Chapter 16 Liam
Liam
“We’ve got a big problem,” Liam said while accepting playing cards from Benson. “Our girlfriend is a slut.”
Benson paused dealing the cards while looking at Liam as if asking, “I’m sorry, but that’s a problem?” Yeah, Liam had come on strong with that one, but they needed to talk about this. Now.
“Don’t tease me with a good time from her while she can’t be here.
” Benson was still annoyed that Eden couldn’t join them that Saturday night.
Something about an old friend’s birthday party at a bowling alley, and she still needed to pick a present.
Liam had helped her with the latter before heading back to his own place to make plans with Benson.
The man needs something to do Saturday night to let loose.
Would he rather be taking turns on their girlfriend all day?
Fuck, yes. But this would do, too. “The hell are you talking about?”
“Knew that would get your attention.” Liam drank some of his scotch as a large group of men came into the small bar and loudly greeted the bartender, who was apparently an old friend.
This. Place. Benson used to love coming here, but Liam preferred his loud and upscale gay bars to have a bit more elbow room.
And lighting. As it was, their card game with drinks required the candles burning on their tiny bistro table to see anything.
“What’s the problem, again?”
Liam studied his hand, already forgetting what they were playing. “She really wants to be a Butterfly again. She says it’s fine, but I can tell. She won’t stop bringing it up. And I don’t think she’s told them she’s not available this time.”
Benson glared at Liam over his cards. “I’ve made it clear to her that I don’t like that.”
“Me, too. And I’ve backed you up that you wouldn’t like it.”
“But she’s still thinking about it?”
“I don’t think she’ll go behind our backs or anything.” Or, at least, Liam certainly hoped that. “But I don’t think it’s just money, Ben. She got validation from it. And she wants more.”
Benson grunted as he played a card. “She’s got two men inside of her any given day, and she wants more?”
“Yeah, she sounds like you when we’re in the sex club.”
“Oh, fuck off.”
He said that, yet Benson was already distracted by two men making out in the corner behind Liam. Uh-huh. It helped that both were his type. Me. I’m his type. Among men, anyway. Liam rolled up the sleeves of his sweater as he began to sweat. Was it always warm in this place?
“We’ve gotta figure something out,” Liam said, reclaiming Benson’s attention. “Assuming we’re going all-in with her.”
“I thought we were.”
“Are we?”
He meant are we, as in you and me, Ben. Liam and Benson were still dancing around about being officially back together, with Liam hesitant to throw himself back in Benson’s orbit and Benson probably scared as hell about fucking it all up again.
We’re both older. We both know ourselves better.
Liam hoped that was enough. Especially if he were going to sacrifice a part of his stupid heart again.
“What? You want a ring on your finger already? You and I are taking things slow.”
Yes, they had been over this. They had agreed on this.
But between Benson wanting Eden to move in with him that summer and Eden wanting to spend that same summer spreading her pussy all over the place, they might have a problem.
“You’d think we could figure this out,” Liam said.
“We all basically want the same thing in the end.” Right.
It was his turn to play. “I haven’t told her, but I’ve planned about five different freak nights for her at the clubs. Any club.”
“I’m sure you have. But we’re doing my idea first.”
“We’ll flip a coin.”
“Whoever wins this match gets to launch their idea on Eden first.”
“But before we get that far, we need to make sure our lady is happy. Remember Libby?”
“The one who wanted a baby? Your answer to that was to marry her and put one in her.”
“Only because you couldn’t.”
“I could marry her.” Benson played a card. “Just not the baby part, thank God.”
“Worked out in the end. I don’t want a five-year-old.”
“Indeed. Cramps one’s style.”
“Oh, and remember Violet? Wanted desperately to live in Chicago to be near her family.”
“As I recall, you were going to set up base there so you two would have a place together, and we’d fly back and forth until Drew was out of school.”
“Pain in the ass that would have been, but we would have done it because we loved her.”
“Uh-huh.”
Liam played whatever card was at the top of his hand. “This is different. We’ve never had a girlfriend who wanted to be a sex worker.”
“Is that what’s really going on?” Benson leaned his head over the table, lowering his voice until Liam barely heard it over the loudspeakers playing Ricky Martin. “Or is she just trying to have her cake and eat it, too?”
“Meaning…?”
Benson raised one eyebrow before sitting back again.
Liam caught sight of his partner’s hand, but already forgot what they were playing.
“Eden is young and hot. She’s talked about how her whole stint on La Mariposa was about ‘making money off her body while she still could.’ Maybe she went into it with a practical mind, but unfortunately, you and I were so damn dogged and good at fucking her that we rewired her whole conception of the work she was doing. ”
“We couldn’t have been that good.”
“Really.”
“All right, maybe we’re fucking great. What’s that got to do with it?”
“She’s not going to be happy with us unless we really meet her at her level. Otherwise, she’s going to eventually break up with us because she can have crazy sex and get paid for it.”
Liam rubbed his eyes. “I’m honestly shocked hearing you spell this out. Usually, I’m the one trying to explain female sexuality to you.”
“Yeah, well…” Benson put down his cards and had a drink. “I’ve been thinking a lot lately about my relationships and why they all ended. Usually, it was because I wasn’t listening to what was actually needed to make everyone happy. I don’t want to make that mistake again.”
Although he didn’t look at Liam when he said that, the man couldn’t help but wonder if Benson meant him, too.
I’m tired. I was tired then, too. Liam had been truthful to Eden when he said that monogamy probably wasn’t for him.
The arrangement he had with Benson was exactly what he had been looking for, but…
He wasn’t listening to me. And it wasn’t just about Liam’s desires to spread his love around.
Eventually, Benson would want a woman to dote on.
We both love women way too much to go without one for long.
Liam’s ideal situation was a closed circuit between the three of them.
With maybe, you know, fun in the club. Eden had certainly seemed game to explore that once in a while with the right partner. But could Benson admit it?
“I think what we have…” Liam began, fanning his cards against his arms as he folded both on the table, “is a woman who wants to be the center of attention. At all times.”
“Yeah, and?”
“And she needs to feel fulfilled. Which means feeling independent enough that she’s not entirely, well, dependent on us. Financially.”
“Right. We were trying to figure out a career for her.” Benson narrowed his gaze at Liam. “That isn’t that.”
“Uh-huh. Well, there’s the Salon.” Liam knew Benson was familiar with the place, even though they had not gone together.
“I don’t know about that. She still has to be scantily clad and make men think she’s their girlfriend long enough for them to open their wallets.”
“But nobody will be touching her.”
“Would you really be okay with that?”
Liam shrugged, defeated. “It’s the least worst out of the options she’s throwing out.”
“Honestly, I’d rather she be a support worker at La Mariposa than working the Salon.”
“She’d be around way more sex! Not to mention it’s only quarterly. She’s gonna want more to do outside of one weekend a season.”
“This is stupid.” They had completely given up on their so-called card game.
“Between you and me, we can spoil her like a princess for the rest of her life. She won’t have to work a single day.
Hell, I’ve got so many connections in the non-profit world that I could have her volunteering if that’s what she wants to do three times a week. ”
“The world’s changed since even I was a kid. Women don’t want to be in relationships if they can’t keep making their own money. Too many horror stories from their grandmas.”
“We’re not a horror story!”
“She doesn’t know that. Not really.”
Benson sat with that for half a second before saying, “Guess you’re right. We’re still two guys who paid a god-awful amount of money to fuck our way through a weekend of women. Amazingly, we’ve made it this long.”
“What’s amazing is that she managed to bring us back together. Or something.”
Benson snorted. “Did not have sitting across from you in a gentleman’s bar, discussing what to do about our girlfriend, on my bingo card this year.”
“And you think I did?”
“So, what are we going to do?”
Before Liam could say anything, a tipsy man stumbled up to their table, clearly cleaved away from the group he had entered with.
“Heeeey there.” Sloppy brown hair swished across his forehead as he nearly knocked over Liam’s drink. “How are you two boys doing tonight?”
Liam and Benson exchanged a look. See what I mean? That’s what Liam conveyed with his tired gaze as the stranger’s friends came to collect him, apologizing for his behavior. Men.
“I forgot that I don’t like this place,” Benson said.
“Then let’s get out of here.”
He couldn’t have asked a moment sooner.
All of the planning and discussions with Benson might not have meant anything, anyway. Not when Eden sat across from them at Benson’s dining table Sunday evening.
“Maybe we should take a break,” she said before dinner was even ordered. “This has been going so fast. I’m not even sure what I want right now.”
Liam should have seen this coming, but he barely had a moment to collect his thoughts before Benson nearly lost it.
“Take a break?” Liam had to put a hand on his thigh to get him to even slightly calm down before he scared Eden away. “What are you talking about? We just got started.”
Eden blushed, but it wasn’t in that sweet, shy way.
She’s guilty. Maybe she hadn’t done anything, but she was conflicted enough in her thoughts that she preemptively felt guilty about what she wanted.
“I’m just making things more difficult,” she said, looking down at her lap and nervously pushing her hair behind her shoulders.
“And, I mean, I’m not talking about this being permanent.
Just a few weeks while I… I dunno. I just need some space, I think.
I’ve got so much I’m trying to figure out.
Like, what do I want to do with my life? ”
“I literally asked you to move in with me a week ago,” Benson said. “Now this?”
“Ben,” Liam patiently said, “I think that’s part of the reason our girlfriend wants a break. We are moving a little fast.”
“You can’t possibly agree with her on this.”
Liam put both of his hands on the table. “You and I are used to fast. We’ve got experience in it. She doesn’t.”
“Thanks,” Eden said. “I didn’t know how to say this all without upsetting one or both of you. Every time I rehearsed it these past couple of days, it just came out with Ben being mad and Liam sad.”
I’m sad? Maybe, in a way. Liam certainly hadn’t wanted things to go this way, but here they were, and they had to deal with it.
“Are you going back?” Benson suddenly asked, startling Eden. “To La Mariposa.”
She was slightly taken aback. “What? I haven’t decided. Probably not.”
“Then what is this about?”
“Ben!” Liam was almost more embarrassed than Eden, whose blush was quickly transforming into the red of anger. “Come off the island, already.”
“I’m not going back to La Mariposa,” Eden finally said, her voice firm. “And this has nothing to do with that place.” She lifted her gaze, meeting Benson’s hot glare first, then Liam’s. “I’m falling in love with you. Both of you. That’s the problem.”
Benson scoffed. “How is that a problem? Isn’t it what we all ultimately want?”
“When it’s this fast, with two people, and you don’t even know what you want from yourself!
” Eden’s composure cracked, her hands fisting on her lap.
“I don’t know what ‘happily ever after’ looks like.
I never thought I’d get one, let alone one with…
this. I need to figure out if this is what I actually want, or if it’s just…
all of this. The island. The escape. I’m scared I’m confusing the two. ”
Before Benson could lunge at the words, Liam leaned forward. “She’s right, Ben.”
Benson’s head snapped toward him. “What?”
“She’s right,” Liam repeated, his eyes still on Eden. “I’m worried we’re rushing, too. And her happiness… that’s the only thing that matters. If this isn’t it, I’d rather know now than have her miserable later.”
He let that hang in the air. Then he continued, gently.
“But does it have to be a ‘break’? A formal, cutting-things-off break? Or do we just… breathe? Take a week. No moving in talk. No big decisions. Just you, in your own space, thinking. We can still be here. Just… cool it down. For a little while.”
“You’re insane. You want to put us on probation?”
Eden, however, had a different reaction. The hard lines of her face softened. A flicker of something – relief, gratitude – lit her eyes. She looked from Liam’s calm expression to Benson’s furious one and back again.
“A week,” she whispered, testing the word. “Just… a week.”
So it was decided. Eden left, and Liam immediately turned to Benson to say, “So, here’s what we’re going to do.”
But first, takeout.