Chapter Twenty

LIAM WENT home with Seth and Dinah as they’d planned and helped Dinah sort and unwrap her gifts while Seth drove the babysitter home. He made sure his Sleep Sheep was opened early, which was about the only real victory he’d managed that day.

Sure, there was the trophy. The man on top of it was bowling, and the plaque on the base was Magic Marker on masking tape, but, still, technically—but, no. Liam hadn’t even won that, not really, because stupid Ben had refused to play the final game.

They were about a third of the way through the massive pile of gifts before Dinah said, “So. Ben was pretty mad today.”

Tempting to deny or divert, but there was also appeal in talking about it. “I guess he was.”

“At you.”

“Seems like.”

“For a reason?”

Well, Liam knew better than to get into that. But knowing better didn’t seem to have too much of an influence on his actions these days. “I shouldn’t have been there. He and I are over and done, and he doesn’t want me hanging around.”

“Wow. That’s—” She pulled a boxed leather football out of the gift wrap and smiled. “I knew it was going to be a football. Katie’s been talking to Calvin.”

Liam had no idea who Katie was, but he was suddenly almost overwhelmed with wanting to know. This Katie, this woman who took Calvin’s insane ideas and ran with them, who brought a smile to Dinah’s face, who was somehow part of this warm, weird, alcohol-drenched little community—Liam wanted to know her. He wanted to be invited to her house, and yes, damn it, he wanted the invitation to be for two people and he wanted Ben to be his companion. He wanted—

“Write it down,” Dinah prompted, pointing to the pad of paper on Liam’s lap. “You said you’d be the secretary, so secretary up. Katie—football. I probably won’t need to be reminded of that one, but you still need to write it down.”

He did as he was told.

Dinah took a sip of her punch before she asked, “Do you think you are over and done? You and him?”

“I guess. I mean—if he says we are, we are. Right?”

“But you wish you weren’t?”

“Yeah.” It didn’t even hurt to say it.

“Why?”

The question came quietly and was simple enough, but it wasn’t easy to answer. Not with the depth Dinah probably wanted and definitely deserved. “Maybe I’m just chasing the past,” Liam admitted. “I think that’s what Ben thinks—he had some crazy theory about this being because my parents are getting divorced, but that’s not it. But yeah, maybe I’m just trying to go back to the last time my life was really good, you know? Maybe.”

“And what’s so not good about your life now?”

“I don’t know. I mean, it’s good, right? Good job—great job, really, as of a couple weeks ago. Nice lifestyle—good apartment, fancy parties with all the movers and shakers and artistic types. Yeah, I’m there as one of the—I don’t know, the supplicants? The ones kissing up, not the ones getting kissed up to. But still.”

“Friends?” she asked as she reached for another gift. “Romance?”

“Friends,” he agreed. Not great friends, maybe, but good enough. And romance? “I get laid all I want.” Which was probably a bit crude, but if this woman was married to Seth, surely she could handle it.

And she didn’t seem at all fazed. “But that’s not all there is to romance. I mean, Ben gets laid all he wants, too, as far as I know.”

That wasn’t something Liam really wanted to think about. Except— “Wait. Are you saying Ben isn’t totally satisfied, romancewise? Like, there’s room for growth there?”

She didn’t answer, just took a sip from her glass of lemonade, then began opening the present on her lap. As she worked she said, “So what’s missing from your life? What are you looking for, really?”

He sighed. Seth, bless his heart, had provided not only a glass of scotch but also the bottle in case refills were necessary. If this conversation continued, they definitely would be. “I think I got distracted by all the shiny things. Like, the things I’ve been chasing after—money, famous people, making a damn name for myself—I think they’re all surface-level. Does that make sense? And then after I chase them down? I’m like a dog chasing after soap bubbles—they look fascinating, and it’s fun to try to catch them, but when I do finally grab hold, they disappear and I’m just left with a bad taste in my mouth.”

“Nice analogy,” she said.

And then she waited. Damn her, she waited.

Into the silence Liam said, “I think I worry that I’m just a shiny thing. Just a soap bubble. No depth, nothing beneath the surface. Easy to pop if I ever slow down, stop dodging and floating.”

“Bunny onesie,” Dinah said.

Liam stared at her, and she jabbed her finger at the pad of paper. “Bunny onesie. Margie Kane. Write it down.”

He did as he was told, then looked up. She grinned at him. “Bought myself a little time to think. Pretty clever, huh?”

“Brilliant.”

“And now you get the benefit.” She reached for another gift. “Do you think shiny things are always empty? I was going to go with, ‘Why do you think you’re a shiny thing’ but I decided against it. Because, honestly, yeah, you’re pretty damn shiny. You’re good-looking and successful and funny and sweet. You’re shiny, sure.” She looked at the gift she was holding. “If I controlled the universe, this present would be deeply significant. It would be something shiny, obviously… a baby rattle? One of those silver ones from Tiffany’s or something? And then—I don’t know. I’d expand things out from there.” She squeezed the present and shook her head. “But it’s a onesie. Guaranteed. And I don’t think anyone’s buying me shiny onesies. So—you’re a shiny thing. Fine. But that doesn’t mean you’re empty.”

“For sure?”

“For sure,” she said firmly. “I don’t know you too well, but I know Ben and Seth and Calvin, and they were close to you for a long time. I’m not saying you didn’t screw up back then, but I don’t think one screwup is enough to neutralize all the affection they had for you for so long. I trust their judgment—Seth had the excellent taste to fall for me, for example—so I know there must be something to you. Something more than the shiny surface.”

And it was happening again. The tears, not yet falling but threatening, and all because this woman, this virtual stranger, was willing to believe he wasn’t totally useless. Awards and publicity and kudos from all directions had left him dry-eyed and calm, but this? Apparently this was too much for his tender emotions to handle.

Dinah was kind enough to turn her attention to the gift for a moment, unwrapping a polka-dotted onesie with a matching hat, and Liam dutifully recorded the details. When he looked up from the page, Dinah was squinting at him.

“Is there something we could do with polka dots?” she asked.

“Something we could do?”

“As an analogy. Your soap bubbles got me inspired.” Oh, she was still on that track. He tried to catch up to her, but she was racing ahead. “Something about the dots all being different colors but still coordinating nicely—that’s true, and it’d be a good analogy for some life issue, I’m sure, but I can’t think of a way to really fit it to the current conversation. Maybe something about how the onesie is cute but also useful? And soft? Oh, and this is a good onesie, because the soft is on the right side! Sometimes there’ll be outfits that are super-soft on the outside, the part adults touch, but then weirdly scratchy on the inside, the part that’s right against the baby’s skin. Those suck. They’re for looks only. But good clothes, like this, are soft on the inside, pretty on the outside….” She stopped, scrunched up her nose, and shrugged. “I don’t know. That’s not an all-time classic, I admit. But for now—you’re a good onesie, Liam. Pretty on the outside and warm and soft on the inside. Sound okay?”

“You’re very kind. A little strange, and you’re almost certainly spending too much time with Calvin, but—kind.”

She grinned and took a sip of her punch. “I spend a lot of time with Ben too. Seth and I—possibly mostly me, but Seth didn’t think it was a bad idea—we kinda prodded him to give Kevin a call and see if there was something left in that relationship.”

Ridiculous that it felt like a betrayal. “So why am I here? It’s kind of you to host me, but if you think Ben should be with Kevin—”

“Oh, I don’t think he should be with Kevin.”

“What? Didn’t you just say—”

“I said we prodded him to call Kevin, to see if there was something left. I didn’t say I hoped there was something left. We just thought—well. Partly we just thought it would be interesting to see what happened—so you’re right, we probably are spending too much time with Uncle Calvin—but mostly we just thought Ben should be doing something. He wants to be in a relationship, but they never seem to last, and we thought he was just getting kind of tired of trying, like maybe he was going to give up. So—Kevin. Better than nothing?”

“He seems like a decent guy.” More or less.

“Absolutely. If he’d been a total jerk, we wouldn’t have suggested Ben give him another try.”

“And it seems to be going well.” Liam reached for a wrapped gift, trying to disguise how much he was hoping to be contradicted.

“Seems like they’re right back where they used to be.” Dinah accepted the gift from him, peered at the card, and said, “Nipple cream. Guaranteed.”

“Pardon?”

“Aunt Maggie is obsessed with my nipples. I guess hers were really a problem when she was nursing, and she’s made it her life mission to ensure that nobody else suffers like she did.”

“That’s noble.”

“But kinda weird.” Dinah slipped the wrapping paper loose, peered at the gift, and nodded. “Write it down. Aunt Maggie. Nipple cream.”

“Do you think—” Liam stopped. He’d been about to ask whether Dinah and Seth would be interested in seeing more of him. He’d have found a better way to phrase it, he hoped, one that didn’t make it sound like discussion of Dinah’s nipples had led him to propose a threesome. But then he’d realized it wouldn’t work.

Seth was a good old friend. Dinah was lovely. There was something undeniably positive about being around them, being around Calvin, being in North Falls itself. But would Liam actually be able to enjoy any of it if he knew he could turn around at any second and see Ben and Kevin together? Ben and anyone, really. Anyone who wasn’t Liam.

“Do you think I’m totally irrational?” he asked instead of his original question. “Am I ‘in crisis’ or some other psychobabble?”

“What do you think?” There was just enough of a twinkle in her eye to let him know she was aware of the therapist cliché in her question.

“I think I’ve gotten everything I wanted at work. I got it in kind of a strange way—kind of a bad way, maybe. I just pushed my way in. But still, I won. I’m in.”

“Yay?”

“It should be ‘yay,’ yeah. So why isn’t it?”

She reached for another gift. “That’s a really interesting question. What do you think the answer is?”

He snorted and took a sip of scotch. Before he could come up with anything more useful than I’ve been missing Ben for the last fifteen years and now that I’m actually seeing him again I have no idea how the hell I’m supposed to walk away, the front door opened and Seth came in, a somewhat bedraggled toddler in his arms.

“Tamara, can you say hi to Liam?” Seth prompted. “You remember him from the other day, right?”

Tamara raised an eyebrow and looked Liam up and down. “Raspberries,” she finally said. Then her gaze fell on the presents, and her body tensed with electric interest.

“They’re boring, sweetie,” Dinah said quickly. “But if you want to come help unwrap them, that’d be great. They’re things to help us get ready for your new brother or sister.”

And that was the end of the soul-exposing portion of the evening. Probably a good thing, really. Liam ended up in the backyard with Seth, drinking beer while wrestling with some raspberry sprouts that had survived the earlier apocalypse, and they were fine together, friendly enough and working in companionable silence. But there was no invitation to deeper conversation, and that was okay; it was fair. Seth was Ben’s.

Of course, Dinah was Ben’s too, according to any metric that made sense.

Nobody in North Falls was Liam’s. Possibly nobody anywhere.

But what the hell was he getting worked up about? An old boyfriend who didn’t want him back? Big deal. He was Liam Marshall, up-and-coming New York City architect and man-about-town. His career was soaring, he had no shortage of interest from men who were, by any objective standard, way the hell more eligible than some small-town schoolteacher carrying a grudge about something that had happened a decade and a half ago. Liam was fine. He was good. Great, even.

By any objective standard.

By a subjective standard? By his own standard?

Well. He didn’t think he should start thinking about that. Not until he was safely at home, or at least in a guest bedroom where nobody would stare at him if the damn tears came back again.