Condolences he hadn’t needed.
“Dragging me into… what? Seriously, Liam, is there—”
“Everything’s fine,” Liam said, standing up straighter and talking louder. “Just having a weird—Idon’t know, let’s call it an artistic moment, okay? Just a weird day. Nothing to worry about, and just a bad set of coincidences that you even found out about it.”
“Well, it’d be a coincidence if we ran into each other in the city, yeah. But, fuck, Liam, when you drive a couple hours away from your house and park just down the street from mine, you’re giving ‘coincidence’ a pretty big helpinghand, aren’t you?”
“You never saw me any of theothertimes.”
“The other—” Ben needed to sit down. Or have a drink. He probably needed to sit downandhave a drink. “You’ve been up here before?” It made no sense. Unless…. “Do you want to talk to Uncle Calvin?” It was a fairly random possibility, but the best he could do. And then, unlikely but not impossible, because Uncle Calvin could playhis cards pretty close to his chest when he wanted to, “Have you been talking to him before?”
But Liam shook his head. “No. I haven’t come up for any reasons. I just drive sometimes. Jesus, what the hell is going on? Why am I telling you any of this? You don’t want to know this.”
Well, that was true. Mostly. “Right. So—yeah. You’re an asshole, fuck you, and go away.” That was all he needed tosay. Except… damn it. “But are you okay? Is there something—not me, butsomebody—is there something somebody should do?”
“No, I’m fine.” Even forced, Liam’s smile was still a thing of beauty, and Ben had to make himself look away. “Sorry about whatever that was. Just a strange blip. Everything’s good with me. I’m doing great.”
“Okay.” And Ben was suddenly almost dizzy from it all. Liam Marshall.How many hours had he wasted agonizing about this asshole over the past fifteen years? And now he just showed up out of nowhere, totally unexpected. And totally unwelcome. Ben turned and took a few jogging steps away. “So we’re back to ‘fuck you.’” He took another few steps until he was beside Seth. “See you at Matty’s.”
“Yup,” Seth agreed, and he jerked his head in Liam’s direction. “You wantme to do anything here, or not do anything? Maybe punching him, in terms ofdoingsomething, or helping him, in terms ofnotdoing something?”
“No. He’s—he’s nothing. Nobody. Just treat him like any other loser trying to use a fancy car to fill a hole in his pathetic life.” Ben instantly felt guilty, remembering Liam’s tears, and then angry because how the hell had he let himself get twistedaround so quickly, manipulated into feeling actualguiltbecause of a few harsh words, after what Liam had done?
“I need to go,” he said quickly, and he took off at a jog that was closer to a sprint, and as he ran he told himself to put it all out of his mind, to let it go, to be glad he’d had a chance at closure and the time to give Liam another “fuck you.”
He tried to forget the tears. No,hedidforget them. He banished them from his memory. He’d just had an unexpected encounter with his first love, and that was mind-blowing enough. He wouldn’t let the situation get any stranger, any more complicated.
He’d seen Liam Marshall. What an asshole.
There. That was enough. That was all he’d let himself feel. Liam Marshall was part of the past, and that was where he would damn well stay.
