“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—
“Do you have clothes for me?”
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 some
thing 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.
Strange. But bad? Well. Ben would wait and see about that.
Chapter Nine
“JESUS CHRIST.” Liam stared at the wild jumble of thorny vines in Seth’s backyard. “It’s apocalyptic. Instead of pruning, should we try napalm?”
“Not unless you want your first meeting with Dinah to go pretty damn poorly,” Seth advised from his safe spot on the porch. He had Tamara in his arms, since Dinah was off running errands, and he had already declared that as much as he’d like to help with the raspberries, his childcare duties had to come first. “That’s just a year’s growth. Well, two years, I guess. The bastards are clever—they grow the cane one year, the berries the next, so you can’t kill ’em until after their second year. Not if you want the berries.”
“They sell raspberries at the grocery store, don’t they?”
“Sacrilege. Those berries aren’t as tasty, plus they cost a lot. This is nature’s bounty here, buddy. These plants were put on the planet to provide juicy nourishment to my friends and family. They can’t be disrespected.”
Ben returned from the shed, carrying a set of loppers, a bow rake, and two pairs of heavy leather gloves. “It’s a ritual,” he told Liam. “Me doing the work, Seth preaching about the sanctity of my labors. Tradition.”
“You could think of it as penance,” Seth suggested. “If you bring me a few promising canes, I’ll whip up a couple crowns of thorns.” Then he frowned at Liam. “Or maybe just one.”
Liam didn’t respond to that dig. Seth had been reasonably courteous and welcoming when Liam had shown up at his front door, but that didn’t mean he’d forgotten his totally valid grudge. Liam was on probation, and he’d be stupid to push for more.
“I think we can skip the accessories,” Ben said. He handed a pair of gloves to Liam, then said, “I’ll start with the loppers and you can be my faithful assistant?”
“Maybe not ‘faithful,’” Seth interjected from the porch.
Ben ignored the interruption. “You can use the rake to pull the canes up and away from my face. I’ll duck under and cut the old canes close to the ground, and you’ll use the rake to pull them free? We can switch after a while.”
“Maybe we should pull them all out and plant something else instead,” Liam suggested, but he reached out with the rake as directed. “Strawberries don’t have thorns, do they? Blueberries? Those are delicious. Goji berries? Really, there are hardly any berries that do have thorns. Seems like it’d be easy to avoid this nonsense.”
“There are even thornless raspberries,” Ben said. He looked up from his crouched position and smiled. “But they don’t taste as good.”
“The blood of the gardener is good fertilizer?”
“Must be.”
They worked quietly for a while, falling into easy, companionable teamwork. After twenty minutes, with only a few fairly shallow scratches to Ben’s face, they switched jobs and kept going, then switched back when it seemed fair.
It felt good. Well, no. The job itself felt backbreaking, scratchy, frustrating, and pointless. But working with Ben? Being with Ben? It was frighteningly perfect.
Little huffs of frustration followed by rueful laughter when the berry bushes didn’t cooperate. Shared triumph when a stubborn cane surrendered. Almost telepathic awareness of each other’s plans and actions, anticipation and communication and synergistic intent….
Was it like sex? Well, no, not unless sex with Ben was a lot thornier than Liam remembered it. Maybe it was just like friendship.
“You guys remember you’ll have to burn the old stuff, right?” Seth called down from the porch. “You might want to get started on that soonish so you don’t have too big of a pile built up.”
Yeah, friendship, with all the thorns. “It’s a good thing you’re holding a child,” Liam said, “or you’d be getting some pretty clear suggestions for where you could shove any brambles that need to be stored before burning.”
“But I am holding a child.” Seth lifted Tamara up, Lion King style, and displayed her to the backyard. “She is my sword and my shield, my heart and my helm—”
“Your daddy’s a bit loopy, Tam,” Ben called.
Tamara giggled and stretched her arms out in a better approximation of flying.
Liam stood a little too quickly and felt a raspberry thorn snag at his face. An itchy sting, not even real pain. Only that, in exchange for the privilege of being part of this moment, part of this silly, meaningless, nothing piece of time.
But Ben stepped closer and pulled off a glove, then reached up and ran his thumb over Liam’s cheek, and the nothingness turned into eternity. The two of them standing together, facing each other, Ben touching Liam, Liam staring back, afraid to move or even breathe in case it broke the spell.
Ben held his thumb up. “You’re bleeding,” he said gently.
“Fertilizer,” Liam managed.
“I don’t want to send you back to the city all scratched up. You arrived in pristine condition. You should leave here the same way.”
The words were right there. I don’t have to leave. Or even I don’t want to leave. I could stay here and the scratch would heal and all of this, all of everything, could just fade away as a lesson learned.
But of course Liam couldn’
t say that. He wouldn’t say it, at least. He’d been impulsive before and Ben had gotten hurt; he needed to be more controlled, more careful now. He couldn’t give in to some ridiculous berry-induced euphoria. He was an adult, and he had his own life, his own ambitions and dreams, far away from North Falls. Far away from Ben Harding.
And his phone rang as if on cue. It broke the spell, which was probably a good thing, and he stepped away as he fished the device out of his pocket.
It was Marius, Tristan’s assistant. There was no reason for him to be calling, surely? The thing with Tristan was done.
But it wouldn’t be truly done until it was finished in Liam’s head, and that wouldn’t happen until he was able to take a simple phone call without his chest racing and his stomach churning unpleasantly. He made himself answer.
“Liam,” Marius said. He sounded agitated. “We need you here—Tristan needs you.”
“He needs me for what?”
“He’s had a heart attack—well, maybe. He’s with the doctors now. We’re at the hospital. But he asked me to get hold of you. It only makes sense—he won’t be back at work for a while at least, and he needs someone who can hold it all together for him. That’s you, right?”
“I don’t work for Tristan anymore, Marius. Did the two of you forget that?”
“He’s in the hospital! He could have died! This is no time for pride or stubbornness or whatever it was that got between you two. He needs you now, Liam. Don’t let him down.”
It was an opportunity. Impossible to deny that.
Liam looked around at the ragged backyard, the half-pruned raspberry patch. Seth and his daughter. Ben.
Ben.
But Liam couldn’t live in a magical garden forever. He’d traveled back in time, but it was only for a visit. He wasn’t a kid anymore, and his adult life was in the city. It wasn’t with Ben. Was it?
“I’ll call you back in a couple minutes,” he told Marius, then hung up without waiting for a reply.
Ben was watching him, waiting.
“I might have to go back to the city,” Liam said.
All That Glitters Page 8