Chapter 4
Liam
The lounge was busy for a Thursday night, something Liam both appreciated and despised.
Normally, he’d be all over a busy lounge full of people going about their business and perhaps open to meeting others.
But tonight, he had a date with a busty brunette who had swiped right on him just the day before.
Very, very busty.
Jana wasted no time ordering drinks while making small talk with the bartender.
Her mouth was so busy sipping and yapping with everyone that, often, the only thing for Liam to do was stare at Jana’s cleavage…
and try not to think about another brunette with tits carved by God.
It’s bad form to think about the last woman you slept with while out with another.
Liam had a short code of ethics, but that was number four. Or so.
The object of such chatter was Tom, the longstanding bartender of this chill lounge right in the city’s center.
Liam had come here for years before moving to LA, and was thrilled to see that Tom still worked behind the counter upon the triumphant return to New England.
Tom was the type to know everything about everyone while keeping his mouth shut…
unless the right regular came along. Like Liam.
Tom had been essential to Liam’s social life when he started dating around and even brought would-be clients for cocktails and chipper conversation.
When he walked in with Jana that night, Liam beelined for the bar, happy to see that there were two stools available down at the far end where the lights were bright, and people were around, but they could still hear each other.
“Oh, you know Courtney!” Jana feverishly stirred her cocktail with a tiny paper straw when Tom indulged her next question.
Liam sat beside his date, desperately attempting to keep his eyes off his phone.
That’s number three on my code of ethics.
Do not scroll on your phone when on a date!
“Yeah, yeah, she’s the one who got me my first modeling gig back in the day.
Do you know Ford? No, not the agency – God, I wish.
I’m talking about Kandy Ford, the woman in charge of… ”
Liam tried. He truly did. But, at this rate, not only was this date a boring bummer, but he wasn’t holding out for getting laid, either.
Do I really need to, after last weekend?
He had been on the apps as a lark, since even a stud like him usually had to spend a few days swiping until he found someone agreeable to go out with over the weekend.
But Jana had been available tonight before going out of town for work.
This was Liam’s chance to at least have a pleasant date with a pretty woman.
My favorite thing. After that, it was hanging out with other guys, shooting the shit, and pretending they knew fuck-all about love.
Tom glanced at Liam as if to say, “This is the best you could do tonight? My mom would have been better, and she’s sixty.”
“Soooo,” Jana teased when Tom had to walk away. She perked up her posture, sticking out her chest and catching all of Liam’s attention once again. “Tell me all about this tropical island in the Caribbean you went to this past weekend!”
“Huh?”
“Don’t you remember? You told me in our chat that you had just gotten back from the Caribbean.
” Her grin was full of veneers. Nice ones, at least. “I haven’t been since a photoshoot six years ago.
Right before all the lockdowns! Such great timing.
Never been able to go back.” She sipped her cocktail.
“So? Which island did you go to? What country?”
“Uh, well…” Liam supposed he should have concocted a plausible story, because no woman wanted to hear that he went to a resort to fuck random sex workers.
Especially when he paid for that privilege.
They like the idea that I have that kind of money, but not what I do with it.
“I don’t really remember the name. Just the resort. It was called White Surf.”
“Hm. Never heard of it. Is it Hilton? Marriott?”
He was sorely tempted to say Best Western when someone familiar caught his gaze.
“What’s wrong?” Jana turned in her stool when she saw how pale Liam’s face was. “Oh. Hi!”
A purr cradled her throat as she twiddled her fingers at a tall man with broad shoulders and the finest facial hair one guy could achieve with an electric razor.
Liam had recognized Benson before Benson recognized him, and it didn’t require that whiff of spicy aftershave that followed the man everywhere he went.
That came later. When Liam realized he had to say something. Now.
“Well, look who still haunts the best lounge in New England.” Liam turned on the backup charm that he always had on reserve. Man. Woman. I’ll ooze with it. Got him out of the tightest spots of his life. “Ben.”
Benson stopped in front of the bar just on the other side of Jana. The look on his face implied that he had not intended for this to happen. Miss me, mother fucker? Now, that was a genuine grin on Liam’s face. And Jana’s. She couldn’t take her eyes off this guy!
“Liam.” Benson likewise faced another pale countenance when Tom approached. He knows all about our drama. Some of it had played out in this lounge! Yet Tom coolly stood in front of Benson, waiting for his order. “It’s been a while.”
“Oh, you guys know each other?” Jana glanced at Liam before putting her attention back on Benson. “What a small town!”
“I didn’t mean to interrupt,” Benson said while Tom began making his drink.
“You’re not,” Liam said, but it did not have the intended effect. Jana hopped off her stool, biting her lip as she gave the tall man soft bedroom eyes. Crap.
“I’m gonna hit the little girl’s room,” she said with a giggle. “You boys catch up and wait for me, huh?” She sent them a wink over her shoulder as she took her time heading toward the bathroom.
Liam barely had time to breathe before Benson said, “She seems fun.”
“Just met her.” It was better to keep talking instead of letting words simmer in his head. Because then I’ll say the wrong ones. “Online, I mean.”
Benson shook his head. “What the hell are you doing here?”
It definitely wasn’t a question. It was a demand, as if this were Benson’s turf and Liam had transgressed it. Tom stood a few inches behind the bar, looking like he kept an eye out for new customers, but really, he was watching them. Liam shot him a glare to make him shuffle away.
“I thought you moved to LA.”
“Well!” Liam plopped his glass onto the bartop. “I moved back. Business is over here again, so I got Wyatt to agree to move everything back to New England. LA is so… not my scene, anyway.”
“Why are you calling my office?”
“I dunno, man, maybe I need some financial advice these days.”
Liam’s sarcastic tone wasn’t doing it for Benson. “Come off it. What did you want?”
“I should be asking you that. I was here in this lounge first. What are you doing here?”
Benson sighed. Oh, is he going to talk to me? Liam finally relaxed when the man he used to know leaned against the bartop, his winter coat hanging from both of his hands, while Tom had left his cocktail glass nearby.
“Just got done having dinner with Drew. Thought I’d have a drink in one of my favorite spots before going home.”
“Drew? How’s she doing?”
“None of your business.”
“Oh, come on. I was the one who taught her how to arm wrestle. I need to know how that’s panning out now that she’s in high school.”
Benson narrowed his eyes. “She’s in college.”
“College! What the fuck?” The last time Liam saw Benson’s daughter, she had only come up to his chest and had barely been hit with the puberty stick.
Sydney had her doing so many skin treatments that I barely saw her sometimes.
This was a kid who had missed a chunk of middle school for remote learning and didn’t have to worry about classmates making fun of her for having acne.
“How can she be in college? Early admission?”
“She’s twenty.”
“I’ll fucking be.”
“Yes. Now, if you’ll excuse me…”
“Oh, don’t be in a hurry. She’s not coming back.”
Benson snorted. “Glad you can acknowledge that.”
“She didn’t leave anything behind, so she’s probably waiting to scope you out elsewhere in the lounge. The moment you sit in that back corner with your phone and drink, she’ll be aallll over you. Hey, stop stealing my chicks.”
“I did you a favor. A woman who would ditch you for another man she literally just met isn’t good enough for you at all.”
“Oh, so you care if someone’s good enough for me?”
Liam needed to think before he spoke, after all. Because that made Benson’s face flash with anger. Great. Now I’ve pissed him off.
“I called you because I wanted you to know I was back in town.” Liam’s segue into another topic didn’t make Benson’s nostrils flare any less, “In case a situation like this arose. You and I… we both have the same tastes in things. Almost like that’s how we met.”
Benson’s hands were on his hips. “That’s it? That’s why you called my office? To say you’re back in town?”
“Would you rather this happened? You, walking in here, interrupting my date with a foxy lady so we could reminisce about the old times?”
“I’m not interested in reminiscing.”
“Well, neither am I.”
“Good.”
“Good!”
Liam was content to leave it at that, but Tom was right there, arms crossed as he glanced between them. “You two okay?”
“For fuck’s sake, Tom,” Benson said with a tired sigh. “Do you think we’re going to start fist-fighting here or something?”
“Yes. I wouldn’t put it past you two.”
“Hey.” Liam pointed a finger at the bartender. “We’ve had a lot of issues in the past, but not once did we ever put hands on each other. Besides…” He grinned. “I’m a lover, not a fighter. And Ben’s old.”
“Shut up.”
“How old are you now? Forty…five? Because you were forty when I bounced out of town.”
“That makes you thirty-five, now doesn’t it?”
“You’re right. I’m no longer the cute twenty-something that you met at an industry brunch one day and a sexy resort the next.
” It was natural their paths would cross, despite not being in the same line of work.
Investments of all kinds intersect. Liam had been invited by one of his old colleagues to attend the city’s exclusive monthly brunch that was all about finances, investments, and the economy.
Benson was a member. We sat next to each other.
Then we had cigars together. They had been inseparable all day, forging a friendship based on similar humor and tastes for the finer things. Next thing Liam knew…
The two of them were getting into all sorts of trouble. Good trouble. Enough trouble that I was on a first-name basis with his ex-wife and daughter. Drew had adored him. Leaving her behind had been as difficult as realizing that there was nothing left to say to Benson. Made moving easy, though!
“So, how are things?” Liam stopped him before Benson walked away with his drink. “You remarried yet?” No, he hadn’t seen a wedding ring on Ben’s finger, but that didn’t mean anything.
“Can’t say I am. You?”
“Obviously not, dude.”
Those nostrils twitched again. “I have no complaints about my personal life. I doubt you will, either.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Lots of people have transitioned in and out of the area. Should be a whole new crop of women for you to slobber over.”
“Ah, man, after you’re done with them, though?”
“I hear you’re into that.”
Liam almost choked on the drink he had been sipping when he heard that.
“Ben!” He waved Tom away when he came over to see if he needed help.
“You naughty boy!” Here came his best impression of a scandalized Southern woman.
My great-aunt Gertrude. That’s who I am.
“You simply cannot go around saying such scandalous things, sweetheart. Why, bless your heart, but some things are not palpable for public company!”
“Don’t call me sweetheart.”
Liam pouted. “That’s it? That’s what you’re bitching about from that?”
“I’ve gotta go.” Benson had no other response. “Let’s try not to bump into each other too much.”
“Right on it.” Liam stared at the bottles behind the bar until he felt Benson’s presence dissipate. Only then did he allow his shoulders to sag and his eyes to contact Tom’s. “I don’t wanna hear it.”
Tom wasn’t saying anything, but his countenance spoke a thousand words.
“No.”
Someone approached the bar, laughing while already half-drunk, but Tom did not move.
“No, Tom.”
Those spindly bartender’s fingers slipped off Tom’s hips. He wandered away to tend to the tipsy customer while Liam accepted the fact that he was alone for the rest of his night.
“Nope,” he muttered to himself as he turned on his phone and opened his camera app. From there, he scoured his photo history for the last time he and Benson took a picture together, looking happy and content as clams. “Nada. Nope. No way.”
There they were, on a tropical island in the Caribbean – not La Mariposa, but one not too dissimilar. They stood together in the shallow end of the pool, clinking together their ridiculous pina coladas while wearing sunglasses and looking like they were gonna hit up Carnival in two more weeks.
Instead, I blew it all to hell. All because Liam had seen the cracks in Benson’s life and wanted to help.
Liam put his phone away. Melancholy settled over him. Soon, he wouldn’t be able to stand to finish his drink. He would go home and think about anyone but Benson Smith, the man he had shared more than one woman with.
Wouldn’t mind sharing her… There was Brim in his mind’s eye as soon as he walked into his bedroom, where he collapsed face-first into his bed.
Somehow, just her face, as if Liam suddenly grew a conscience and couldn’t imagine someone as hot and willing as Brim the Butterfly as anything but a happy, friendly face. Nope. Never had sex with her. Clearly.
When Liam lifted his head, it was to the sound of his phone buzzing.
The notification wasn’t anything interesting.
But now that his phone was in his hand, he went down another rabbit hole of digging into texts.
The man had not changed his number since college.
He still had texts from ex-girlfriends and voicemails from his mom, reminding him to file his FAFSA.
Since he loved his mom, he kept them, knowing that one day he’d be grateful.
Right now, though, he blew past those and found the last text Benson Smith ever sent.
“Fuck you.”
Liam wouldn’t relive what he had said before that, five years ago, when everything came crashing down in his life. All he’d remember was the yelling, the cursing, and the accusations that sent him on a spiral to LA.
Now he was back for more.