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 ofmeasuring 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, itwasokay. “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 getallthe words out there.Because you cheated on me alot. Not just the one time you got caught. Right? That wasn’t—it wasn’t a one-time thing. Not a one-guything.”
“Not alot,” Liam protested. He stopped and looked at the floor. “But, yeah. More than one time. More than one guy.”
“And Iknew.” There it was. The truth Ben had never shared with anyone, had barely admitted to himself. “Iknew, and I didn’t say anything.Didn’t stop you. You just kept getting more and more obvious, like you were fuckingdaringme 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?Youwantedto get caught.”
“I don’t know,” Liam whispered. Then in a stronger voice, “What about you? What the hell were you thinking? Whydidn’tyou bust me any of the other times? Was it some sort of a game? Did you even fuckingcarethat I was doing it?”
They stood there in the kitchen, staring at each other. The coffee was forgotten, theyearswere forgotten, and it was just the two of themagain, 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 toworkat 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.Ifucked 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 timeago.” 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 mightnot 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 theway. 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 ignoreit 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 weremeantto 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. Itwas 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 tohelp 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 fishingspiders 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 whilehe was dithering, Liam added, “Calvin said he didn’t think you’d mind.”
