Page 48 of Hold

The next two weeks were heaven and agony for Liam. He began arriving five minutes early and opening the front door quietly so that he could catch Thea for one kiss and refill his coffee mug before Jake came down the stairs. Each kiss was a drink in the desert and left him just as thirsty. The reminder of her, in the taste of her coffee that he drank throughout the morning, was a poor substitute.

Jake was a good reward for abstinence, though. He learned quickly and well, asked sensible questions, and never pretended he knew something when he didn’t. Liam felt a pang that he would never have him in his AP history class, but this was pretty good too. The day he let Jake use the propane torch to solder a joint, the boy’s face lit up as though he’d been given a quad bike.

And Benji. Liam had known he’d fall in love with him easily. The boy was a typical five-year-old, in all the best ways. He was dirty; he didn’t want to brush his teeth; he hated vegetables. He was crazy about power tools. One evening at the park, he got in an argument with another kid who called him a dickhead and he called the kid an asshole, and Liam and the other boy’s mom had to exchange chagrined apologies. The next day Benji and the boy spent an hour racing each other up and down the spider gym.

Benji would bring him cool rocks or bugs or decapitated toys he’d found in the sandbox. He’d require Liam’s participation, his admiration, and when it was time to go, he’d take Liam’s hand and look both ways before crossing the street. After a week or so, Liam gave in to instinct and dropped a kiss on the boy’s head when he said goodbye. His reward was Benji’s arms around his waist for a brief hug before he ran in to give his rocks to his mother.

He observed Jake more closely, because Jake was older and had further to go to trust again than his brother. But he loved Benji with all his heart, and the idea of being his dad rolled around in his head and wouldn’t let go.

Class started up again, an online class this time that they could have completed in the comfort of their own home. But the group wanted to meet up, and Thea again offered her house. In the balmy July evenings, they carried the kitchen table outside and sat around with beers, talking more than studying.

Yeah, Liam joined them. Even though he didn’t need to take this class. Even though he had gone to the college and asked about taking up his place after all. Even though he’d been to the bank and figured out loans and interest rates, and his faceless mortgage company had sent paperwork, and a Realtor friend of Seth’s had appraised his house at more than double what he’d borrowed to fix it, and he was on his way to having financing in place to pay his fall tuition. Even with all that, he wasn’t about to miss an excuse to see more of Thea.

He thanked David for his advice in their first meeting that week. “That’s great,” David said. “I’m glad it worked out.” He nodded at Thea, who was deep in conversation with Chloe and Zahra at the table. The men were across the lawn behind her house. Audrey was stalking butterflies between them in the drowsy July heat. “You told Thea you’re only here for her yet?”

Liam hated that telltale flush his skin often let him down with. “Let me admit that to myself first,” he said with a wry grin.

“Better get on it,” Seth said. “I still think she might take me, even with my greasy hands.”

Their banter was desultory; it was too hot tonight. Even his pride and joy, the truck, was feeling the heat; her air conditioner was a mere trickle these days. He was going to have to go to a mechanic about that one day, but he didn’t know who he could—

“Oh my God,” Liam exclaimed. “The heat’s turned me stupid. Will you take a look at the truck? Her a/c is on the fritz.”

So the men went around to the front of the house and didn’t come back for an hour, except for beer refills for David, who was the only one not driving. Seth didn’t do anything to the truck then and there, of course, but it took them an hour to discuss what hewoulddo.

“Did you have the refugees at your garage yet?” Liam asked.

“Yeah!” Seth said. “Not just refugees, or at least, not recent ones. Zahra got the youth group at her mosque to come, and several of the fathers came too. I pulled out an old Lincoln we had in the back, and the kids were all over it. With the older engine, we did the simple things like oil changes, filters, batteries, that kind of thing. I think they enjoyed it. I think they just enjoyed doing something outside of their neighborhood, to be honest. Something different.”

Liam nodded. “They were happy to talk to me, too, when Zahra took me over there the other week. They schooled me on African history, I can tell you. I spend half my free time these days boning up on it so I don’t look like a doofus once school starts.”

“But they’ll learn US history with you, won’t they?”

“Yes, but if I don’t create a frame of reference, I may as well be reading them a Dickens novel. Some of them know World War II because they were still colonized then, but Korea? Vietnam? What do they care about them?”

“Have you talked to Zahra about it?”

“Not yet.”

“Well, she’s right inside. You know, the one sitting next to the one you can’t take your eyes off?” David smirked.

They ambled back inside, and Liam cornered Zahra. There was so much to learn about the community he was about to enter, and he was beginning to realize he had only a month or so left to learn it.

That night, buoyed by the knowledge that he’d see Thea first thing in the morning, Liam didn’t hang around when the others had left. But he went ten minutes early the next day, and the kissing became so intense he almost had her bra off before he remembered where he was.

“We can’t do that again,” she whispered, breathless, when they’d come to their senses after hearing Jake’s door close. She ran into the bathroom just in time, leaving Liam to drive off with an image of her untucked, silky blouse and her newly released, oh-so-tempting breasts pressing against it.

He was dying here, and the boys were still eight days from going on vacation.

At their next group meeting, they all sat on the back patio again. Thea wore a floaty pale-green top that hinted at her breasts the way her work blouse had, and shorts that were shorter than anything he’d yet seen her in, apart from that damn swimsuit. Liam died all over again when he saw her, then picked himself up, held himself in, and acted normal, as he had for two weeks, or three hundred and thirty-six hours. Or Twenty. Thousand. Minutes.

At some point in the evening, Thea went back inside to bring out ice pops for them all. Oh, and look at that, Liam’s beer needed a refill.

The screen door banged behind him, and he was, finally, alone with her in the kitchen. The boys were upstairs, Benji a lot more tired these days now that Liam was hanging with him so much. Thea was at the freezer. She turned from pulling out a tray of ice and Liam was there to take the tray from her hand and open her fingers with his. With her hand still stretched out toward the counter, he pressed a kiss onto her palm, which was cool and hot at the same time. He let his tongue touch the center of her hand just a little bit, and Thea’s legs buckled.

Liam’s arm was around her before she could drop an inch. “Everyone…”

“Is outside,” he said, tickling her skin with his breath. Now that he had her, he took his time, dropping kisses onto the pad of skin below her thumb, her wrist, the veins visible under her skin on the inside of her forearm, and up to the crook of her elbow, where he indulged himself in another swirl of his tongue against that cool-hot skin and got a moan from her for his trouble.

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