She smiled at the memory. Nathan found himself picturing the memory, too. Now that he had a better idea of what she looked and sounded like, he could envision Mariel. It was a small comfort. No longer was his mum a complete enigma. Just a large one.
“It would be awesome if I got cast in the show.” Franny was auditioning for the local playhouse production ofInto the Woods. It was the same theater where their mother had performed. “Do you think I’d get cast as the baker’s wife like Mum?”
“You’re probably too young for that role, but I think you could be Rapunzel or Cinderella. Doesn’t every girl want to be a princess?”
“I’d rather be the witch, the one causing all the trouble,” Franny said with a sly smile, one that would’ve looked right at home on Nathan’s face.
“Nathan?” Mark knocked on the door.
“It’s open.”
“Did you want to go get Liam for dinner?”
“Will do.”
Nathan walked across the field. He thought about how wonderful these nightly dinners were. Mark had discovered Pinterest and was trying new recipes. There was good food, good conversation, and after dinner, they’d watch an episode of The Golden Girls together. It was a perfect cap on the day.
The air was chilly and thick tonight. He paused for a second to admire the night sky full of stars. They didn’t have skies like this back in London.
He yanked open Liam’s screen door so that it thwacked against the house, then the front door. “Liam, dinner’s ready. Shit!”
And there was Liam, wet and buck naked.
He was in the middle of toweling off from the shower. Fortunately for him, and maybe for Nathan too, he had been drying his nether regions, so Nathan had glimpsed everything but thepiece de resistance. From the looks of his blooming pubic mound, Liam had not been inspired at all from their conversation about crotching.
“Shit. I’m sorry.”
“I think the proper thing to do is knock.” Liam didn’t try to run. He kept toweling himself off. “What did you storm in here to tell me?”
He wrapped the towel around his waist where it slung low on his hips. Droplets of water glistened on his chest hair and cascaded down his abs. Nathan remembered to blink. It would provide good fodder for fighting off the alcohol demons later.
“Dinner’s ready.” Nathan took a breath. He didn’t know why he was the uncomfortable one here. If Liam was an unfazed straight dude, then he could be the unfazed gay guy. “I said dinner’s ready.”
“I’ll get dressed.” Liam seemed to be enjoying this, much like Nathan liked making his ears turn red. He went into his bedroom area, his round ass moving under that towel effortlessly.
“You didn’t make me uncomfortable,” he called into the bedroom. “I’ve seen plenty of naked men. Plenty!”
“Congratulations,” Liam deadpanned.
“And if you think I’m going to get naked to make things even, well then you have a fucked-up sense of fairness.”
Liam came back out wearing boxers with sheep on them. Against all odds, Nathan found it attractive. “Have a seat. I’ll be dressed in a minute.”
Nathan waited on the couch, facing the wall in front of him. On the coffee table was Liam’s laptop, once again open to Facebook. Fortunately, he wasn’t looking at pictures of his ex-girlfriend as far as he could tell. His feed refreshed, and Nathan found something much more frightening.
The picture of his mum and dad.
One of Liam’s friends sent him a Facebook message attaching a link to his missed connection post and wroteIsn’t this your late SIL?
“No. No no no,” Nathan said. Liam couldn’t see this. It would blow Nathan’s cover and expose that Mariel had fooled around behind Mark’s back. He couldn’t let his mother be sullied.
Nathan quickly logged onto his original missed connection post and deleted it. But the FB message remained.
“What are you doing?” Liam was behind him moments later, jerking his laptop back. “You deactivated my Facebook account? You had no right to do that! Why would you do such a thing?”
Nathan pulled the laptop back from him, a story forming in his head. “You don’t need to be on it. I know what you were doing on here. Stalking blondie and your ex-mate. Am I right?”
Liam hunched his shoulders. The guilt was written on his face.
