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 th
e 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.
Chapter Eleven
TRISTAN CALLED on Sunday evening. He was home from the hospital, planning to take a couple days off and then work part-time for a week or two. And he agreed to Liam’s proposal, in principle.
“It’s a good solution, really,” the old man said. “I’m not interested in the business side of things, and you are. If I have someone on hand to take care of the niggling day-to-day bureaucracy, it’ll free up more of my time for my serious projects. My passion.”
“That’s not quite what I had in mind,” Liam said, but he didn’t push it too hard. Tristan was saving face, trying to put a positive spin on things for himself and probably for his inner circle. “We can discuss details over the next couple weeks, get the lawyers involved to make sure everything’s clear. But in the meantime, I’ll go into the office tomorrow and provide some continuity. Do you want to draft up an announcement email for the staff and run it by me before you send it, or do you want me to draft it and run it by you?”
“Run it by—Jesus, Liam, I am not going to look for your approval of every communication I have with my staff. If you think this agreement is going to give you that sort of power, you need to think again!”
“No, of course not, just like I won’t run every email by you. But something this big, something that involves both of us equally, should be collaborative, right? I assume you wouldn’t appreciate it if I sent out an email announcing this to the staff without giving you a voice.”
“What are you planning on announcing, exactly? We haven’t worked out the details, yet. We may not be able to work out the details, and the whole thing will fall through.”
“Yes, that’s the sort of finesse we’ll need to come up with together. The staff will need to be told something in order to explain my presence tomorrow, but we won’t want to tell them too much. It’ll be a fine balance—do you want to draft up the first version or should I?”
This was what Liam was signing up for? A long future of placating a grumpy invalid who thought Liam was some sort of executive assistant?
No. It was a prestigious firm; it produced important work, and Liam would be part of that. A big part. A creative part, not just an administrator. This was a good thing.
He threw himself into the new challenge. Long days all week long, dealing with staff, networking with clients, and even,
when he could find some time, working on projects. More idea bouncing than really getting into the details of things, but that was to be expected. And he didn’t really mind.
He went home late every night, usually after dinners with clients or colleagues, and fell into bed exhausted.
He was important, he was successful, his career was intense and exciting. It was what he’d always wanted.
And when Calvin phoned on Thursday night, it was the most exciting thing that happened all week.
Not actively exciting. More actively bewildering, as was usual with Calvin.
“I was just calling to check whether you were going to be here in time for dinner tomorrow night,” the old man said, sounding completely reasonable.
“Uh… what? Dinner?”
“You weren’t thinking of driving up Saturday morning, I hope? We need to get started first thing, Liam. I want us on the ground, at work, by eight. Maybe nine at the absolute latest. I think you need to come up the night before. I’ve got Ben’s old room cleared out a bit, enough that you can at least find the bed. You can stay there instead of at the B&B.”
“Calvin. What are you talking about?”
“You’re not trying to back out, are you? Come on, boy! We need you!”
Liam decided to try another tack. “Can you tell me what I should be bringing? Like… tools?” Because if they were on the ground at work, that meant something physical, didn’t it?
“I’ve got all that taken care of. Just bring work clothes, steel-toed boots—you’ve got a hard hat, right? I wouldn’t bother with all that if it was just me, but because this is kind of official, we need to be more careful. Follow all the rules, make sure the insurance guys are happy….” Calvin stopped talking, clearly expecting more questions, more absurdity, but Liam had been sitting at the computer when Calvin called, and there had been enough clues in the conversation for a quick internet search. The North Falls municipal website had a banner headline advertising their big event.
“Is Community Circle just a Habitat for Humanity rip-off?” Liam asked. “Charities are great, but so’s originality.”
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