own that you can count on.”

“Definitely. Mickey…for the first time, I can see myself settling down with someone. Having a family. When I was dealing with depression last year, I couldn’t find a future in anything. Now she’s here and I can’t think of anything else.”

“I’ve always been the traditional type. Not into casual sex really, relationships always last more than a year. I think I’m so used to things just working, that it threw me for a loop when things weren’t going the way I expected.”

“So where are you at now? If she was open to trying this thing out, with both of us, would you be able to?”

“How would we do it? What will we tell people?”

I shrug. “I don’t have all the answers, bro. But I think she could pick worse men than you, from what I’ve seen. I’d rather see her loved by both of us than make her choose. If I’m honest, I think if she chose me - she’d always wonder about you.”

“And I think she’d always wonder about you if she chose me.” He says quietly, and then he stands and holds a hand out to me. I take it and he pulls me up, sticking his hand out again.

“I’m willing to try if you are. I don’t think it’ll be easy, I still can’t quite wrap my head around it - but I’ve never felt the way I feel about Michaela for anyone else and I’d hate to lose it when there’s another option.”

I take his hand firmly and shake it, nodding once and meeting his eyes.

“I respect that, man. I think if we just…stay honest and think about her first, we’ll be fine.” I feel my phone buzz and I take it out, turning the screen to Hawk.

It’s Tara asking if we’ve gotten our shit together yet. I text back Yes, and we turn towards the stairs.

“She’s going to freak out when she sees our faces.” He murmurs, and I laugh.

“How much do you wanna bet that she’s going to say she’s not choosing either of us before we tell her we’ve called a truce.”

“That’s a bet I can agree with, man. Hey, you’re not uh…bisexual are you?” He sounds so nervous that I crack up laughing and I’m still laughing when Tara opens the cellar door.

This is going to be fun.