Page 6

Chapter 6

Liam

The minute I turned my phone on, it went insane with text messages from my sister. The missed calls numbered in the double digits and I knew what waited for me in my voicemail.

Instead of reading through any of that or listening to the voicemail, I called her back.

“Where are you?” she demanded.

“Not in town.” I smirked when I heard her suck in a breath.

“Are you continuing your vacation?”

“Not as such, no.” The second leg of my journey had brought me to a small airport in upstate New York. The idea of Ubering around all over Hell’s half-acre didn’t appeal to me, so I’d arranged to rent a car. A man in black jeans and a red blazer met me at arrivals. My name was neatly scrawled on the front of a sheet of paper.

“Where are you?” Carol asked again. “I can always turn on the friend finder app, Liam.”

“I can’t be there, Carol. I won’t deal with them anymore.”

It was all too much. I’d be fine, but then John and Marsha would come around and their grief would swallow me up like quicksand. Their sadness was oppressive. It made it impossible to breathe around them. And their latest idea had horrified me to the point where I was positive I didn’t want anything to do with them.

On my way to the airport to come here, I’d called my lawyer, Oren, and left a message instructing him about Piper’s eggs and what I wanted done with them. Piper was their child, but she’d been my wife. Not only did she not want someone else raising her baby, but she especially wouldn’t want to have her eggs used to make a Piper 2.0. I wasn’t a therapist, but I highly doubted what Marsha wanted to do was a healthy way to cope.

“I can’t do it, Carol.” My voice was thick and the words struggled to make it out. I fell into step next to my quiet escort and followed him out of the airport. Autumn was starting to roll in. The air had that crisp snap to it when the wind brushed my cheeks and some of the trees had just started to turn in preparation to shed their leaves.

“At least tell me where you are and how long you’re going to be gone.”

“I’m in New York. State, not city. I’m safe and shall remain so. Do I need to send you proof of life?”

“I wouldn’t hate it,” she grumbled.

“Carol, I love you, but we both know my position at the company is redundant. Give my position to my assistant. She does most of the work anyway. Offer her a hefty raise and give her time to adjust and I think you’ll be happy with the change.”

“Are you coming back, Liam?”

The driver took my suitcase and stowed it in the trunk while I slid into the back seat. My stomach clawed at my insides and I tried to remember the last time I had a real meal. Had it been dinner with Brodie? That was a lifetime ago.

“The short answer is I don’t know. The longer answer is I don’t know and I don’t really want to talk about it anymore. Don’t tell John and Marsha where I am. If they need me for anything, they can talk to my lawyers.”

“Liam.” Carol was using her mom-voice. Her concern wrapped around me like a soft, warm blanket. “Are you sure?”

“I know they were family, but I can’t… they make it impossible to move on.”

“As long as you’re sure you’re not doing something you regret.”

I choked on a laugh. “I already have regrets.” Brodie’s broken heart had been written all over his face and I’d hated myself every moment since then. I hated myself now because, despite my determination to see him again, I still couldn’t tell my sister that I was bisexual.

“I have to go, Carol. But we’ll talk soon, okay?” I ended the call before she could argue. Before I could blurt out that I was in New York to chase a man.

My secret bisexuality was a silly hang-up to have and I knew it. But my circle was small. I had a few friends from university, but I’d drifted away from a lot of people after Piper died. People didn’t know how to be around the grief-stricken. And I didn’t know how to be around people.

Brodie was easy to be around from that very first rain-soaked meeting. He’d dragged me out of the hotel lobby into the sun afterward. The light glinted off the fresh puddles, blinding us both.

“Breathe deep,” Brodie told me.

I still wasn’t sure why I’d followed him out there. Or why I’d listened to him tell me to breathe deep. Maybe it was how free he looked. How alive.

“Smell that?” he asked.

“It smells like wet.”

Brodie bumped his shoulder against mine. “The scent doesn’t change much no matter where you go. Petrichor smells like petrichor. Sometimes it’s earthier. Wetter. Sometimes it’s drier. But it’s the same no matter where I go.”

“Have you been many places?”

Brodie shrugged. “I’ve been to a few. What about you? Is this your first time in Greece?”

“Yes.” It was the simplest version of the truth. It was a place Piper had wanted to see, but hadn’t made it. An unchecked item on a bucket list.

“Where to?” the driver asked me.

Reaching into the breast pocket of my jacket, I pulled out a postcard. Torn in half. Taped together. I gave him the address of a hotel near the address on the postcard. I wanted to scrub the scent of travel and despair off my skin before I saw Brodie again. Though, maybe showing up looking like roadkill would work to my advantage.

The town Brodie lived in was cute. It was a bit too large to be called a small town, but it definitely lacked the big city vibe. Flower pots hung from street light posts. Petunias draped down in billowing curtains of color. The fire hydrants in the city were painted to look like people. I wasn’t sure I understood why, but it was endearing.

“Where’s a good place to eat around here?” I asked the driver.

“For casual, you can’t go wrong with Bennett’s. If you want a drink with your food, you’ll want to go to The Anchor. For fancy food, Ulysses is a nice little Greek place just off the main drag. Or there’s a steak house by city hall that’s just opened. It has good reviews, but I haven’t eaten there yet.”

My brain had been fuzzy for days so I put all his recommendations in my notes app. The car came to a stop outside a hotel that wasn’t anything special, but this wasn’t the type of town to have anything flashy. Clean was good enough for me, and the reviews had been promising.

The driver fetched my bag from the truck. “I’ll valet the car and leave the keys at the desk for you, sir.”

I pulled my wallet out and tugged a couple bills out and handed them to the driver whose name I didn’t care to learn. “Thank you.”

“When you’re done with the car, you can call us for pick-up. If you’ll be heading out via the airport, you can always arrange for us to drive you there. Until then, she’s all yours. If you have any issues, you can call, or text. The numbers are in the glove box if you need them. Enjoy your stay.”

My room was on the top floor of the hotel. The fact that it was the third story made me rethink my assessment that this wasn’t a small town. I tossed my suitcase on the bed and stripped out of my clothes.

I had no plan, but I had to win Brodie back. I had to at least explain to him all the things I hadn’t been able to before.

We’d been men escaping our lives in sandy beaches and sparkling tourist traps. We’d gotten to know one another, but I felt like there was so much more we could have shared. So much more we could have learned about one another.

I knew he had two brothers, but I didn’t know their names. He knew I had a sister and that I came from money. I knew he didn’t. There were a million little things that I knew and even more that I didn’t. But I knew Brodie. I knew his touch. I knew how his breath sounded in my ear. How he scrunched his face every morning before he opened his eyes.

But I didn’t even know if he was here in this city. If he wasn’t, then I’d wait. I’d wait for as long as it took to make things right. I’d camp outside his house if I had to.

After showering and changing into a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved waffle knit shirt, I went downstairs to the attached restaurant. I’d explore more of the city later. Right now I needed food and directions.

I ordered scrambled eggs and toast with a side of bacon. The coffee was strong enough to dissolve a spoon, not to mention how the lining of my stomach would fare, so I ordered an orange juice instead. By the time I finished breakfast, I had directions to the nearest florist, and to a pharmacy to get antacids.

Note to self: Don’t eat in the attached restaurant.

It also could have been my nerves that made my stomach churn and clench. The pharmacy was my first stop and after that I waited another thirty minutes for the florist to open. I had little experience in buying apology flowers, but I wanted something more unique than roses. Roses were nice, but they were thoughtless. They were generic.

Different flowers were supposed to mean different things, but I wanted something that reminded me of Brodie. Something that gave me the same kind of feeling as when I looked at him.

Brodie was sunshine. He was life and art. He was joy.

I bought every yellow tulip they had in stock. I didn’t know if they said the right thing in flower language, but in my head they said that I was sorry for being an idiot. I was sorry for letting him go without offering him an explanation. There were a thousand things I regretted about the way we’d left things. All I could hope for was a chance to explain.

I parked on the street outside a blue bungalow. It was a cute little house with white shutters. Very domestic looking. The yard was well taken care of, even if it lacked curb appeal. Crunching another antacid, I steeled myself with a few deep breaths before stepping out, bouquet carefully tucked into the crook of my arm. The postcard he’d left behind was in my back pocket, but I had no intention of returning that. It was the one piece of Brodie I had left. Maybe one day, if he forgave me, I’d give it back to him. Maybe.

After a final bolstering breath, I raised my fist and knocked.

This was it.