Chapter 14
Liam
Liam
“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” He put his head back down over his drink when he saw Liam gunning for the stool next to his. “Go away.”
Liam clapped him on the back before sitting down and ordering a drink from the bartender.
Unlike Benson, who gunned to get a little drunk before going home, Liam intentionally brought an insufferable air of let’s talk like real men.
Probably the absolute last thing Benson wanted.
“Come on, Ben,” Liam said, swirling the amber liquid in his glass. “Don’t tell me you’ve gone soft.”
Benson grunted, not even bothering to look at him. “Not in the mood.”
“Still the same old Ben, though, huh?” Liam prodded, a smirk on the rim of his glass. “Always trying to orchestrate the perfect scene. Always wanting to put on a show. Did you even get to the good part before I showed up?”
“What’s your point?”
“My point is, some things never change.” Liam took a sip of his drink, his eyes never leaving Benson’s profile. “You still like to watch, don’t you? You still get off on the idea of another man wanting what’s yours. You just dress it up in fancy terms like ‘sharing.’”
Benson finally turned to him, tired. “And what about you? You still like to crash the party? Like to share what actually belongs to somebody else?”
Liam’s smile faded. “She wasn’t yours. Not entirely.”
A heavy silence settled between them. A truce.
“Fair enough,” Benson conceded, turning to his drink. “Eden’s something else, huh?”
“Yeah,” Liam agreed. “Even when I knew her as Brim.”
Something grumbled in Benson’s throat. “We always did have the same taste.”
“The best,” Liam said, raising his glass in a silent toast.
They sat in silence for a long moment, the weight of their shared history and their present predicament hanging between them.
They were rivals, yes, but in that moment, they were also two men who had been brought to their knees by the same woman.
We share more than Eden could ever know.
What kind of cosmic coincidence was this?
That they had been to La Mariposa without seeing each other…
that they had fallen for the same Butterfly…
that they both reconnected here in the city, making her theirs.
“I mean,” Liam continued, “if I had to pick someone to be the other guy, it would’ve been you.” He lifted his glass to Benson before drinking again.
“Oh, fuck off.”
“You knew about another guy, right? That’s what she told me.”
“Hmph.”
“And that he was the other bloke she fucked at the resort?”
“…Ugh.”
“You liked it.” Liam jabbed him in the arm.
“Every damn second of it. You and me, tag-teaming that pussy just like the good ol’ days.
I knew it had the right cadence of old familiarity.
” Liam leaned closer. “Admit it. For a second, it felt like old times.
Just like with Chloe. Or that redhead... what was her name?"
“Anna,” Benson grunted, his knuckles white around his glass.
“Anna. God, she was wild.” Liam’s voice dropped at the erotic memory. “Remember that night in the hot tub? She couldn’t get enough of us.”
“Shut up.”
“You can’t tell me you didn’t think about it. Her. Between us. The way we used to play.” Liam’s smirk was as warm as the heat of the club. “Five years since we fell out. And we still want the same damn thing.”
Benson slammed his glass down. Liquid sloshed over the rim. “We’re not talking about this.”
“Because you miss it, and that wounds your pride, because it’s me.”
“I do not. About any of that.”
“Liar,” Liam accused. “You miss the heat. The rivalry. The way she looks at you when we both have our hands on her.” He paused. “The way she looks at me.”
Benson’s head snapped up. His eyes were dark, conflicted. A war raged on his face. Pride. Anger. He misses me. Come on, big guy, admit it.
“It was nothing in the end,” Benson said.
“Oh, it was everything,” Liam countered. “And you know it.” He leaned back, a triumphant glint in his eye. “You miss me.”
Benson stared into his empty glass. The silence stretched until he conceded with a sigh so heavy that it sagged his shoulders.
“Fuck.”
“Yeah. That’s what I thought.”
Liam’s grin softened. He took another slow sip of his drink. “She’s different, though.”
Benson didn't have to ask who. “In what way?”
“The way she looks at you.” Liam gazed past the bar to nothing in particular. I’ve got about one hundred memories playing right now. “I think she’s infatuated with you.”
Benson swallowed, despite not having his drink anywhere near his mouth. “Yeah,” he rasped. “Guess it’s mutual.”
“And she’s smart,” Liam added, playing with the ice in his glass.
“Witty as hell. She’ll call you out on all of your shit and surprise you with what she’s up for.
Stupidly independent for how much time she’ll spend with you.
Knows what she wants. Knows what you want.
You love it, and you hate it, Mr. I’m-in-Charge. ”
“She drives me crazy. Sometimes I go half a day without really thinking about her, then suddenly I remember she exists, and it’s like I can’t see her quickly enough.”
“Me too.” Their eyes met. They had a knack for instantly understanding each other, but right now, it hurt. Too much vulnerability too soon. “I love her laugh.”
“Her kindness,” Benson blurted. “The way she worries about you. Makes her soft. In a good way.”
They fell silent. Liam leaned his chin into his hand before waving off the bartender who hovered nearby.
Benson stared into his empty glass again. The silence was different now. Instead of terrible tension, it was a casual hangout at the bar. Like the old days. “That... connection,” he started, hesitant. “With Chloe. With Anna. It was... intense. We were a unit in ways we weren’t… you know.”
“I don’t wanna be like ‘I told you so,’ but…” Liam gently said.
Benson finally looked at Liam. The anger was gone, replaced by a shared nostalgia for something they both clearly needed, but couldn’t fulfill right now. “I missed that. The... us.”
Liam couldn’t rest on his laurels, could he? Although he was triumphant about gauging Benson’s true feelings, he received no boost to his ego about being right. “You’re the one who blew it up, Ben.”
“I know.”
“I told you this was how it would have to be for it to work long-term.”
“I know, Liam.” Benson was already weary. “I fucking know.”
Liam shook his head. “That kind of trust... it doesn’t just grow back. You can’t plant it again and expect the same tree.”
Benson flinched. The “I told you so” was there, but it was quiet. Depressing, really.
“So, that’s it?” Benson asked. “We just... what? Pretend we don’t know each other? Fight over her?”
Liam considered it. He looked down the bar, then at Benson. “I’m not giving her up.”
“Neither am I.”
“So, what do we do? Keep dating her? Separately? Knowing that guy is also in bed with her? How long does that last, exactly?”
“Knowing you, as soon as someone else comes along to steal your attention.”
Liam should have been offended by that, but he knew where Benson was coming from… let alone why he was compelled to say something like that. “Are you serious about her?”
“As serious as a man who just met his girlfriend at a place like that can be. I’m still getting to know her, and she’s twenty years younger than me…”
“Whew, boy, she sure is.”
“…But that hasn’t been a problem so far. You know me. She’s my perfect type.”
“Usually, you like seriously dating women closer to my age or older.”
Benson shrugged. “Can’t help it. I don’t even think about how young she is anymore.” Was that a smirk? “Kinda hard to, when she’s such a woman, if you know what I mean.”
“I think you know that I know what you mean.”
“Just… what are the odds?”
Liam’s smile fell lopsided as he considered the same notion. “So, I told her on her way out the door that I would drop by her place later to explain. You seemed pretty upset, so I didn’t extend the offer for you to do it.”
“Don’t tell her the whole story.”
“Really, now? You mean, you haven’t told her about…” Liam laughed. “Bro. You were at the meet-up a couple of weeks ago.”
“I know. So were you. Have you told her the whole story?”
“You got me there, champ. Just hasn’t come up.”
“Same for me.”
“Yeah, but you’re much more guarded about that. Kinda ended your marriage, remember?”
Benson sent him the glare of the evening – even harsher than the accusatory one in the private room. All right, all right. “My marriage ended for many incompatibility reasons.”
“Ended your engagement, too.”
“Shut up, dude.”
“I’ve told her that I was engaged once. Have you?”
“She knows about Sydney, yes. And my daughter.”
“You know that’s not what I meant.”
Benson turned his whole body toward Liam, his glare as powerful as the muscles in his body. I know exactly how strong that is. Liam had been on the other end of those hands before.
What a storied life I’ve lived.
“I haven’t told her that I’ve been engaged since then, no.”
“Well, now she knows about us knowing each other. It’s gonna come up, even if one of us stops dating her.”
“Just leave it for now. It’s a big enough shock for her as it is, I’m sure.”
They had come to some nonviolent truce, right there at the back bar in The Dark Hour’s hallowed halls.
Sometimes, you meet a guy you become fast friends with and go to places like La Mariposa.
Liam wasn’t bothered by that. Neither was Benson.
Nor did it get weird when they started dating women together once they were back on the mainland.
It made sense, really. We have the same tastes in women, the same weird kinks, all of it.
Liam liked showing off, and Benson liked watching.
Sparks flew whenever a lucky lady was in the room with them.
Without a lucky lady…
Well, that’s how you get epic falling outs that cause me to move across the country just to get away from this dick.
Liam regretted a lot about it. He hated how angry Drew had been – at both of them – even though she had been too young to understand what exactly happened.
Sydney had been a terror the whole time because she made it clear that she did not approve and didn’t like it being around Drew, even in the most innocent way.
Just two guys getting weirdly domestic. As for Liam’s crew?
They weren’t surprised, but he had been thirty.
Most of his buddies wanted to party and didn’t understand why Liam chose to stay in to watch movies or go to the zoo on a Sunday afternoon because people special to him wanted to go.
“One memory I constantly have,” Liam said, “is when we went to Franklin Park in Boston. Drew hadn’t hit her last growth spurt yet, so I hoisted her up so she could see Anala the tiger over the crowd.”
“She loved tigers. Thought she would die when Luther passed.”
“I almost threw my back out doing that.”
“Better you than me. I did throw out my back the last time I attempted to pick her up. Ugh. I’m fucking old.”
“You don’t even have gray hairs. Shut up.”
Benson pointed to his scalp. “Yes, I do. You just can’t see them.”
“What? You dyeing?”
“Touch-ups twice a month.”
“You’re kidding, dude. I can’t tell at all.”
“Do not tell her.”
“What? About your gender affirming care? I would never.”
“Don’t call it tha…” Benson sighed. “You’re messing with me.”
“Still as easy as it was five years ago. Come on.” Liam hopped off his stool. “Let’s go.”
“Where the hell do you think we’re going?”
Liam was only slightly impatient as a couple of drunken women stumbled toward the bar. Neither he nor Benson was in the mood to be around when the bartender cut them off. “To tell our woman what’s up.”
“Our woman?”
He left it at that.