“You ready?”Ben asked.
Dinah held her arms out to her sides as if to display that she was, indeed, prepared, and they started walking.
“Why would he come?” Ben asked.
“Liam?”
Yes, obviously Liam, but possibly Dinah’s mind wasn’t quite one-track enough to have picked up on Ben’s obsession. So he tried to keep his nod polite rather than sarcastic.
“I guess he’s just a good guy?” Dinah suggested. Her voicewas suspiciously innocent when she added, “Unless you think there’s something else going on?”
“Like what? He’s got his big important life in the city, after all. No reason for him to be back here, not that I can think of.”
“Really? You don’t think maybe he’s… interested?”
Ben was tempted to push it a little further. Could he keep pretending he didn’t know what she was talking about long enoughthat she gave up? Maybe—she was pretty generous about stuff like that. But he didn’t reallywanther to give up. He wanted to talk about this. Not that he had anything at all coherent to say. He made a sort of Wookie noise that he hoped conveyed his frustration, confusion, and ignorance, and waited to see Dinah’s reaction.
She raised an eyebrow and didn’t seem too impressed with the nonverbalapproach. “We never got around to Liam the other day in our what-if game, did we?”
She knew damn well they hadn’t. Now, on this sunny morning, on the way to their good deed, a good deed at which Ben would be seeing Liam again… what if?
Was Ben brave enough to even let himself ask that question?
He couldn’t get into the mechanics of it, didn’t want to think abouthowit might have happened,but… what if he and Liam had stayed together?
But the game didn’t work if he didn’t think about the “how.” “Are we saying he never cheated on me? Or he cheated on me but we got past it, somehow? Oh, God, we’d better not be saying I just kept ignoring it! I didn’t just put up with it, did I?”
“Keptignoring it?”
Yeah, of course Dinah would pick up on that. But Ben had wanted to talk about this,hadn’t he? He took a deep breath. “We’d better not be saying I stayed that insecure and scared. Better not be saying I wasalwaysso afraid of losing him that I kept on ignoring the problem instead of dealing with it.”
“And suddenly I’m a little less favorably disposed toward Liam Marshall. This was an ongoing thing, and you knew about it, and you thought he’d dump you if you called him on it?”
“I think—I’m pretty sure hewantedme to dump him. That way he wouldn’t have to do it himself, you know? He wouldn’t have to be the one to pull the plug.”
“What a weenie.”
“Yeah, but I was a weenie too, right? He should have had the guts to dump me, and I should have had the guts to dump him.”
“So you weren’t really a good couple? The way Seth talks makes it sound like you were meant for eachother.”
Difficult question. Impossible question, probably. But Ben needed this conversation, so he tried. “We were each other’s first and only boyfriends. I know that works for some people—they marry their high school sweethearts and are never even tempted to look at anyone else. But I don’t think it would have worked for Liam and me. We both wanted—experiences. Adventures. We wanted to learnthings firsthand.”
“And you got to learn about broken hearts, firsthand.”
“Idid. I don’t know about Liam.”
She didn’t say anything in reply, which was just as well because they were getting close to the building site and Ben needed a little time to regain his composure. But as they approached the gravel driveway and raised their arms to wave at the people already assembled, Dinah turned toface Ben and said, “Do you want Seth and me to run interference today? Keep him away from you?”
“No. I’m—I was going to say ‘fine,’ but I think ‘okay’ might be better. I’m stable. And I don’t want to hide from him.”
“We could arrange a power-tool accident, if you thought it was justified. I don’t think we should kill him, but a nail gun aimed at extremities would probably get him off the sitefor the day.”
Right.Hidingwasn’t really in Dinah’s vocabulary, not ifattackingwas a remotely viable option. “No, it’ll be fine.”
Ben turned toward the site and saw Liam already standing there beside Uncle Calvin, the two of them intently examining a stack of blueprints stretched out on a makeshift table. Liam was an architect; his dream had come true, and now he was using his hard-won knowledgeto help others. He was a good guy. He’d screwed up, sure, but—a good guy, deep down. His extremities should remain unblemished by nail guns; Ben could give him that much.
“Let me know if you change your mind,” Dinah said. Then she stomped up the driveway, her work boots a strange complement to her pregnant belly, and Ben followed in her wake.
