Chapter Fourteen
LIAM DIDN’Tsleep well. He kept wanting to get up and look around. Not snoop, exactly, but—well. Something close to it.
He managed to resist, but the mental effort made it hard to relax. Knowing he was in Ben’s house, only feet away from Ben’s bed? Yeah, that made it hard to relax, even if Ben wasn’t actuallyinthe bed.
It made for a fitful, restless night before hewalked to the job site. Ben was there, since Seth’s wife had volunteered to look after Calvin, but he was back to cool, remote, frustrating Ben. Liam wanted to grab him, drag him behind a stack of lumber, and pin him against it and kiss him until he stopped being mad, until they both forgot their history, their mistakes, forgot their damn names, let go of everything that got between them—
Liamcarried sheets of drywall instead. He cut and fit and taped and worked and pushed all other thoughts out of his mind.
At lunch, Seth fell into the food line behind him and followed him over to a spot under a shade tree. They settled, took a few bites of food, and then Seth said, “You having fun?” in a tone that made it clear he knew it was a stupid question.
“I shouldn’t be here.” It was soclear, really. It had been just as clear the day before, of course, but Liam hadn’t been as tired then, and it had been easier to keep his spirits up. “Ben doesn’t want me here, and I have a lot going on back in the city. What the hell am I thinking, wasting my time like this?”
“If Bendidwant you here, would it still be wasted time?” Seth sounded like he was picking his words carefully, butLiam wasn’t sure he appreciated the effort.
“Hypotheticals are just one more way to waste time. I can’t afford to be messing around with all this.”
Seth shrugged. “We’ve gotten a lot done—we’re ahead of schedule, even with Calvin sick. And you were an extra anyway. If you can’t be here, we’ll be fine without you.”
It wasn’t said in a mean way. Seth was trying to help, not to hurt, and Liamknew it. Still.We’ll be fine without you. He wasn’t needed. He was just an extra. There was a community here, a damn family, but he wasn’t part of it. He’d blown his chances at that years and years ago.
The sandwich was too dry. He took a slug from his can of pop to wash down the bite in his mouth, then forced himself to take another and swallow it before saying, “I’m not going to quit. I saidI’d do it and I’ll do it. And I’ll stop bitching about it. Sorry.”
Seth shrugged easily. “It’s fine. I invited the bitching, and you’ve been working hard. It’s not like you were moping around, not getting anything done. Really, you’re a better worker when you’re a bit mad—I wonder if there’s some way for us to harness that. We could team you up with somebody really annoying, and you could workout your frustration with amazing feats of building-related strength.”
“You sound too much like Calvin, with his schemes and manipulations.”
“He’s the master. I’m a mere apprentice.” Seth frowned. “Actually, I think Dinah might be his real apprentice. I’m kind of worried about her spending the whole day with him today. She’ll come home even more Machiavellian than she was this morning.”
“Aday spent looking after a sick old man is going to make your wife sinister? That seems like the reverse of what I’d expect.”
“Expectations do tend to reverse themselves once Calvin’s involved.” But Seth really didn’t sound too worried.
“You guys are pretty happy together, huh? Things have worked out well for you.”
Seth’s smile was sweet and genuine. “I’m the luckiest man alive. Wife, daughter,life—everything’s fantastic.”
“Damn. Are you auditioning to be the annoying guy who makes me work harder?”
Seth’s smile widened. “I have toaudition. Damn, I don’t know—is it really that much of a treat to be the guy hanging out with you?”
Well, Ben would clearly say it wasn’t, but Liam didn’t let himself point that out. He asked polite questions about Seth’s family and actually found himselfenjoying the answers and the conversation that flowed from them. Sethwasa lucky man, and it was hard to resent him when he acknowledged it so openly.
Ben stayed remote for the rest of the afternoon, and when it all wrapped up around four, he kept himself conspicuously distant from Liam as everyone exchanged sweaty, satisfied hugs of congratulation for a job well done.
Liam’s hands were blistered,with bandages wrinkled and grimy from work; his neck was sunburned despite repeated applications of sunscreen; every muscle in his body was complaining, with a special scream coming from those bastards between his shoulder blades; he was grimy, smelly, and he had a three-hour drive home before he could do anything about either of those issues.
And he still would have been perfectly satisfiedwith his life if only Ben would smile at him. A little wave, maybe, a suggestion that he knew Liam was alive. That hecaredLiam was alive.
But Liam didn’t get what he wanted. Seth and most of the rest of the team were friendly and happy with him, but Ben? He left earlier than anyone else, saying he had to get home to Calvin, but clearly more interested in getting the hell away from Liam.
SoLiam drove home, lonely and smelly, got disgustingly delicious drive-through burgers for dinner halfway home, made embarrassed excuses to the neighbors he met in his building’s elevator, showered, pulled on clean clothes, and tried not to sulk.
But it was deeper than a sulk, wasn’t it?
He was legitimately disappointed. He’d hoped for something, and it hadn’t worked out.
But that wasn’t theend of the damn world. He needed to keep himself together. He hadn’t started crying, at least, so that was a small victory.
