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Right. His life was so not busy. “I should have called. I’ll remember next time.”
His path to the refrigerator was blocked by a wooden spoon dripping sauce.
“Stop.” Pop retracted the utensil and set it down. “You don’t need to call unless you’re not coming home for dinner or for the night. Which, I might add, you are allowed to do without permission. I just don’t want to wait up.”
“No worries there.” He slid around his grandfather, grabbed a glass, and opened the fridge. “Got no place to go and no one to go with.”
The moment he said it, he knew it had been the wrong thing. Pop worried about him, and this was one of those topics.
“There is no reason you can’t go out. I checked online. The campus LGBTQ organization has weekly get-togethers. You could go to those.”
He’d tried that. It wasn’t his thing. Most of the guys were with their boyfriends or looking to find one and it felt . . . inorganic? Too forced? Something. “Maybe I’ll check it out.”
“That’s better than a no.” Pop turned and pointed. “Breadcrumbs from the far-right cabinet, please.”
“Sure thing.” Liam couldn’t cook so well, but he could find and fetch with the best of them.
He pulled open the door and saw Pop had already set the table. For four? Last he counted, Pop, Beckett, and Liam made three. “Did you invite Miss Helen to meet your grandkids?”
The mention of Helen made his grandfather grin.
“As if I’d let her see the terrible twosome.”
Liam snickered. “One window. We broke one window, and it was Beckett’s fault for making his athletically-challenged brother play catch with him.”
“A, you’re plenty athletic, you can run mini-marathons. Beckett would wilt after two miles. And B, one window? Not forgetting a few other breakages?”
Liam grinned. “Nope.”
Pop shook his head. “Then it must have been your grandma’s Frisbee that knocked a tile off the roof, and your grandma who fell into the shed and dented it. And your grandma who—”
Liam raised his hands. “Okay, okay. You win. I’m stupendously uncoordinated.”
“I laughed every time I fixed the things after you.”
If he knew how to fix stuff, why didn’t he?
Because he’d fixed things for Liam’s grandma and the reminders still hurt. “Fine, but I resigned from that club years ago.”
“Hmph. So you say.” He stirred whatever was for dinner. “Little Liam the Lionhearted.”
He laughed with his grandfather at his ten-year-old nickname. “Whatever, old man.” He handed over the breadcrumbs and leaned against the counter. “If Helen’s not coming, who is?”
“Beckett invited Coury to join us.”
Coury Henderson? Who gave him a hard-on every time he ran around the pool without his shirt on? Who barely noticed him? “He never told me.”
“Hmm.”
“What?” Liam didn’t like the sound of that.
Pop poured some breadcrumbs into his hand and sprinkled them over whatever vegetable was in the baking dish. “Nothing. Beckett said you were all going out tonight. I thought you two had discussed things.”
“Becks sends three-word text messages. We don’t discuss anything.”
“Well, that’s what he told me.”
No way Liam was going out with them. Trust Becks to push him when he didn’t want to be pushed. He was fine having no social life. No social life meant he didn’t have to fend off dickheads. No social life meant not overhearing things like “fairy” and “fag” and “I’m sure he’d go down on anyone just to get some.”
Parties were just groups of those dickheads drinking copious amounts of alcohol and laughing about him or ignoring him completely.
Either way, nothing fun about being there.
And sure, Beckett would be there tonight, and probably no one would try anything, but Becks would be catching up with Coury.
He could have that fun on his own. The absolute last thing Liam needed was to feel stupid when they inevitably started talking sports.
“I gotta shower.” He pinched his blue Harrison sweatshirt. “I ran eight miles on the treadmill. I stink.”
Pop winked at him. “Probably a good idea.”
Liam showered and eyed his drawers for what to wear. The choice was always the same: jeans and a T-shirt. He agonized over which was the perfect shirt until he grabbed the first one he saw and shoved it on. Coury was so out of his league it didn’t matter. Out of his league, and more importantly, out of bounds.
Brother’s best friends were forbidden.
It was a rule.
And Liam always followed the rules.
Chapter Two
Coury
Coury dropped his phone on the passenger seat with a fond shake of his head. Beckett was running late. Coury was early. The story of their lifelong friendship.
He killed the engine and grabbed the cupcakes he’d bought at the supermarket. Lame, but he’d been raised never to show up empty-handed.
A blast of icy air greeted him. He yanked his hood up and burrowed into the warm down for the short walk to the white Cape Cod. It had been years since he’d been to the house. Before he and Liam started college. When Beckett’s grandmother was still alive.
