Chapter Ten

 

 

LIAM DROVE back to the city in a daze. He had no idea what he’d been doing in North Falls, but now that he was heading away from it, he had no idea why he was leaving.

Well, he knew the practical reasons. Marius had texted and called several more times over the course of the drive, making it clear just how much Liam was needed and just how rich the rewards could be if he complied.

It should have been a dream come true. It shouldn’t have felt like stepping back into a gilded cage.

He went straight to the hospital as Marius had requested, waded through the bureaucracy, and found his way to Tristan’s room.

He hovered in the hallway outside, strangely reluctant to step over the threshold.

But he’d come all this way. He’d walked away from Ben—well, he’d stood in a sort of daze while Ben practically shoved him away—but the net effect was the same. He’d left all that behind in order to come to this meeting. Now he’d damn well follow through.

He knocked gently, then eased the door open.

Tristan was sitting practically upright in the bed, his tablet in front of him, Marius hovering anxiously by his side, and other than a few tubes and a bit too much gray in his complexion, the old guy looked fine. Heart attack? Really?

“You look okay,” Liam said, stepping into the room. “How do you feel?”

“Better.” Tristan shrugged. “Apparently it was very mild. They’re keeping me overnight and running more tests, but I’m thinking of the whole thing as a warning rather than a crisis.”

“You thought it was a crisis when it was happening,” Marius said firmly. “You were trying to dictate final bequests and instructions for your funeral.”

“I’m a dramatic person. I was being dramatic.”

“But you’re fine now,” Liam said. He’d left Ben behind, and this was nothing.

“I’m fine,” Tristan agreed. In the face of a glower from Marius, he added, “But, yes, it was a warning. I’m taking it as a warning.”

“I see.” Liam had left Ben behind. He could have been spending his day with Ben, and instead he was doing this? No, he wasn’t playing this game. “Can you clarify—did you ask Marius to call me in, or did he do that on his own?”

Marius raised an eyebrow at Tristan, who said, “I asked him to call you.”

“And do you regret that now? Is there still something you want to talk about, or should I just wish you a speedy recovery and go order a fruit basket?”

“He’s recovering from a heart attack,” Marius scolded. “Stop pushing.”

“I have it on good authority that he’s fine and was just being dramatic.”

Tristan pushed himself up a little straighter in the bed. “You’re going to make me work for it, are you?”

“Work for it? I’m going to make you at least say it. I don’t think that’s asking too much.”

“Fine.” Tristan grimaced. “I need you back at the firm. I need to slow down, at least for a while, and I need someone there who can handle things while I’m taking care of myself. That person is you, and we both know it.”

“You didn’t fire me, you know. I quit. So you wanting me back isn’t really that big of a deal.”

“You quit because I gave the Taybec Briggs project to Allison. But that was only a couple days ago, and we haven’t made the announcement public yet. I can take it back. I will take it back. You can do it and keep an eye on the company too.”

“That’s a pretty shitty thing to do to Allison. And a pretty shitty thing to do to Taybec Briggs, too, if you really don’t think I’m the best person for the job.”

Tristan squinted at him, and for the first time looked a little tired. A little sick. Maybe even a little old. “So what do you want from me? You took your time getting here—I assume you had a good idea what I wanted and thought over your options. Now it’s your turn to say it. What do you want, Liam?”

It had taken Liam a long time to get to the hospital because he’d been well out of town when he’d gotten the call, but there was no reason to go into it. And the drive back had given him time to get his thoughts in order. “I want a piece of the company. We can come up with something in terms of me buying in, but I want my name on the door, I want control over any jobs I bring in, and I want a share of the profits.”

“I’m lying in a hospital bed and you’re trying to take advantage of the situation like that?”

“I’m not trying anything. I’m telling you the terms on which I’m willing to help you out. If you’re interested, great. If you’re not, that’s fine too. Your call. No pressure.”

“No pressure.” Tristan looked at Marius as if inviting an opinion, but Marius just shrugged.

“It’s the weekend,” Liam said. “You should have a plan in place for Monday morning in order to keep the gossip from getting out of control, but you don’t need to decide anything right away. If you don’t want to work with me, you could call Shannon Tate—she’s looking for a change, I think, and she’s got a good head for business. Lars Pedersen might be able to help out, but you’d have to back up the money truck to get him away from Mikhael. Might be worth it.”

“But they won’t be familiar with our projects, our staff.”

“No, they won’t. I’m definitely the best person for the job. Unfortunately for you, I know my value.”

Tristan closed his eyes, probably as an expression of disappointment or disgust, but there was enough ambiguity for Liam to say, “You’re tired. I should be going.”

No one objected, so he left, stopping at the nurse’s station on the way to check on regulations for sending flowers or gifts to the patients. Yeah, that’d be smooth, to send a really clean, modern flower arrangement to Tristan—something bold and architectural. That’d be a nice touch.

There should be other details Liam could plan out, other moves in his little power play. He should call up Scarlett and Nolan, architect friends, and see if they were free for dinner, or at least drinks; they were good strategists and would be able to help him brainstorm. Or maybe it was time to get in touch with a few key clients, let them know that he might not be leaving the company and gently manipulate them into contacting Tristan and offering their support.

Yeah, there were lots of things Liam should be doing, but as he stepped out of the bright hospital lobby into the even brighter early afternoon, he didn’t want to do any of them. He’d left the car at home and taken a cab to the hospital; now he started walking, hoping the exercise would clear his head.

Strategies. Plans. A real opportunity, right there waiting for him.

He wondered if the raspberry battle had been won and whether there had been casualties. He thought about Ben’s car and whether it even made sense to fix something that old or whether it’d be better to send it straight to the junkyard and get something new. Was Ben sentimental about the piece of crap, or was he just cheap? Or, hell, maybe he couldn’t afford anything better. Teachers didn’t make all that much money, did they?

But maybe Ben really liked the job. He hadn’t planned on being a teacher, not back when Liam had known him. Ben had been content to just let things happen and go with the flow. It had worked well, him being so laid-back, because Liam tended to be more driven, and if both of them had been driving at the same time, it could have been pretty messy. No, they’d been a good team. A good couple, until Liam had thrown it all away.

But, no, none of that was what he was supposed to be thinking of. Damn it. There was something important at stake, here. Yeah, partly it was a chance at—not revenge, exactly, but vindication at least. But mostly it was an opportunity. Tristan’s firm wasn’t huge, but it was prestigious, and being one of two names at a boutique firm was way better than being an anonymous cog in some big architecture machine. Yeah, this was a great chance, a real opportunity.

It would have been nice to talk to Ben about it. He’d always been good at getting excited for Liam. Not competitive, not thinking about how something might be of benefit to himself. He’d just be happy because Liam was getting what he wanted.

Would he still be that way? Was he still the same person he’d been before?

Goddammit! That didn’t matter. It wasn’t what Liam should be thinking about.

He pulled out his phone and poked at the screen, then ended the call before the first ring. He didn’t want to talk to Scarlett and Nolan, didn’t want to talk to any of his friends or allies, not about this. If it didn’t work out? If Tristan decided that Liam wasn’t such a prize and decided to go with one of the other options? That was a humiliation Liam would manage on his own; he didn’t want an audience for it.

Not an audience of city people, at least.

If he could talk to Ben about it? Not looking for actual practical ideas, just as a sounding board. A support. Yeah, if he could talk to Ben about it, he’d do it. Hell, if he could drive back up to North Falls and talk to Ben and Seth, and even Seth’s wife, who was new sometime over the last fifteen years but was probably pretty cool if she’d managed to catch Seth’s eye, he’d do it.

He’d talk. He’d share with them.

But he’d blown that years earlier, and Ben had made it clear there was no point in taking a trip any further down memory lane than they’d already gone. Fair enough.

So that left Liam in the city. On his own. Well, that was fine. He’d do just fine without them.

 

 

“WHAT DOES he look like?” Dinah asked. She and Seth had been reasonably discreet while Tamara was with them all in the yard, but now that Seth was off supervising Tamara in the bath and Dinah and Ben were relaxing on the back patio with well-earned drinks, the questions were coming out. “I’ve seen old pictures, obviously, but has he aged well? Sometimes guys like that—I mean, he was so pretty, wasn’t he? Sometimes they kinda lose it when they fill out. Is he still pretty?”

Yup, there it was again. The same conflict, the same desire to talk about Liam, to obsess over him, fighting with the absolutely commonsense instinct to avoid the topic and work on banishing him from Ben’s mind. But Dinah was his hostess and was making pleasant conversation—it would be churlish to shut her down. “He’s not so pretty. But he still looks good. Just in a different way.”

“Still has the cheekbones, though?”

“Really, Dinah, where would his cheekbones go?”

“They could get buried under fat. That happens. Or just—I don’t know. Saggy skin, maybe?”

“We’re in our thirties. I don’t think we need to worry about saggy skin. Not yet.”

She took a sip of her lemonade, then said, “You’re still pretty, in case you were wondering. A bit more manly than in the old pictures, but if I compare now-you to then-you, I’d say you’re still at least as good-looking. He wouldn’t have seen you and been disappointed. In case you were wondering.”

“He’s spent more time with Uncle Calvin than he has with me. Whatever he was doing in North Falls, it had nothing to do with how good-looking anyone is. And he’s gone back to the city now—at least, he was supposed to have—so none of this is important anymore.”

“Was it important before? When he was still here?”

“No.” But Ben really tried not to lie to his friends so he added, “It might have felt important. But it wasn’t.”

“You’re sure?”

“I guess so. I mean—he’s gone. We cleared the air, which was good, and he’s gone back to the city. Which is also good. He’s got a life there.”

“A career,” she said with a sage nod. “And you know about all that because you’ve googled him a bunch of times over the years, right? You probably have an alert set up for any mention of his name.”

“Lots of people Google-stalk their exes every now and then.”

“Yup,” she agreed. “And lots of people eventually run into those exes unexpectedly and go through a bit of a—what? Not a crisis, but a period of questioning. They review their lives, play the what-if game, maybe feel a little wistful about all the lives they could have lived if they’d made different choices. Totally normal.”

“Really? You do this too?”

“Of course not.” She pitched her voice a little louder, giving it enough volume to be sure it would carry through the open bathroom window at the far end of the patio. “Once I met Seth I forgot all other men. How could I ever expect anyone else to compare to his stunning virility?”

“That’s right!” Seth called from inside.

In a quieter voice Dinah said, “I only ever dated two other guys, in any serious way. One of them’s in the Navy, and I would not be a good Navy wife. He’s still cute, though, especially in his little uniform.”

“The other?”

“He lives down in Atlanta, works for some kind of auto supply place. He has a wife—but I’m way prettier than her.”

“You win.”

“Hell yeah. Or maybe Seth wins. I’m not sure. But, whatever—the point is, it’s fun to look back at old flames. And to talk about that with your friends.”

Fun. It wasn’t quite how Ben would have described the last few days. “There isn’t really that much to say.”

“We don’t have to limit ourselves to Liam. You’ve dated lots of guys. I mean, even if we leave Kevin out of it, there must be guys you’ve wondered about. If you hadn’t been quite so resistant to love’s siren song—”

“Wait. Why are we leaving Kevin out if it?”

“Oh. I just thought—you know. Maybe you wouldn’t be quite ready to include him in a silly little game.”

“Kevin? No, we can play silly games with Kevin. That’s fine.”

“It’s not too soon?”

“Kevin didn’t dump me, you know. We broke up—it was mutual. Really, it was more me than him. I dumped him, really.”

“Okay, so—let’s play the game. What do you think would have happened if you hadn’t dumped him?”

“I don’t know. I guess… I mean, I’m sure we’d still be together, because there was no way he was going to dump me. No way.”

“Would you be engaged by now?”

Engaged. To Kevin. Sure, it had been Kevin’s proposal that had spurred the breakup, so really the only way to have not broken up would have been to get engaged. But—

“Or married, even,” Dinah continued. “It’s been almost a year, right? If you’d gotten engaged last summer, you might be married by now. Oooh, a spring wedding, lots of pastels—could Tamara have been your flower girl? Seth would have to be the best man, I guess. Sorry about that, but I think it would have been pretty unavoidable. You wouldn’t want a church wedding, would you? You’re not very church-y. Maybe something in Calvin’s backyard? He’s got lots of space, and he’d love something like that.”

Married. A wedding. Ben, a married man.

Settled down, stable. Kevin was a second-grade teacher in a town about thirty miles down the highway, so maybe they’d have found a house somewhere in the country between their jobs. Kevin had a dog—a good dog, Bob, a fantastic fluffball of shaggy cross-bred love—and maybe they’d have gotten a cat too. “Bob could have been the ring bearer,” Ben said. “We could have rigged something up around his neck. And maybe we’d have gotten the cat involved somehow, although probably not. Cats probably don’t like weddings.”

“What cat?”

“Imaginary cat.”

“Oh. Yeah, probably the imaginary cat wouldn’t want to be part of it. But what about Calvin? I guess guys probably don’t get ‘given away’ at their weddings, huh? You may be gay, but you’re still not repressed by the women-as-property aspect of the patriarchy.”

The screen door to the patio slid open then, and Seth stepped outside, a towel-bundled and sleepy Tamara in his arms. “I’m here in time for talking about the patriarchy,” he said. “Excellent. Glad I didn’t miss it.”

“Don’t sit,” Ben said quickly. “I need another beer.”

“You see me carrying this child, don’t you?”

Ben turned to Dinah. “Typical man. Thinks carrying a child is all he has to do—no multitasking, no recognition of the generation after generation of women who’ve combined childcare with all the other jobs in their lives. He probably says it’s ‘babysitting’ when he takes care of his own child.”

“I’m not sure you can really bug me about multitasking, son, not when you were unable to combine the tasks of ‘seeing an old boyfriend’ and ‘avoiding the parked cop car.’”

“Give me Tamara,” Ben ordered. “You’re holding her wrong—her feet are going to get cold. Then go get us beers.”

“Yeah, beers,” Dinah said. “Let’s talk about that. You guys can just sit there swilling alcohol and I’m stuck with stupid lemonade. Where’s the justice in that?”

“Well, that’s not the patriarchy, hon, that’s just reality. If I were able to gestate for you, part-time, I would absolutely give serious thought to maybe babysitting the fetus for up to two weekends per month. But I can’t do it, so—” Seth smiled widely as he settled Tamara on Ben’s lap. “Beers for me and my man-friend.”

He headed for the kitchen, and Ben kissed the top of Tamara’s head. “No beers for you and Mommy. Beers are for men.”

“For me,” she murmured sleepily, and twisted her head to peer up at him. “Juice?”

“Too close to dinner,” Ben answered. He knew the drill, and so did Tamara. “Water?”

“Okay.”

“Ahem.”

She roused herself enough to grin, then obediently said, “Yes, please.”

“Garçon?” Ben called. “Your finest clear beverage for Lady Tamara, if you please.”

She snuggled back against him, and Ben looked over to find Dinah watching them. “You and Kevin might have been talking about kids,” she said softly. “You both like them. You’d be good dads.”

“Damn. When you play the what-if game you don’t mess around.”

“Did you guys ever talk about it?”

“In loose general terms, I guess. But nothing specific, no.”

“And your loose general terms were… pro kid?”

“Sure. When you’re done with this current one, I’m planning to ask you to be a surrogate for me and my imaginary boyfriend. Sound okay?”

“Your boyfriend doesn’t have to be imaginary, though. Not if you don’t want him to be.” She sipped her lemonade. “I see him pretty often, you know. We’re on that primary education panel together. He’s still single. I get the feeling he’d be interested, if you gave him a call.”

Kevin. She was talking about Kevin, not—not anyone else. “We broke up for good reasons.”

“I thought you broke up because you weren’t ready to commit.”

“That’s a good reason.”

“Is it?”

“Um—yes? I think so, yes.”

“But… is it really a good reason?”

“You’re annoying when you do that. I know you think you’re cute, but actually it’s just annoying.”

“Is it, though? Is it really annoying?”

“Really, really annoying.”

“Hey,” Seth said, emerging from the house with two beers, a sippy cup, and a bag of potato chips. “Don’t call my wife annoying. That’s my job.”

“Insulting your wife is your job, or being annoying is your job?” Ben accepted the beer he was offered and shifted so he could raise it to his lips without disturbing the child on his lap.

“Both. I’m multitasking, being annoying and insulting.” Seth waited patiently for Tamara to reach for her drink, then found his own spot on the wicker love seat next to Dinah. He smiled at her and leaned over to press a quick kiss to her belly.

It was all pretty perfect. And maybe Dinah was right, maybe Ben should be thinking more seriously about creating his own version of this for himself. Well, his partner wouldn’t have a pregnant belly to kiss, but the general sense of domestic tranquility? That could be replicated.

“I don’t need a partner of my own,” he tried, “because I have you guys.”

“We aren’t going to put out at the end of the night,” Dinah said. Then she waggled her eyebrows at Seth. “At least, not for you.”

Yeah, okay, sex was definitely a valuable aspect of being in a relationship. And while Dinah and Seth were good about not making him feel like a third wheel, having his own partner, his own teammate—yeah, that was appealing too. “If I was seriously dating someone I’d have less time to deal with your raspberry apocalypse. You’d miss me.”

“I was thinking of it more as having another soldier to help fight the good fight,” Seth said.

“What, you’re part of this too? I thought it was just your wife, but—you’re matchmaking as well?”

“I liked Kevin.”

“Of course you did. Everyone liked him. He’s very likable.”

“But not loveable?” Dinah asked.

“I—” Ben was stymied. Had he loved Kevin? In a way, sure. Just not—damn it. Not the same way he’d loved Liam. But look how that had turned out. Look what happened when you were irrationally, unrealistically in love with someone. “You’re both going to feel pretty awful if you push me into getting in touch with him and he turns me down. Pretty darn awful.”

“Nah, I think we’ll feel okay.” Seth smiled complacently.

“But that’s what you think I should do?” It was one more way Ben was being pathetic, really. All the crap, all the anxiety and stupidity with Liam hadn’t been enough; now he was begging his friends to run his love life for him. “I should call him? Kevin?”

Seth and Dinah exchanged a look, and damn it, that was another great thing about being in a relationship, that wordless communication. “We can’t make that decision for you,” Dinah said carefully. “But—if you want to be in a couple, and if you don’t have anyone better in mind—maybe? Or something else. Maybe you don’t actually want to be in a couple at all, and if that’s the case, great, never mind any of this, carry on as you are. But if you do want to be in a couple, then, well, you need to find someone else to couple up with. If not Kevin, then…?”

Yeah. If not Kevin, then what? Internet dating? Grindr was one thing, but an actual relationship? Much trickier. What were the chances of finding anyone better than Kevin, compared to the chances of Kevin finding someone better and taking himself off the market while Ben was fucking around?

There was the fantasy world, and there was reality. Ben needed to live in reality. He needed to protect himself, control himself, use his head. He needed to set a realistic goal and then find a reasonable strategy that would give him a good chance of meeting that goal.

He needed to call Kevin. And it was too damn bad if the butterflies in his stomach didn’t give even a single wing flap in response to the idea.