Chapter Eight
BEN’S PHONE rang early that Saturday morning. He squinted at the alarm clock. Oh. Not all that early, really, but he’d tossed and turned all night, restless and fretful, so he deserved a bit of a lie-in. But he wasn’t going to get it, apparently.
He fumbled his phone off the bedside table, scowled at the call display, then answered the call and lifted the phone to his ear. “What?” he demanded. He’d wanted it to sound like a growl, but it came out more like a whine. Damn it.
“Morning, Sunshine,” Seth said cheerfully. When Tamara was a baby, Seth had been assigned the 5:00 a.m. feeding, and it seemed to have permanently transformed him into an early riser. It was really annoying. “What are you doing?”
“I was sleeping.”
“Oh. Sorry. But you don’t want to waste the whole day, do you? It’s past nine. We should do something!”
“Are you about to suggest I come over and help you with outside chores?”
“I wasn’t, but I appreciate your offer and I gratefully accept! Wear long sleeves because we need to do something with those raspberry bushes.”
“Why did you call, then?”
“Oh, yeah. Because—okay, I honestly have no idea if I should even mention this. But I’m going to.”
“Are you? Sometime soon, maybe?”
“Rissa called me, just now. I’m not working this weekend, but there was a weird situation, and she wanted you to be aware of it but she didn’t want to call you herself, so….”
Rissa was Seth’s co-owner at the garage. “The car’s worse than we thought? Shit, Seth, how much is this going to cost me?”
“Funny you should ask that, actually. Because—maybe nothing.”
“Maybe it’s going to cost me nothing? What? Like, it’s a write-off? If you’re trying to put a positive spin on my car being a write-off, you should stop trying. Damn it, what—”
“Not a write-off. But… possibly a concerned citizen has stepped forward and wants to pay for the repairs.”
“Possibly… a concerned citizen?”
“Not a citizen of North Falls, necessarily. At least, not anymore.”
“Liam wants to pay for my car repairs?”
“Apparently he feels responsible for the accident.”
“He was responsible for the accident!”
“Really? He was sitting beside you and he reached out and grabbed the wheel and made you run into Laura Doncaster? Because I’ve pictured this event a lot of times in my mind—and Dinah has pictured it a lot, too, and she is very grateful to you for the amusement—but in none of my imaginings was Liam actually in the car with you.”
“He wasn’t in the car, but—”
“But he jumped out in front of you, causing you to heroically swerve into Laura Doncaster’s Chariot of Authority.”
“He didn’t jump. But he has no damn business being in town, and he caught me by surprise.”
“And then you caught Laura Doncaster by surprise.”
“Could you please stop talking about Laura Doncaster?”
“But it’s okay if we keep talking about Liam?”
“God, better him than Laura!”
“Really. That’s a bit of a change, isn’t it? I mean—”
“Okay, yeah, I didn’t mean it. I don’t want to talk about either one of them.” Except he kind of did. Well, not about Laura. “Liam offered to pay? He went to the garage?” Because he thought Ben was pathetic and needed charity, and because he didn’t want the nuisance of talking to Ben again. Whatever the hell Liam was doing in town, it had nothing to do with Ben. This proved that. If he’d wanted to see Ben again, this would have been a great excuse, but he hadn’t.
“Rissa said she wouldn’t take payment from him without your permission. So I think he may be trying to talk to you to get your permission. Possibly pretty soon.”
The doorbell rang.
Ben looked down at himself. Ratty T-shirt, old cutoff sweatpants. He knew his hair was messy, he hadn’t shaved, he had morning breath, and he fully expected there were some creases on his face from the pillow because he’d been really, really asleep when the phone rang.
“Is Liam Marshall ringing my doorbell?” he asked in a small voice. “Rissa gave him my address?”
“No, but it’s not like he’d have trouble finding someone who would. Everyone knows you, and—well, he’s Liam Marshall. People like helping him out.”
“This town needs to do some thinking about its priorities. And maybe have a review of privacy legislation.” He looked frantically around the room. Should he hide? Was hiding an acceptable response? But if he hid, Liam would go away, and—oh, God, what was he thinking? He wanted Liam to go away. He needed to want Liam to go away.
“Are you going to answer the door?” Seth asked. “Damn, I wish I had a video of this. Can we FaceTime?”
“No. Go away.”
“Are you going to—” Seth started, but Ben hung up on him.
Liam Marshall was at the door. The door of Ben’s house. Their previous meetings had been public, unplanned, rushed, chaotic. This one was… what the hell was this one? Still pretty chaotic, if the churning in Ben’s gut was any indication.
Shit. He needed to make a decision. Answer the door or hide under the bed? No, not under the bed. Too dusty. The closet—
And strangely enough, that was what got him moving. He wasn’t in the closet. Never had been, never would be. He wouldn’t hide who he was, and he wouldn’t hide from Liam Marshall.
He resolutely refused to glance into the mirror as he passed the open bathroom door. He didn’t care what he looked like. This was going to be a conversation about financial restitution, not fashion.
He yanked the wooden door open and scowled through the screen door out into the bright sunlight. Liam was backlit, the sun forming a fucking halo around his too-perfect face. Because of course that’s how it was. Stupid sun. Just one more vote for the sainthood of Liam Marshall.
“What?” Ben said, and this time his voice was much more growly than it had been on the phone.
“I’m sorry—did I wake you?” Liam looked shocked by the possibility. “Is it still early? Shit, I’m sorry. I woke up a long time ago, and the garage was open, and the bakery was open….” He held out a brown paper bag. “I guess I didn’t look at the actual time. I brought you cinnamon buns. I don’t know if you still like them. I can just leave them, though, and you can go back to sleep. Sorry.”
“You say ‘sorry’ a lot.”
Liam frowned. “I guess I have a lot to apologize for.”
“But ‘sorry’ isn’t magic. It doesn’t actually change anything.” This was a much deeper conversation than Ben had intended, but now that he’d started it was hard to stop. “It’s just—you should stop doing the things you need to apologize for. Shouldn’t you? Rather than just doing them and thinking that an apology will make everything better?”
“Right.” Liam stepped backward. “Sor—” He grimaced. “Should I just tell you why I’m here, or would you rather I left and came back later?”
Ben knew better. Of course he knew better. But he pushed the screen door open anyway. “I’m awake now. I’ll make coffee. Have you already eaten?”
“No.” Liam stepped forward cautiously, clearly looking for a trap, which was a pretty good idea on his part. “But I don’t want to intrude.”
For a quick moment, Ben wished he’d had company the night before. Someone really hot, someone casually affectionate—he’d stroll out from the kitchen wearing nothing but boxer briefs, showing off his ripped body and big bulge, and he’d have a mug of coffee for Ben and he’d nuzzle in over his shoulder and kiss Ben’s neck and whisper, “Is he staying, or do I get you to myself?” And then—
Well. None of that was going to happen, damn it. “You’re not intruding,” Ben said, although it was obviously untrue and he wasn’t going to try too hard to pretend otherwise. “Come in.”
As soon as Liam stepped inside, Ben wished he’d suggested they stay out on the porch. It was too strange, too damned intimate having Liam in his house. But Liam strolled in as if everything was totally natural, totally fine, and he glanced around, then smiled. “This place suits you. The colors and everything. It feels like—like you.”
“You have no idea what I ‘feel like.’ Not anymore.” Ben turned quickly and headed for the kitchen. What the hell was he doing? If he was going to let Liam into the house, which he’d already done, then he needed to be a better host. Not gracious, maybe, but at least not bitchy. “Sorry,” he said, and Liam snorted. Yeah, okay, it wasn’t a magic word.
“I don’t need to be here,” Liam said. “If you don’t want me here, say so. I went by the garage and asked to pay for the repairs to your car but they wouldn’t take my money without your permission. I just wanted to ask you if that was okay. And if it’s okay, can you call the garage? Then I can get out of your hair.”
And in true preteen angst-monster fashion, Ben hated the idea of letting Liam leave. Letting him walk away again, to be gone for another fifteen years? God, it was unthinkable. “I’ll make us coffee,” he said, trying to sound calm and less likely to snap Liam’s head off. Shit, trying to make himself attractive, acceptable, like a desperate fifties housewife trying to lure her cheating husband back to the nest. Was that what he was doing? Was he that pathetic?
“Shit,” he said, and he turned to face Liam. “What’s going on? I feel like—well, okay, I was just all bitchy about you not knowing, but fuck, Liam, I don’t know what I feel like, not anymore. Why are you here? I don’t mean at the house—no, you can’t pay for the car repairs. So if that’s all this was, we’re done. But if you’re going to stay, I want to know why you’re in North Falls. You’ve been away a long damn time, you know. What are you doing here now?”
Liam stared back at him, and it was as if they’d jumped back to who they’d been when they were kids. Ben could read the indecision on Liam’s face, the struggle between keeping up his perfect façade or letting himself be open and honest and vulnerable. And just as it had when they were kids, the honest option won. “I have no idea what I’m doing here,” he said quietly. “No idea what I’m doing anywhere. I—I don’t know.”
“Huh.” Ben let himself be distracted for a moment by the familiar ritual of measuring coffee grounds and pouring water. But it didn’t take long, and while he waited for the coffee to start flowing he looked back toward Liam. “You’re okay, though? No terminal illness or big tragedy or anything?”
“I quit my job. But that’s not exactly a tragedy. I think—I don’t know, the work stuff was the final straw or something. The trigger? But I don’t think it’s the whole problem.”
“Okay.” And strangely, it was okay. “There’s a problem. Something we can analyze and figure out and solve. Right?”
“We?” Liam smiled softly but shook his head. “I can’t drag you into whatever this is. After—after what I did—”
“After you cheated on me. Might as well get the words out there.” Ben found two mugs, then turned around quickly. “And while we’re at it, let’s get all the words out there. Because you cheated on me a lot. Not just the one time you got caught. Right? That wasn’t—it wasn’t a one-time thing. Not a one-guy thing.”
“Not a lot,” Liam protested. He stopped and looked at the floor. “But, yeah. More than one time. More than one guy.”
“And I knew.” There it was. The truth Ben had never shared with anyone, had barely admitted to himself. “I knew, and I didn’t say anything. Didn’t stop you. You just kept getting more and more obvious, like you were fucking daring me to bust you. Is that what you were doing? Were you too chickenshit to break up with me like a man so you just kept pushing and pushing? Because you had to know Seth was on his way to your apartment. You could have gotten that guy out of there faster if you’d wanted to. But you didn’t want to, did you? You wanted to get caught.”
“I don’t know,” Liam whispered. Then in a stronger voice, “What about you? What the hell were you thinking? Why didn’t you bust me any of the other times? Was it some sort of a game? Did you even fucking care that I was doing it?”
They stood there in the kitchen, staring at each other. The coffee was forgotten, the years were forgotten, and it was just the two of them again, having the fight they should have had fifteen years earlier. But Ben didn’t want to fight anymore. “We were just kids,” he said. They’d been in their twenties, but barely, and neither of them had been especially mature for their ages. It felt like an important realization. Like the first step toward forgiveness, not just for Liam but for himself. “We didn’t know how to have a relationship. Didn’t know we had to work at them, didn’t know they needed to be cared for and maintained. We thought….”
“We thought love was magic. Thought it was all we needed.” Liam shook his head. “No, wait. I fucked up. This wasn’t—I mean, you not being perfect or not having a clear idea of what was going on is no damned excuse for what I—for me cheating on you.”
“No, it’s not. But that was a long time ago.” Strange how liberating it was to say so. “I can’t keep being angry about that. I shouldn’t have stayed angry as long as I have.” He let the words fill the air, then nodded. “Yeah. That feels right. You fucked up. Absolutely. But we were friends for a long time before we were anything else. I don’t want to keep—I don’t know, keep denying that, I guess. I don’t want to keep ignoring it. We might not have worked as a couple, but we worked as friends, didn’t we?”
Liam swallowed hard and looked up at the ceiling as if he thought there might be an answer written on it. “Yeah,” he finally said. “We were good friends. At least I think we were. I guess Seth might not agree.”
“Seth’s a dad now.” Possibly not entirely relevant, but maybe it kind of was. “He’s got a daughter, and another on the way. He’s different. Well, he’s still Seth, but he’s grown up too.”
“Calvin told me about that. The kids, I mean.”
“You’ve seen Uncle Calvin?”
“I stopped by the store yesterday. He invited me over for dinner last night.”
“He did? What a liar. He called me yesterday after work and said he had a hot date.”
“He was a perfect gentleman all evening.”
An awkward pause, then, and Ben tried to ignore it by filling the coffee mugs. “Still just milk?”
“Yeah, thanks.”
Ben doctored the coffee and it felt so normal, so cozy, so… so much the way things were meant to be. But he couldn’t let himself fall into that trap. He’d let go of the past. That was good. But with no past, he and Liam were just two guys, two former friends, having a cup of coffee together before going their separate ways. It was important to remember that.
So it made no sense that Ben turned around, handed the mug to Liam, and said, “You want to come over to Seth’s with me? We have to at least deal with his raspberry bushes, and if there’s extra help, he’ll absolutely have extra work.”
“You think Seth would want me there?”
“I think Seth would welcome Saddam Hussein back from hell if he knew the guy was going to help him with the raspberries.” Liam didn’t object right away so Ben added, “You look pretty citified. I can lend you work clothes if you want. I think we’re still both about the same size.”
“Citified? I’m wearing jeans.”
“Yeah, but I bet they cost a couple hundred dollars, right? At least? And your shirt looks casual, but it’s probably woven from the webs of endangered South American fishing spiders or something. You don’t want raspberry thorns snagging that fabric. And don’t get me started on those shoes.”
“I wore one of your jackets last night.” Liam looked—not guilty, exactly, but maybe apprehensive? “That green corduroy one you found at the thrift store?”
“You wore—” Ben stopped himself. Was there any reason to continue? Would it be better to just keep his mouth shut?
But while he was dithering, Liam added, “Calvin said he didn’t think you’d mind.”
And that was too much. “Calvin said that?” One more effort at self-control, but it was no use. “Oh, man. That jacket—I got totally drunk after graduation and puked all over it. I mean, there was puke in the pockets. It was everywhere. And I couldn’t make myself wear it after that, so Calvin used it for—I don’t know, he used it for everything. Like, at least one cat has had kittens on that jacket. Blood and feline vaginal fluids soaking right into it. And I’m pretty sure he used it as a big rag sometimes to mop up whatever disgusting crap came along. He—I never knew why he didn’t just throw it out. But I guess—” Ben struggled to keep a straight face, but it wasn’t easy, not with Liam looking as queasy as he was. “I guess he was saving it for a special occasion.”
“Feline vaginal fluid,” Liam echoed.
“Don’t forget the puke. And you remember Casper? When he got older he couldn’t always make it through the night without pissing on himself, and I’m pretty sure Uncle Calvin had him use that jacket as a dog bed.”
Liam nodded slowly, processing, then frowned at Ben. “You were never a big drinker. You got so drunk you puked on yourself? After graduation. That was—”
Just after Liam and Ben had broken up. Instead of leaving for their long-planned backpacking trip across Europe, Ben had spent his summer in the magical land of drunken self-pity. Yeah, drowning his sorrows and puking on himself hadn’t been a one-time occurrence. “Uncle Calvin put up with a lot from me. Cleaned up a lot of my messes. No idea why he decided to keep the damn jacket, though.”
“It wasn’t—it wasn’t actively disgusting last night. He must have washed it.”
“At least hosed it off and hung it out to dry.”
“I thought—” Liam shook his head. “He sounded like he’d forgiven me. Like he wasn’t mad at me about it all. I thought we were okay, him and me.”
And he seemed genuinely hurt to think otherwise. “Liam.” Ben waited until Liam looked at him. “He didn’t give you the jacket because he was mad at you. Uncle Calvin doesn’t mess around with people he doesn’t like. It’s his weirdass way of showing affection. You know this.” Or at least he’d used to know it. “He cut my hair in my sleep three different times when I was a teenager. It’s not like he was trying to make a point—he didn’t care how long my hair was. He was just being a brat. Or remember when we came back from school that first fall and there were those damn birds stalking us? Staring at us through the bedroom window all the time? Uncle Calvin trained multiple birds of a variety of species to perch on that windowsill and stare inside. The cranky old coot just has too much time on his hands—it’s nothing to do with being mad at you.”
Liam eventually nodded. “Sorry. I’m all—I don’t even know. I’m a bit of a mess these days. But, yeah, okay, I do know that about Calvin.” He sipped his coffee, peered into the mug as if looking for answers to universal questions, then nodded again. “Yeah. If you’re sure Seth will be okay with it, I’d like to come help with the raspberry bushes. Or whatever else needs to be done.”
“I can safely predict that you and I will handle the raspberries and Seth will do anything else he can think of to avoid going near them. He says it’s a redhead thing and his skin is more delicate than normal people’s, more vulnerable to scratches. But probably he’s just a weenie.”
“If you could arrange to fight with him about that, then I could be on his side, and I’d earn some points that way. Any chance of that happening?”
“Me fighting with Seth while I’m doing his raspberry pruning? It’s practically guaranteed.”
“Okay. If you’re sure—”
“It’ll be fine. Let me find you something to—oh. I guess myself too.” How had Ben managed to ignore his own state of partial dress for so long? How was it still so damn easy to be comfortable with Liam, even after all the crap and all the years? “Let me find both of us something to wear. Guaranteed puke-free.”
“Also no feline vaginal fluids, if that can be arranged.”
“Trickier, but I’ll see what I can do.”
Ben took his coffee with him as he retreated to his bedroom. His hand trembled a little as he set the mug on his dresser.
Liam Marshall was in his kitchen. He was drinking coffee, and he was going to go over to Seth’s and prune raspberry bushes. This was all real. It was happening.
What if Liam came to the bedroom door just then? If he stepped inside, set his own mug on the dresser, stood in front of Ben, reached for the ragged hem of his shirt, lifted the fabric over his head….
Jesus Christ! None of that was going to happen! And if Liam lost his mind and started it, Ben would absolutely end it. Absolutely.
He yanked a drawer open and pulled out a pair of jeans, then another. Liam wearing his clothes. It was just a practical thing, and Ben couldn’t let himself obsess about it. When the day was over, Ben would throw the jeans in the laundry all jumbled up with other clothes, wash it all away, not do anything creepy—
There was a knock on the half-open bedroom door. “Ben?”
Ben’s stomach flipped. It was happening. Liam was—
Right. Clothes. Raspberry bushes and other menial chores. “Yeah, hang on.”
And then the devil took over. That was the only excuse—certainly it wasn’t Ben who stepped out of his shorts and pulled one of the pairs of jeans on, doing the fly up only partway, leaving the button undone. It couldn’t be Ben who was in charge of pulling off his T-shirt and opening the bedroom door half-naked.
He was about the same size he’d been in college, but everything was tighter, now, the baby fat totally gone. Maybe he wasn’t like some model or something Liam might date in the city, but he was in good shape.
And judging by the way Liam froze and then jerked his gaze away, he had the same weakness for Ben’s exposed skin as he’d had years ago.
Or else he was shocked and embarrassed on Ben’s behalf. Mortified that Ben was debasing himself this way.
Shit. Where was a shirt?
Ben shoved the extra pair of jeans in Liam’s general direction. “Here.” He reached into the drawer and grabbed the nearest soft fabric his hand found. “And here.”
“You—you want me to wear that?”
Ben looked at the shirt. It was canary yellow with green lettering celebrating a race he’d completed a few years earlier. The ugliest item in his wardrobe.
He yanked it back. “No. Possibly feline vaginal fluids on that one.” He pulled a plain navy T-shirt out of the drawer and stepped backward, away from the whole scenario. The whole mess. “Pick whatever you want.”
Shirt on, he combed his fingers through his hair and then pulled his sock drawer open. “I only have one pair of work boots, but I have running shoes you can borrow.”
“Ben, if you don’t want me to come, I don’t have to.”
Shit. Ben took a deep breath, tried to exhale the chaotic rainbow racing through his entire body, then breathed in again. Blue, damn it. Calm, easy, deep blue. “No, it’s fine. Sorry. I just—I don’t know. It’s just really strange that you’re here.”
“Strange in a bad way?”
“Strange in an unsettling way.” An invasive, disorienting, frightening way. “But the Battle of the Raspberry Patch requires all available recruits. Pick a shirt and we’ll get going.”
Because surely it would be okay if they just got the hell out of the bedroom. Maybe out of the house altogether. Sure, yeah, everything would be fine once they were over at Seth and Dinah’s. Tamara would be there, for God’s sake, and if there was anything less sexy, less complicated, less confusing than a toddler, Ben couldn’t think of what it would be.
“Right,” Liam agreed, and he pulled a shirt out of the drawer, seemingly at random.
“Okay. Shoes in the front hall, and then we’re ready.”
“Yeah… but, Ben?”
Ben turned and raised an eyebrow in question.
“You planning to do up your pants before we go? Or is that how the cool kids are dressing these days?”
“Shit,” Ben said. He was close enough to the bedroom door that he could just keep walking as he fumbled with his fly, and hopefully that meant Liam didn’t see his flaming cheeks.
It was all so awkward. So silly, so unnatural, so wrong. Well… maybe not unnatural. Maybe not wrong. But it was damn peculiar, that was for sure. It was strange to have Liam back in town.