Gwen shot off several photos to her mom. A moment later, her mom laughed. “He’s got a tan! He looks so good! I mean, so do you.”
“Yeah. He’s becoming a beach bum.”
A long pause. Gwen began to wonder if the call dropped. “You both look very happy.”
“We are happy. Like I said, just give us some time.” She’d never told her mom about Tim and Jack, never even hinted she’d had her heart broken. Her mom wouldn’t have understood anyway, and Gwen suspected she would have deserved any admonishments for putting herself into such a stupid and scandalous situation to begin with.
“It wasn’t just the family stuff and Amy,” Gwen said. “Liam and I needed to get some away time, to reset our priorities. To spend time together. We both needed it.”
Another long pause before her mom responded. Tonight was pause night. “Is he out on a date?” her mom whispered. “With a man?”
“Do you want the truth?”
“Yes.”
“You promise not to freak out?”
“Yes.”
“He’s on a date with a very nice man. I got to meet him. We all had dinner together. Liam doesn’t think it’ll develop into anything, but he’s making friends.”
“He’s happy though, right?”
Gwen shoved back her wave of irritation. This was true progress. “He’s really happy. He loves you, and he misses you, but he’s making up for lost time and the things in his life that he lost when he got sick. He needs to do this. He’s not dying.”
She heard her mom sniffle. “I’m glad he’s happy. Maybe if he feels like it, tomorrow he can call me. I’d like to say hi. I promise I won’t nag. I miss you both.”
If Gwen didn’t get off the phone soon, she’d start crying. “I’m sure he’d like that. I’m going to go, I need to charge my cell,” she lied. “It’s almost dead. E-mail me, too. I’ll start e-mailing you now that you’ve got it.”
“I’d really like that. Love you, sweetheart. Please tell Liam I love him, too.”
“Love you, too, Mom.” She got off the phone and stared at it. Then she wrapped her arms around her body and cried herself to sleep on the sofa.
Tim sat on the back porch with a beer and stared out at the valley. Normally, this time of year, he was already busy decorating the house and outside with lights and decorations, but not this year.
His heart wasn’t in it.
He heard Jack walk onto the deck but didn’t acknowledge him. Jack pulled up a chair next to him and sat down. They’d had a quiet Thanksgiving with Jack’s parents. His mom had been in a good condition, nearly normal, able to have conversations with everyone. If he hadn’t known she had Alzheimer’s, he wouldn’t have suspected.
Jack let out a sigh. “Can we talk?”
“Sure.” He took another pull of his beer.
“What do you want to do for Christmas?”
Tim shrugged. “I don’t really give a shit.” He shot Jack a pointed look.
“How long are you going to mope around like this?”
“Depends.” He took another drink. This was his third beer. He knew he shouldn’t be drinking, because he was in a foul mood to begin with.
“Depends on what?”
“On how long it takes you to quit being a jackass and call Gwen.”
“She won’t talk to me even if I do, you know that.”
“No, I don’t know that.” He finished the beer and stood. “You broke this. You need to be the one to fix it. She didn’t deserve what you did to her. We could all be having Christmas together right now if it wasn’t for what you did.”
Jack stared at his hands. “I told you, this is for the best.”
“No, that’s the bullshit lie you keep telling yourself because you can’t figure out why the fuck you fell in love with her. I know why I fell in love with her. Isn’t it enough that you do love her?”
“Is it?”
“Christ.” He rubbed his face with his hands. “Man, I love you, but sometimes you are a really dumb fuck, you know that?” He stormed into the house, slamming the door behind him.
Jack stared out at the valley. He didn’t tell Tim that he had tried calling her a few days before Thanksgiving.
The number wasn’t good anymore.
Gwen awoke with a start to find Liam standing over her in the dark RV with a concerned look on his face. “Hey, why aren’t you in bed, sweetie?”
Disoriented, she sat up and looked around. “Um, I fell asleep.” She yawned. “Why are you here? What time is it?”
“Four in the morning.” He sat next to her and shrugged. “It was fun, but I think he and I both knew it would just be a fun night. He brought me home.”
Liam didn’t look upset. “I’m…sorry?”
He laughed. “No, it’s really okay. We agreed friends with bennies was the way to go. Too many differences to make it as more than friends, but attracted enough to each other to…you know, overlook those differences for a night.” He smiled. “Might see him again before we move on, and we agreed to get together whenever we were in town. Plus we’ll keep in touch by e-mail.”
His hair was damp. “You took a shower. Lucky bastard.”
He smiled. “I have to admit, not worrying about hot water and having a shower bigger than a breadbox is a nice luxury. Come on, you can curl up with me and go back to sleep.”
They settled in the back bunk, Gwen nestled in his arms like when they were kids. They’d spent a lot of nights together like that, especially when she was younger and mercilessly teased at school about her braces and glasses. Liam always comforted her even when their father told her she should just suck it up and be tough.
She shoved away her thoughts of Tim and Jack. “Ruthie called,” she said.
“Yeah? How’s she doing?”
“Good. I called Mom, too. Ruthie said I probably should.”
She felt the sudden tension in Liam’s body. “Oh.”
She rolled in his arms to face him. “I told her you were out on a date. She was pretty mellow about it. She said she was sorry about what happened and to tell you she loves you.”
“Go to sleep, kiddo.” She didn’t miss his tight tone. “We’ll talk later in the morning.” He pressed a kiss to her forehead.
Chapter Fourteen
Tim stared at the webpage. He didn’t hear Celia when she walked up behind him. “Still moping, I see?” she said.
He closed the lid of the laptop without turning. “Still spying on me, I see.”
She poked him in the shoulder. “Dude, do I have to smack you with a clue-by-four? You need to either take a leap of faith, or move on. This is just pathetic. Both of you are.” She crossed her arms over her chest and glared at him. Tim had let her drag the whole story out of him a few days after he returned from Laguna Beach after Gwen had left.
“Dumbass,” she’d said then. “Write her.”
“She said not to.”
“Yeah, because she’s hurting and in a lot of pain. What the fuck is wrong with that boyfriend of yours? I thought you said he loves her, too? Why’d he run her off?”
“Because he was scared.”
“Dumbass.”
Now, Celia stared at him. Glared at him was more like it. “Write her.”
He shook his head. “I can’t.”
“Dumbass. Then let her go.”
He shook his head again. “I can’t, Celia. I love her and I miss her.” It’d been seven months, and he still missed Gwen. Thought about her every day. Stared at her picture on his phone every day.
Jack missed her, too. He caught his lover looking at the pictures of them at dinner on more than one occasion.
“You’re a fucking dumbass. Both of you.” She shouldered him aside and opened the laptop, pulling up the webpage. Gwen’s website. She scrolled down to the bottom, clicked the “designed by” link that led to another website, then whipped out her cell phone and dialed.