Chapter Twenty-two
IT WAS a big party, in every sense of the word.
Lots of people. Lots of rich people. Lots of rich, famous people. Actors, politicians, patricians of old-money families, nouveau riche citizens looking to make their mark in the cultural landscape, all dressed to impress and mingling in a Tribeca ballroom.
It was a rich hunting ground and Liam was a wolf—no, wolves hunted in packs, didn’t they? He was a—not a lion, he was pretty sure they hunted in packs too. A jaguar? Yeah, he was a jaguar—shit, were they the spotted ones or the black ones? No, he was a panther, a real one, not a mountain lion calling itself a panther, and he was stretched out on a branch, ready to drop down onto unsuspecting prey and—
And sink his teeth into their necks? Jesus, he sucked at analogies.
He wasn’t any sort of animal. He was just an architect ready to charm old clients and meet new ones. He was at the party on business. Everything was business now. For the past week he’d thrown himself into his new role at the firm, and already he was seeing results. Sure, he was also seeing some pretty nasty bags under his eyes from not getting enough sleep, but he’d let Allison doctor him up with some Preparation H and concealer—now that she was his employee, he was happy to be friendly with her again—and moved on.
The night was all about meeting and greeting, making an impression. So when Eric Wilton, the Hollywood A-lister with a house that had been featured in Architectural Digest, smiled at him, Liam scooped another glass of wine off the waiter-held tray and crossed the room to introduce himself. Wilton was out and proud, so maybe he wanted to get laid, or maybe he wanted another award-winning home design. Either way, Liam was interested.
At least, he damn well should be interested. And if he went through the motions, surely he’d kick himself into gear and get interested. Maybe he was just chasing another shiny thing, but what the hell else was he supposed to do? Sit still and wait?
No. He couldn’t let himself be still, couldn’t let himself slow down enough to think. He walked straight up to Wilton, offered his hand, introduced himself, and started in on the small talk. The evening was a fund-raiser for arts programs at inner-city schools, so that made conversation easy. Sure, yeah, art’s important. Architecture? Well, yes, that was his own passion—he said “passion” without wincing at all—but of course architecture was best understood as practical art, just as engineering was practical science—
And Wilton actually seemed into it. He mentioned famous architects, recent projects, his own ambitions for his properties, and he did it all with a mix of bashful charm and genuine enthusiasm that should have been both heart-softening and dick-hardening.
If Liam had known Wilton would be at the party, he would have read up on him and had a better idea about his personal life. As it was? Even if Wilton had been straight he still would have been totally worth Liam’s time. He was something more than shiny. He cared about architecture, was interested in ideas, had a rare sensitivity—
“Sorry, am I boring you?” Wilton asked. He wasn’t being snotty; he was genuinely concerned that his rapture over what he’d seen on his recent trip to Kazakhstan wasn’t interesting. “It’s probably something you’d need to have seen in person. None of it was really all that good, I don’t think, from a design perspective, but there was just a great energy to it, a sense of potential and excitement—sorry. I’m getting started again. But tell me about your firm. What are you working on now?”
Perfect opportunity. Name-drop a couple projects, mention the Taybec Briggs project to show things were always active, then segue into a discussion of how the firm sometimes took on smaller projects, even residential projects, if the client was someone sufficiently interesting, sufficiently artistic—sufficiently famous—and let things happen from there.
It would have been easy, and it was exactly what Liam was supposed to be doing. Bringing in clients, giving them what they wanted. Building the company, building his reputation. Building a damn building.
And maybe building a relationship too. The thing with Ben was over. For good this time, whether Liam liked it or not. And Wilton—Eric—was a prize by any standard. Liam needed to move on.
“I’ve found myself thinking about different kinds of architecture lately,” he said. Not a great idea to talk to the prestigious potential client about something totally unrelated to the firm. That meant this wasn’t about business. “Maybe more like your Kazakhstan experience.”
“I’m not sure I follow,” the actor said, but he raised his eyebrows and smiled in an invitation to continue.
“I think maybe I’m interested in smaller projects. Like small-town houses. Nothing architecturally grand about them, often mass-produced from a common plan, but over the years they get customized in little ways, reformed to better suit their occupants. I was at a house last weekend with three porches—small house, probably twelve hundred square feet or even a bit less, but three big porches—and I remembered helping to build one of them when I was a kid. My friends and me, scrambling all over the place with handsaws and our dads’ cordless drills, putting in way too many screws in one corner, hardly any somewhere else. It was the summer before we started high school, and when we poured the concrete footings we all tossed in little mementos of our childhoods like we were memorializing our own lives—”
He stopped. What the hell was he doing, spilling all this crap to a stranger? But Eric nodded thoughtfully. “The best architecture is for people,” he said slowly. “That’s the ultimate point. If a building can be beautiful, that’s important, but it also has to be functional, and it has to mean something. There has to be emotional resonance as well as intellectual and aesthetic appeal.”
“Damn. We should get you writing copy for our promotional materials.”
“I really care about design. If my career had taken a different turn… well, who knows? You can spend your life wondering about all that, about what might have been, or you can just go ahead with the life you’ve got.”
“The life you’ve got seems pretty damn good, at least from the outside.”
A quick smile, easy and relaxed, genuine enough that Liam honestly couldn’t tell whether he was imagining the hint of sadness. “I can’t complain.”
“Is that your big what-if question?” Liam asked. Taking the conversation from architecture to something more personal. If Eric went along with it, that’d mean something. “Actor or architect? That’s the one you wonder about?”
“It’s one of them.” Eric shrugged, and it was like a physical manifestation of his decision to open up. “A couple relationships I wish I’d handled differently. I wonder what would have happened if I’d come out to my grandfather before he died—it wouldn’t have gone well, I’m sure of that, but I wonder if that would have been a good thing overall. Like, maybe that was a fight I needed to have. Maybe it was a fight he needed to have.” He took a mouthful of wine, swallowed it, and smiled ruefully. “I’ll never know. I guess that’s the point, right? How about you? What are your big ones?”
“Relationship,” Liam admitted. Not too smooth to talk about an old guy with a potential hookup, but he didn’t seem to care about being smooth, not right then. “First boyfriend. I screwed it up when I got greedy. I was a stupid kid, thought I could have everything, have Ben and fuck around with anyone who caught my eye.” Not just sharing that he was hung up on another guy, but revealing his history as a cheater too. Interesting decision.
“First boyfriend?” Wilton nodded slowly. “I think just about everyone screws up their first relationship. And I guess most of us regret it too.”
Was that all this was? Was Liam’s crisis nothing unusual, just typical angst and regret?
He thought about Ben’s smile, his honesty, his strength. And everything that went with Ben. His uncle, his friends, North Falls itself.
“I’ve seen him a bit over the past few weeks,” he admitted. “It’s got me kind of—well. I think maybe I was kind of messed up all along, but it’s got me kind of admitting I’m messed up.”
“You going to keep seeing him?”
“No. It’s over.” Liam gave his smile more confidence than he felt. “His choice. But being with him, and his whole circle of friends, helped me understand what I’m looking for. I want a relationship. Someone to really care about, to trust. So—I don’t know. I guess now I just need to get off my ass and try to make that happen.”
Eric nodded slowly. “That sounds like what I’m looking for too,” he said. His smile was gentle and easy. “Maybe we should spend some time together? Get to know each other a bit better and see where that goes?”
It was a good suggestion. And there was only one reasonable response to it. Liam just needed to pull his head out of his ass and forget about Ben, and he could walk through this new door, explore this new opportunity—start building his new life.
THERE WERE actual paparazzi outside the building, and real reporters too. Ben’s original plan—well, “plan” was probably a little generous, but his original idea—had been to just show up, dart inside, catch Liam’s eye, and take it from there. He didn’t have Liam’s home address, after all, and a phone call seemed a bit too mundane, too noncommittal, for the conversation Ben wanted them to have.
Still, maybe a phone call would have to do. He could call Liam and ask to meet him. That would work, surely, and it was a scheme that was much less likely to get Ben roughed up by aggressive bouncers than anything he could arrange at the stupid ballroom.
Ben should just go. He could give Liam a call, leave a message—no. Not a message. If Ben couldn’t talk to Liam in person, then at least he needed the directness of a live phone call. But Ben could go somewhere and wait. He could get a hotel room, even, and call Liam the next morning. Everyone would be well rested and happy. Absolutely, that made sense. Leave, hotel, sleep, phone, happiness. Excellent plan.
But Ben couldn’t seem to make his feet move.
Liam was right inside that building. Not that Ben had seen him go in, but Liam had told Dinah he was going to this event, so it was a pretty good guess.
And beyond that, Ben just knew. As if he could sense Liam’s presence even through all the crowds and concrete.
He ignored the voice that reminded him about Liam’s many visits to the North Falls area, all of which had occurred without Ben’s mysterious senses picking up any hint of his presence. That was different. Somehow.
Because Liam was inside that building. Ben knew it. And he also knew he couldn’t trust his nerve to hold if he walked away. He’d almost turned around five times on the drive to the city, almost given in to the murky doubts that threatened to overpower the tiny flame of hope in his heart.
If he walked away now, if he had to face a night alone in a hotel room, torturing himself with all the reasons he was stupid to even think about taking a chance on someone like Liam? He couldn’t get through that.
So he stood still, and he waited.
Cars began pulling up, collecting women in gowns and men in tuxedos, whisking them away to the next stop in their glamorous evenings. Ben edged closer to the front doors. He worked his way through the crowd of photographers until he was at the metal barrier that separated the glittering folk from the hoi polloi.
He shouldn’t be there. He was making a mistake. He was going to get hurt, and he knew it. He couldn’t stand it. But he couldn’t leave.
He was frozen in agonizing indecision when Liam appeared in the building’s doorway, and just like that, the uncertainty left him. Liam. Beautiful and smiling, so polished in his tuxedo, so relaxed even in the crowd and under the flash of so many cameras. So, so many flashes.
And shouts. Voices calling “Eric! Eric! Over here, please! Eric!”
Only then did Ben notice the man walking beside Liam, close enough to make it clear they were leaving the party together. Together. Liam and Eric Wilton the fucking movie star, both poised and handsome, both smiling, Wilton waving to the crowd, to the cameras.
It made so much sense. It was so much more natural, more in keeping with the expected order of the universe. Liam and a movie star. One golden creature with another, and Ben should slink back to his small-town world and his small-town life. It would hurt, of course. It already hurt, a weird aching tension in his chest, a swirling in his brain that no amount of deep breathing would dispel. But it was a private hurt, at least. Ben could spare himself the public humiliation of—
“Liam!” Shit, that was him. Yelling. He was yelling Liam’s name. He was.
Still, with all the paparazzi, all the calls for Eric Wilton’s damn attention, Liam hadn’t heard him. It wasn’t too late. Except—
“Liam!” More of a bellow this time. And, damn it, Ben had come this far. He was going to go the rest of the way. Painful humiliation was better than giving up without a fight. “Liam! Hey, Liam!”
Liam still didn’t hear him.
The metal barrier was about waist-high and there were security guards on the other side of it, but not all that many. None directly between Ben and Liam.
And Ben the law-abiding, Ben the elementary school teacher, Ben the careful—Ben jumped the barrier.
It was shocking how quickly the security guards moved in. Also shocking to feel the crush of other spectators following his lead and crashing over the barrier themselves. The chaos, the excitement, the press of bodies, the strong arms locked around his body—well, his neck—and squeezing against his throat—
And Liam was still moving away from him. Eric Wilton had grabbed him by the arm and was tugging him toward a waiting limo, saving him, rescuing him, so the two of them could go off and live in perfection together.
But perfection was a trap. Ben knew that now. Calm, peace, serenity—it was lovely, and necessary, but struggle and anticipation and excitement were necessary too. Did Liam know that? Ben thought maybe he did, or at least maybe he had.
But now? Liam was leaving with another man.
And Ben’s serenity was gone.
He wriggled at least partly free, pushed and struggled until he was upright, called Liam’s name once more, saw Liam half turn before Wilton reclaimed his attention and directed him to the open limo door.
Liam was leaving. Ben had built up his courage, come all the way to the city, risked himself, exposed himself, and Liam wasn’t even noticing his efforts. Liam was leaving with another man, and Ben would be alone. He’d lose Liam again.
And right there, in the crush of paparazzi and autograph-seekers, celebrities and security, Ben roared. Nothing as coherent as words, just frustration, anger, need—passion. He roared, and heads turned toward him. Liam’s head turned toward him.
Eric Wilton turned too, but fuck Eric Wilton. This wasn’t about him. Now that Liam was looking at Ben, this wasn’t about anything or anyone that wasn’t the two of them.
“Ben?” Liam’s voice was carried away by the commotion, but the word was clear anyway. Ben had been seen. Recognized. Acknowledged. And maybe that should have been enough, but damn it, it wasn’t.
He squirmed free from the grip of a guard who’d clearly been surprised by the volume of Ben’s cry and stumbled forward. “Liam!” he called.
And Liam was stepping toward him, although he looked more concerned than amorous. “What the hell’s going on?” Liam yelled. He shook his head, grabbed Ben’s wrist, and tugged him forward.
Before Ben understood what was happening he was being shoved into a limo, soft leather upholstery cushioning his graceless sprawl. He stayed still for a moment, one arm and leg on the seat, the others on the floor, trying to figure out what he’d just done.
As the vehicle began to move, he struggled gracelessly onto the bench and stared at the two men opposite him. Liam was staring back. Eric Wilton, on the other hand, looked smooth, polished, and slightly amused.
“Am I the only one thinking ‘threesome’?” the actor asked.
Ben closed his eyes and tried to find a moment of peace, but there was none to be had. So he opened them, looked at Liam, and said, “I hope you are. But I’ve screwed all this up badly enough, making the decisions myself. I think I have to put myself at Liam’s mercy now.”