“A—what?” He took a moment, trying to make the words make sense, but it did no good. “I—I’ve never even seen you guys have a fight! What the hell are you talking about? You’re in your sixties, you’re living your perfect lives on the beach with all the golf and whatever—why the hell would you get a divorce?” He waited a moment, then demanded, “Is this a joke?”
“Of course it’s not a joke,” his dad said. “It’s something we’ve been thinking about for quite a while.”
“You’ve been thinking about getting a divorce? Why? You guys have always been solid.”
“But is that all there is to life?” his mother asked. “Being ‘solid’?”
“I swear to God, if you start talking about the importance of passion, I’m going to hang up.”
“What? Why? What do you have against passion?”
“I don’t have anything against it, I just—” But his trials at work didn’t seem like something that would add to the conversation. “Never mind. But you guys don’t need to get a divorce! That’s really drastic.” Yeah, this was good. He’d be a problem solver, a mentor. “Why not do a trial separation or something? Take a trip without each other? Just test this out without diving into it.”
“We’ve already done those things,” his father said. “We aren’t stupid, Liam. And we aren’t asking for your permission on this. We’re just telling you what’s going on.”
“You’ve already—what do you mean, you’ve already done a trial separation? When? What the hell? You didn’t mention that to me?”
“Well, there was no real point.” His mother sounded completely placid and content with the entire situation. “We didn’t want to upset you for nothing, if we decided not to go through with it. And before you suggest it, we’ve done counseling too. That was actually what made us realize we don’t need to be married anymore.”
“You went to marriage counseling, and it made you realize you should get a divorce? I think you should ask for your money back.”
“Not at all,” his father said. “It helped us realize that our marriage hasn’t failed. It did what it was supposed to do. It gave us a stable family for raising our child, it gave a framework for us to merge our social and financial lives… it worked. But our needs have changed now, and the marriage won’t work for our new needs.”
“What the hell kind of counselor were you going to? You’re in South Carolina, not California—this ‘conscious uncoupling’ bullshit doesn’t make sense for you!”
“Conscious uncoupling,” his mother mused. “I like that!”
“Me too,” his father said.
“Of course you both like it—you share the same brain! You’ve agreed on every single thing I’ve ever heard you discuss for my entire life! Why on earth would you walk away from that?”
“Why do we need it?” his father asked. “Are we so weak that we need an exact twin to echo our thoughts on every matter? We can’t handle a little dissent, a little disagreement? We can’t let ourselves be excited by new ideas and new experiences, with new people?”
“Yeah, but—” But what? Liam needed to get a grip on this conversation. “Couldn’t you just join a different golf club or something? Find a new group of ladies to have lunch with? Hell, you could make bigger changes than that—start volunteering somewhere, or maybe even start a little business or get a part-time job. There are lots of changes you can make and still stay together.”
“We want to date other people,” his mother said. “We want to have relationships—sexual relationships—with other people.”
Liam fought the urge to drop the phone. “Okay, I’m not really ready to discuss your sex lives with you—”
“And we’re not inviting you to.” His father’s voice was firm. “This isn’t actually something that requires your opinion or your input, and it certainly doesn’t need your approval. We’ve made our decision, and we’ll be letting people know about it starting tomorrow. We’re both planning to stay in South Carolina, at least for the immediate future, so if you come to visit, we’ll both be happy to see you. Your mother’s staying in the house for now, but we may end up selling it. I’ve got an apartment—I’ll email you the address and phone number.”
“Wait—you guys are okay for money, right?” They’d always been comfortable and had helped Liam quite a bit when he’d moved to New York. But maybe they’d overextended themselves, contributing to his flashy life? “You wouldn’t be selling the house because you need to?”
“We’re fine,” his mother said reassuringly. “But the house was too big for two of us, really, so I can’t imagine it won’t be too big for one.”
“Jesus,” Liam managed.
“Think of it like a retirement,” his father said. “It’s an ending, yes, but it’s also a new beginning. It’s a good time to look back and celebrate, as well, and we’re planning on doing that. We’ll be sending you an invitation in a couple weeks—we’re hoping you’ll be able to come down for a party we’re planning.”
“You’re having a divorce party? Like, both of you, together?”
“It’s going to be lovely.” His mother sounded just as enthusiastic about this as about any of her other events. “We’ll have the catering set up by the house, but a fire down on the beach, and I found some absolutely darling candle holders with little tinted glass globes to go over the flame and keep the wind off, so we can light the path through the dunes with those instead of the floodlights. The floods really aren’t very festive, are they? And not flattering either. I think the candles will be romantic.”
“And we’re thinking of having our favorite foods from all the places we’ve lived together. Or at least something inspired by those foods—like on one of the cooking contests on television.”
“We met when we were going to school in Vermont, so we’ll have something with maple syrup. Maybe some variation on kielbasa for our time in North Falls. You know how much we loved Dan Stuart’s kielbasa.”
But Liam really wasn’t ready to help his parents plan the menu for their Happy Divorce party. “This is—” He stopped himself. These were his parents, and they’d made their decision. Decisions, plural, he supposed, and that was going to take some getting used to. But they both seemed fine with the situation. Pretty damn chipper, really. “Okay. I mean—okay. You’re right. This is your decision. I—okay.” Was there anything more to say? “Let me know if you need anything, I guess?”
“Just your handsome, smiling face at the party!”
“And maybe some kielbasa,” his father said. “It’d be nicely authentic if we imported the food from the actual places we lived. We can check on the internet first—if Dan Stuart isn’t in business anymore there’s no point, or maybe he has some way to ship food from his shop. But if that didn’t work out, maybe we’d be able to persuade you to take a trip up to North Falls at some point?”
“Maybe,” Liam agreed faintly.
They finished the call with a few of the inane niceties Liam had been expecting in the first place—good to know that the impending dissolution of his forty-year marriage hadn’t affected his father’s golf game at all—and then Liam stood in his apartment, staring at the wall.
His parents weren’t upset. He knew them well enough to know that neither one was much for putting a false face on; if they felt something, they showed it, and in this case they just weren’t feeling all that much. They were fine.
He certainly had no right to be upset on their behalf, and he didn’t think he was upset, not really. But he was… unsettled, maybe?
Something that he’d thought was permanent had turned out to be just as temporary as everything else in the damn world.
He left the apartment without a real plan for where he was going, but maybe it was time he stopped fooling himself about that. If he was just going for a wander, he’d walk. When he left home and climbed into his car with no real destination in mind? Well, he had a damn destination in mind.
He rolled into North Falls a few hours later
, windshield wipers sluicing a gentle rhythm as he drove. He’d blown right past the Welcome To sign without even thinking about turning around. That was either progress or deterioration, he supposed.
And he didn’t mess around with his tour-around-the-town nonsense this time either. He drove straight to Ben’s house, then parked on the street in front of it. He climbed out of the car, made it halfway up the walk, and at that point his nerve deserted him.
He stood there in the rain, wondering what the hell he was doing. He wanted to see Ben, yeah. He wanted—he wasn’t even sure he had words for all the things he wanted from Ben. But that was his problem, not Ben’s, and showing up at—he looked down at his watch—a little past midnight on a day when Ben needed to wake up the next morning for work? When Ben had made it crystal damn clear that he wanted nothing to do with Liam?
There wasn’t a light on in the house and Liam was going to go knock on the door. That was a dick move. He and Ben had made some sort of peace and that needed to be the end of it.
Still—he couldn’t quite make himself turn around and leave.
So he stood there in the rain, staring at the house.
And that was when a voice, unexpected but oh so familiar, reached him from the dark corner of the porch. “You going to stay out there?” Ben asked. “Or do you want to come inside and get warm?”
Chapter Fifteen
IT WAS dreamlike, maybe because Ben really should have been in bed and actually dreaming. But he hadn’t been able to sleep, so he’d bundled up, gotten himself a glass of scotch, and gone out on the porch to watch the spring rain.
And to wait.
Yeah, it had really felt like he was waiting.
Like he’d somehow known Liam was on his way, and maybe even known Liam would pull back, would stop himself from coming all the way up on the porch and knocking on the door. Maybe Ben had known Liam wouldn’t make the final move without encouragement.
And of course Ben shouldn’t give that encouragement. He knew better. But he’d used up all his powers of resistance, and now? Now it was just fate. Inevitable.
He stood up slowly, still dreamily, and waited at the top of the porch steps. Liam approached with caution, came halfway up the stairs, and said, “It’s okay that I’m here?”
Ben reached for him, brought his hand to Liam’s cheek, and curled his fingers just enough to draw Liam up the rest of the way onto the porch. He ghosted his thumb over the scratch from the raspberry bushes, just a ghostly line now, and the freckles across the tops of Liam’s cheeks that hadn’t been there at the start of the weekend. They shifted in under the roof, eyes locked on each other, and somehow it was okay that Liam was there. Where else would he be?
Their kiss felt just as natural, just as predestined, as all the rest of it. No urgency, just want that turned to need, rain dripping off Liam’s forehead onto Ben’s overheated skin, cold fingers finding warm ones and interlacing.
Liam pulled away. Not far, and clearly he had to make an effort to do it, but why the hell was he bothering? He licked his lips and said, “Scotch. How much have you had?”
“I’m not drunk.” Ben tugged at Liam’s hand. “Come inside.”
“Are you sure?”
Ben just tugged again, and this time Liam let himself be moved, guided, through the front door and down the short hallway to Ben’s bedroom.
Liam’s shirt was wet, and when Ben slid his hands under the hem and up over Liam’s abs, everything was chilly. He kept going, rucking the shirt up and over Liam’s head, exposing glorious skin as he went. Ben bent his head to nip, to kiss, to taste, and he felt the shudder run through Liam’s body.
“Is this okay?” Liam asked again.
No, it wasn’t. It was either wonderful or terrible or somehow both at once, but it was definitely something extreme, something a lifetime away from “okay,” in one direction or another. If they stopped to talk about this, if Ben stopped to think about this, it would all be too real, and being with Liam wasn’t something Ben could afford to want, in reality.
So instead of answering the question with words, Ben raised his lips to Liam’s and kissed him, long and deep, and Liam stopped asking unanswerable questions.
There were no more hesitations after that. Ben pulled his own shirt off, and they had skin on skin. Ben fumbled with the fly of Liam’s jeans, trying to somehow give his hands space to work without breaking the contact between their chests, their bellies. He needed more, but he couldn’t bring himself to accept the tiny bit of less that would allow the more to happen.
Until Liam took charge. He shuffled them toward the bed, and when they got there he just kept pressing, easing Ben back so he was sitting on the mattress, freeing up his legs to wrap around Liam’s ass and pull him in closer. They surged together, hardness meeting hardness, and even through layers of clothing Ben could feel the heat. A rhythm, then, waves flowing from one body to another, like when they’d been kids, too shy to take their clothes off and too desperate to stay still.
Well, Ben wasn’t shy anymore, or at least this night he wasn’t. He put a hand on Liam’s chest—skin so warm and smooth, so soft over the hard muscles beneath—and pushed him away. Just a little. Kept him within the warm circle of Ben’s legs, but made room for getting his jeans undone. Liam, bless him, took care of the rest, shimmying out of the rain-damp denim and tugging his boxer briefs down at the same time.
He stumbled, almost fell, and laughed breathlessly. “Shit. Gotta get my shoes off.”
Ben should have laughed in return, should have said something kind, but he didn’t want this to be comfortable. He couldn’t let himself think it was something he was going to get used to. He waited silently as Liam dealt with his clothes, then moved fast, kicking one of his own bare feet up to brace against Liam’s chest and hold him away for a moment.
If this was going to be the only time—the last time—he saw Liam like this, he wanted to be sure he had time to appreciate the view.
Liam was still for a breath or two, then slid his hands up Ben’s legs, inside his sweatpants. He got a good grip on the fabric and tugged, and Ben lifted his ass and helped with his hands, and the pants were off and they were naked together. Perfectly, terrifyingly naked.
Liam fell forward, wedged a knee between Ben’s, braced his elbows on either side of Ben’s face, and they kissed. If the sensations had been intense before, when they were half-dressed, they were almost unbearable now. Every inch of Ben’s body was electrified, magnetized, needing and wanting and straining. His breath came in gasps and moans that would have been mortifying if he hadn’t heard their echoes in Liam’s mouth.
It would be too easy to come just like this, but Ben wanted more. “Fuck me,” he gasped, and Liam moaned in return, then rolled them, shifted them, got them close enough to the bedside table that he could reach it and fumble in the drawer without taking his lips away from Ben’s body.
Ben let himself float. Not away—he wanted to be absolutely present for every moment of this. But he didn’t need to be in control. For this one night, he could let go and just feel, just be. He could trust. The stretch, the pressure, the fullness, the friction. The perfection, with Liam hovering above him, skin flushed and eyes intense, whole body tensing and relaxing in time with his thrusts. And Ben’s own body responding without any thought or effort, rising to meet the pleasure, then letting him fall away before inevitably rising again.
Ben could feel his orgasm building and tried to push it away. He didn’t want to come; he just wanted to stay like this, with Liam like this, forever.
His body had different ideas, though, and it seemed like Liam’s did too. They moved together, both of them caught up in the same primitive, desperate dance, and they came together, shuddering their mutual release.
A moment of frozen time, or maybe layered time, as if this was them as they were but also them as they’d been so many times before. Them as they always should—but Ben got control of himself before that traitorous thought was able to leave h
is subconscious.
It had only been now, and it could only be now, and he damn well needed to remember that.
“You okay?” Liam asked, shifting himself only halfway off Ben’s body so their legs were still entwined, their torsos still connected.
Again, the word was wrong, so Ben just smiled and let his fingers play through Liam’s hair, now damp with sweat as well as rain. It was only now, so he had to savor it all.
They were quiet for a while, both of them awake, Ben staring at the ceiling, Liam—well. Liam staring at Ben, it seemed. Eventually Liam said, “Do you ever hear from your parents?”
It took Ben a while to shift his train of thought to the new topic. “Sometimes. My dad called a couple years ago—wanted money. My mom’s doing a bit better, I think. She was out in Colorado last I heard.”
“Is it different, now? You’re an adult. You don’t need them anymore, right?”
“I never needed them. If Uncle Calvin hadn’t stepped in, I would have been in trouble, but getting to move in with him? He’s a pain in the ass, but he’s ten times the parent either of them ever was.”
Liam kissed Ben’s shoulder. A simple gesture, not one that should have made Ben want to cry, or to push himself out of bed and run away.
They were quiet again for a while. Eventually Liam shifted over so he was lying on his back, staring at the ceiling along with Ben, and said, “My parents are getting a divorce.”
On one level it was shocking news. Liam’s parents had always seemed absolutely, placidly content with each other. But Ben hadn’t had any contact with them for fifteen years, so that was lots of time for things to change. And really, hearing Liam say it made a lot of other things make sense.
Like what the hell Liam had been doing in North Falls over the past couple weeks. “That must be really unsettling,” Ben said carefully. It must have made Liam question a lot of things, trying to track them back and see where they’d gone wrong. Maybe coming to North Falls had been his attempt—or part of his attempt—to understand his parents.
All That Glitters Page 14