Well, her father did, and their mother followed their father’s orders.
It took her a half hour to unload and get his things moved into the office. He parked himself on her couch and reached for the remote. “Remind me to buy you a Wii for your birthday so I can come play it. Have you heard from Amy yet?”
Gwen frowned and checked her BlackBerry. No messages, no voice mails, no texts.
“No.” She tried calling and got Amy’s voice mail. “Hey, listen, chica, not to rain on your parade, but please at least text me back you’re alive. Liam’s crashing with me for a couple of days, but Mom and Dad are seriously wigging out over your lack of communication. Love you, and have fun.” She hung up. Liam stared at her. “You think she’s okay?” she asked him.
He nodded. “She needed me to clear some spyware off her computer a few days before she left. She made the hotel reservations for two. I saw it in her e-mail, the confirmation.” He was a freelance computer programmer and made a decent living at it.
“You don’t remember the name of the other person?”
“She made it in her name, but that doesn’t mean they checked in under her name. Once you’re there you can put it in whoever’s name you want.”
“Why would she hide from Mom and Dad like that?”
He waggled his eyebrows. “Maybe it’s not Mom and Dad she’s hiding from.”
Indignation filled Gwen. “Now, you wait a minute—”
“Not you, Gee,” he said, calming her and waving her objections away. “I meant the guy she’s with. Maybe he needed to put the reservation in his name as a cover for something.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah, oh. I think she’s met him quite a few times over the past couple of months. Late nights I covered for her and said she’d gone out with friends, or taken a class, or was running a seminar or whatever. I’m running out of excuses.”
“Well what’d she say when you asked her what was up?”
He shook his head. “I’m not about to do that. Do you honestly think she’d admit it anyway? She needs her space, too.” His face darkened. “I can’t even go jerk off in the bathroom without Mom knocking on the door ten minutes later and asking if I’m okay.”
“Okay, that’s TMI even for you.”
“It’s the truth. I ask Mom to leave me alone, she asks why. I tell her I just want privacy. Then she’s knocking on the damn door every five minutes to see if I need anything.” He snorted. “Yeah, I need her to leave me the hell alone so I can rub one out.” He gave up trying to find something on TV. “I’m thinking about looking into moving to a group home.”
“Why?”
“I need privacy. I get absolutely none with Mom around. I close my door, she’s knocking on it. Or worse, she walks in without asking. God forbid I lock the damn thing. I can’t convince her I’m not a baby. If it wasn’t for Amy and you, I’d go crazy.”
She walked over to the couch and sat next to him. She sensed this wasn’t only about his privacy. She’d never seen him so brooding, so agitated. Her instincts screamed. There was more.
A lot more.
“What are you not telling me?” she quietly asked.
He looked down into his lap, where he worked his fingers together. He finally met her gaze, tears in his eyes. That told her how serious this truly was, because Liam was her rock, the solid, steady one no matter how bad it got. She was the emotional one, with a hair-trigger temper and the ability to fly off the handle at a moment’s notice.
“I love your books,” he said. “I know I haven’t told you that, but I do.”
Okay, weird tangent. “You did tell me that. Lots of times.”
“No. I mean all of them. Not just the mysteries and regular romances. Even the gay and the ménage ones you write under the pen name.”
That raised her eyebrows. “I didn’t know you read those.”
“I snarfed the ARCs from Amy’s computer.” He pressed his lips together until they formed a white, thin line. Then he took a deep breath and softly said, “I’m gay, Gee.”
She carefully thought out her reply. How she handled this would no doubt define her future relationship with Liam. “Who else knows?”
“No one. I always thought I was, but was too scared to do anything about it until I moved out after college because of Dad. I was sorting things out when I got sick. Since then, I’ve been stuck at Parent Prison, and you know what Mom and Dad would do if they found out. Especially Dad.”
Yeah, she did. Or had a good idea. If he freaked out over her writing about gay men, she could only imagine how badly he’d explode over finding out his son was a gay man.
She leaned in and hugged him. “You know, I’ve been thinking it gets kind of lonely around here. I’m going to end up being one of those crazy cat ladies if I don’t have more human contact. What do you say you move in here with me and we’ll be roomies?” She’d thought about making the offer before. The problem was, the last time she’d broached the subject to her parents her mother guilt-tripped her into not saying anything to Liam about it, citing every reason under the sun except global warming for why it was a horrible, irresponsible, stupid idea.
He hugged her even tighter, and she pretended not to hear his choked sob. “Do you mean it?”
She stroked his hair. “Yeah. Of course I do. I mean, we need to wait until Amy gets back to break it to Mom and Dad, but yeah. You stay here for a few days, then go back like normal, and we’ll plan your prison break. I need a few days to move my crap out of the office to the upstairs spare bedroom and get everything rearranged. I can probably get Bob to help me move your stuff when he’s back from his trip.”
She let him cry, tightly clinging to her as he sobbed his relief. He rarely broke down and lost his cool. She’d only seen him cry twice like this—after his diagnosis…and now. She couldn’t refuse him this. He was her big brother. Only thirty-five, with hopefully many decades of a good life left in him despite their mother treating him like a dying man. What kind of life would it be if he was kept virtually a prisoner by their well-meaning mother?
God knew he’d spent enough time in their younger years bailing her out of trouble. Time for her to pay back the favors.
After a few minutes, he composed himself and she got him a tissue. He laughed. “I hoped you’d handle it well, but you take the cake, Gee. Jesus, I fucking wubs you like you have no idea.”
“I wubs you, too, bro. I wish you’d told me sooner.”
He shrugged. “There was never a good time when Mom wasn’t within earshot.” He blew his nose. “You are the world’s best sister. Well, okay, you tie for first with Amy.”
“We’re your only sisters, dip.”
He grinned. “I’m glad you’re my sisters.”
After Liam recovered, he settled in to do his own work while Gwen checked her e-mail and found one from Tim.
Write more, write faster, Go-Go girl. I need my next fix! Got your review up on the store blog, hope you like it. Kissy-huggy! - TimE.
He included a link.
She read a little nervously, even though she suspected it would be a glowing review. Yep, another rave from him. Not all reviews he gave her were perfect. He didn’t hesitate to point out flaws, but always in a gentle way that never bruised her pride.
She would write him back later, but a glance at the time showed she needed to order their pizza. During the wait for it, she stewed about not receiving a return call or text message from Amy. That wasn’t like her. She’d been gone nine days now. To disappear off the radar like this wasn’t typical behavior for their responsible older sister.
Ten minutes after they sat down to eat, their mom called.