Page 3

Liam

The car ride home was stuffy with tension and the aftermath of bad decisions. The smell of liquor and misery permeated the air around Ben and Nathan, strong enough still to make Liam grab for the keys before they left. Nathan had refused and climbed into the driver’s seat anyway.

Ben was in and out of consciousness in the passenger seat, the window fogging where his breath ghosted from his open mouth. Twice, they’d had to pull over when his dry heaving came a little too close to the real thing. Predictably, Liam took the backseat. He hadn’t uttered a word to them all morning, and he had every intention of continuing that trend all the way home.

Jonah’s note burned a hole through his pocket, the memory of the night before clinging around him like a dense fog. The domino line of red flags had toppled to a cataclysmic finale, leaving Liam wide awake in the aftermath of Jonah’s breakdown. He’d hardly slept at all. He had too many questions. Would he have even been brave enough to ask them, if Jonah had stayed until morning? Would it have been his place? How thin was the line between one person’s responsibility to another and a breach of boundaries?

Liam had no business casting himself as anyone’s savior, nor projecting the role of a victim onto someone he had known for a single night, but their encounter left him aching for reassurance.

Not for the first time, Liam felt the burn of Nathan’s gaze in the rearview mirror. This time, Liam stared back, willing him to be the first to look away. Instead, Nathan’s eyes hardened.

“What’s your problem, Cassidy?”

Liam turned back toward his window, resolute in his silence.

The car switched lanes so aggressively that Liam had to cling to the door handle to keep from swaying over. Ben let out a groan, bracing himself on the dash.

“Chill, Nate,” Ben said.

“No, he’s been a broody little bitch all morning. Just say what you want to say.”

Anger heated Liam’s blood, curling his fingers into fists in his lap. Ben turned halfway in his seat, looking back at him. “Is it because we went out again last night?” he said, looking maybe genuinely remorseful—or maybe it was just the hangover. “I really didn’t think you would mind.”

“You seemed pretty content with your own company,” Nate said. “You’re welcome, by the way. ”

“What am I supposed to be thanking you for?” Liam snapped. “I didn’t ask for that, and you didn’t even pay the guy.”

Ben turned to Nathan. “I thought you got cash out.”

“Must have forgotten to give it to him before I left.” It was the dismissive shrug, the flippancy with which he said it, stark against the memory of Jonah’s desperation for the same sum of money that was meaningless to someone like Nathan Scott, that broke Liam’s last thread of composure.

“What is wrong with you?” he shouted. “Was this really your idea of a joke? That person you rented for me last night is a human being with a life outside of whatever joke you thought you were trying to land.”

“I’m failing to see how I’m the bad guy here. He offered a service, I took him up on it. Is this all because I forgot the money? I can send the fucking money.”

“This,” Liam seethed, “is because you have spent this weekend proving to me how incapable you are of caring about anyone other than yourselves.”

“What are you talking about?” Nathan said. “We brought you to the city, we bought your drinks, we paid for the hotel. What more do you want?”

“Drink,” Liam corrected. “You bought me one drink, because that’s all the time it took for you to ditch me.”

“Hey, you’re the one who decided to leave early,” Ben interjected, but Liam steamrolled past him .

“And your father paid for the hotel,” he continued. “You don’t get points for being a trust fund baby. How did you even know this kid was a prostitute?”

“What? It was on his profile,” Nate said, like it was obvious.

Liam closed his eyes, shaking his head. “What profile?”

“I don’t know. Some app for gay guys.”

“Why do you have an ‘app for gay guys,’ Nathaniel?”

Nate met his eyes in the rear view with a mean smile. “Don’t say I never did anything nice for you.”

“What are you on about? He was just some guy at the bar.”

Nate’s expression tightened. “You knew him?”

“I didn’t know him. I just saw him there before I left.”

Nate’s eyes moved back to the road. He shrugged. “I don’t know what to tell you,” he said. “I searched by location, so I guess he was already at the bar when I messaged him.”

It took a beat to process, but Liam stopped short when he made the connection; a profile meant a means of contacting Jonah. “Show me,” he demanded.

Nathan laughed, a cold, condescending sound. “Planning the second date already?”

“Show me his profile.”

“Fuck off.”

Moving purely on rage instead of thought, Liam lunged between the gap in the seats and snatched Nathan’s phone out of his hand. The auxiliary cord ripped out of the socket, the sharp cut-off of music plunging the car into silence. The car swerved .

“What the fuck!” Nathan yelled at the same time Ben cried out in surprise. A horn blared past them, but Liam was too absorbed in his task to care. He scrolled through the homepage until he found a symbol he recognized, hidden inside a folder, and opened the app. It was easy enough to find him from there: the only message thread Nate had was with “Leo’s” account.

Liam held the phone out of Nathan’s reach and began typing. He only got partway through a sentence before Nathan’s hand closed around his wrist. They wrestled over it, fingers jamming keys at random, but he managed to hit send before the phone was ripped from his grasp.

For a long moment, the only sound in the car was their labored breathing, joined quickly by the roar of acceleration as Nathan blew past the speed limit. Ben was gripping the handle above his seat, looking green in the face.

They all lurched sideways as Nate swerved onto the nearest exit ramp, and again when the car jammed to a stop on the shoulder.

Nathan was out of the car in an instant. Before Liam could process what was happening, he had pulled Liam out and slammed him into the side of the car.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Nathan’s face was red and furious, inches from his own. “Are you out of your mind?” He emphasized the question with a hard shake.

Fueled entirely by adrenaline masquerading as courage, Liam placed both hands against Nathan’s chest and shoved. “Send me his profile,” he said .

“I’m not doing anything for you now.”

There was a short, silent standoff before Liam sprang forward again, grabbing for the phone a second time. It was Ben who interfered, appearing between them and throwing his arms out. “Woah, okay. Everybody needs to relax. Nate, just give Liam his number.”

“Are you seriously siding with him? He almost killed us just now.”

“Come on,” Ben said. “Clearly it’s a big deal to him.”

“I don’t care. If he wants to see his fuck buddy again, he can track him down himself.” Nathan checked Liam’s shoulder on his way back to the car, slamming the door behind him.

Ben sighed, looking between them, then retreated to the passenger side.

Liam stood still.

“What are you doing?” Ben called out his window. “Get back in the car.”

And suddenly Liam was very tired. As he stood on the side of the road, shaking from the crash of adrenaline and a severe lack of sleep, he couldn’t help but feel like this was some sort of karmic retribution.

Maybe this was exactly what he deserved for keeping their company all these years. A stronger man might have fought harder, but Liam had done enough fighting for one weekend. He just wanted to go home .

He avoided their eyes as he climbed into the back seat, pulling the hood of his sweatshirt over his head. Nobody spoke for the rest of the drive.