by Rachel Kane
“Tell me what you want,” Liam said, his voice quiet, almost lost in the quickening spring breeze.
“I want you. I want to be myself. But I don’t want anyone to get hurt! I don’t want Alex to be thrown out of the bookstore, or Toby to lose the bar, or… Well, I don’t want anyone to pay for my mistakes.”
“Coming out isn’t a mistake. And it isn’t your fault if someone’s trying to make you pay for it. It’s…it’s something we can deal with. Somehow.” He didn’t even realize he’d said we until a moment after it had left his lips.
“But Liam… You’ve got your own stuff. You think I don’t know that? It’s not even your past. You’ve got a kid. I can’t ask you to help me, when you have so much going on, and you haven’t even had a chance to work through your own loss—”
“No. No, that’s just it, I can’t work through it, without help. I want to. I’ve got to do something with all this grief, but man, I don’t know how to do it! I’ve got Richard hanging over me like a damn ghost, and every second I’m in Superbia, I’ve got new questions about my dad, and… And I just can’t do it without help. Judah tries, Noah does, god knows Mama tries to help, but they’ve got their own issues with Dad, you know? They’ve got their own stuff to work through, and so do you, and—”
Mason laughed then, and the sound was so unexpected, it was like a burst of sun had somehow come down out of this cloudy night sky. “God damn, Liam, how did you wind up such a good person, with all that going on?”
“I had the same question about you.”
“What are we gonna do with all this?” His gesture seemed to take in the two of them, all their pain, the town, possibly the entire universe, as though the weight of the cosmos was on their shoulders. It certainly felt like it was.
Liam shrugged. “Do you want to face it alone?”
“Hell no.”
“Me either.”
“So you don’t mind getting stuck with me?”
“We’re really going to have to work on your presentation skills. I’m not getting stuck with you. You’re hot as hell and your heart is golden and you’re going to fix my house for free—”
“Hey, wait, that last part—”
“Would you just come here?”
As the first thin curtain of rain began to fall, those protective arms encircled Liam and he pressed his face against Mason’s shoulder. In a moment he would kiss him, and there would be more to say, so much more, because they had been protecting each other from so much that they hadn’t needed to, and it was going to be slow work showing the grief, the worry, the pain, but right now, with the scent of Mason’s shirt and his hair, all he cared about was the moment itself, the cool rain touching his skin like a mist, the warm skin like rough silk, the sound of Mason’s hitched breathing, and his strength, his incredible strength, that promised to hold him up no matter what tried to knock him down.
“It’s not going to be easy. I just want to be really clear about that,” Liam said.
“Yeah, I know.”
“No, I mean…really. I have a family. I have Roo. I’m not sure how all this fits together.”
“The simple answer is the same one I said before. Move down here.”
“But Mama—”
“Move her down here too.”
“And Judah? And Noah? Am I supposed to leave them behind?”
“Move them down too. We covered this, Liam. I wasn’t joking. Put everybody you know and love into a truck and ship them down here.”
That made Liam laugh. “What’s Noah going to do without a city full of eligible guys to flirt with? Why don’t you move up to the city with me?”
“What about Alex and Toby and my dad—”
Liam pressed his forehead against Mason’s. “I’d say they could all move to the city with you. Maybe all of us should move somewhere else. Somewhere out of state. Far, far away from all this. And we’ll take Superbia Springs with us. Just…like…put the whole mansion up on a trailer. Carry it around the nation.”
“There you go. We’ll go from city to city, offering people a chance to drink at the secret bar. They’ll pay for admission, and we’ll live off the proceeds.”
Liam swallowed back the raw hopelessness he felt…and then remembered he didn’t have to swallow it anymore. He had someone to share his fears with, right? Wasn’t that part of this?
“I’m scared, Mason. I’m really scared. I don’t know how to have a relationship anymore. What if I treat you badly, because I think you’re keeping something from me?”
“Nope. No. You need honesty from me? You’re going to get honesty from me. Total openness. I’m done with secrets.”
“What if we can’t figure anything out? What if it has to be long-distance, what if…”
His words were somehow lost as Mason’s lips brushed his, as though the volume dial on his voice had been turned down, and down, until his fears couldn’t be heard at all. “I don’t know,” Mason murmured against his mouth. “I don’t care. My whole life is about fixing things. We’ll fix this. We’ll figure it out. If you’ll be by my side, we’ll get it. We’re the two most practical guys on earth.”
“Is it strange that I’m really turned on by hearing you talk about how practical we are?”
“Definitely strange. Especially because we have no place to…y’know. Unless you want to drive back to Superbia Springs yet again.”
“Item one on our relationship agenda is finding a place to sleep together. A place that isn’t a hundred-year-old secret Prohibition speakeasy.”
“There’s always those cold, cold tubs in the spring-house.”
The crazy thing—the truly crazy thing—was how good he felt right now. Things that seemed absolutely insurmountable on his own, felt fixable when Mason was involved. They’d figure things out, and it was such a change from hiding from everything that hurt, that his heart felt light, almost dizzyingly light, as though it might burst out and flutter upwards, a white dove casting itself up to the sky.
He linked arms with Mason, and they continued their rainy walk through the streets of Superbia. Occasionally they spoke, but more often, they were silent, quiet as the night itself, listening to the hiss of the rain and the rumble of spring thunder in the far distance, his head leaning on Mason’s shoulder, enjoying at last a moment when his burdens had been lifted, and he could finally breathe again.
31
Liam
It was the history book that provided the vital clue that would change everything for Liam and Mason.
“You didn’t have to get me anything!” said Liam, when Mason slid the package over the table. It was wrapped carefully, because of course it was; everything Mason did, he did with care. The lines were crisp, and the tape holding it together was perfectly symmetrical. The kind of present Liam hated to open. Better to preserve the beauty of it, especially given the earnestness with which Mason was staring at him. Whatever this was, it meant a lot to him, and Liam could have held on to that moment, that meaning, that stare, forever, just basking in it.
“I hope it’s… Well. I hope you like it.”
Liam picked it up and mimed shaking it, listening to it. “Is this an I’m glad we’re back together present?”
“Originally it was an I’m glad we just slept together present,” Mason said, in a whisper, as though Roo might understand what he was saying. But she was too busy trying to stand up in her booster seat, while ripping up one of the Red Cat’s napkins, to pay attention to the grown-ups. She didn’t mind making a mess of paper.
Liam looked over at Mason. “Do I get a present every time? Because we can head back to the motel room right now.”
“Just open the thing, would you?”
The Red Cat’s knives weren’t sharp—there was nothing on the menu you’d have to saw through—but they worked just fine for slicing through the tape on the present, gliding through with an anticipatory hiss. Liam took his time, enjoying the way Mason squirmed. First one flap, untucked, unfolded…then the opposite
end, opened just as slowly.
The fact that it was a book was not surprising. The shape and the heft of it, some little give to the edges, had clued him in to that part. What was surprising was how pretty the book was, and how relevant: The Story of Superbia: A Local History.
“By a Mulgrew, no less?” he said in surprise.
“Don’t hold that against the book,” Mason said. “Alex vouches for the guy. Apparently he’s not one of the evil Mulgrews.”
It was, he realized, a very thoughtful gift, the exact sort of thing Mason would think of. A way to entice Liam to stay in town, by immersing him in the story of the place. Especially when it hit him: This was his story too.
His story, the part that had been kept from him by his father’s secrecy. An entire side of his family he’d never had any contact with.
He flipped directly to the chapter titled The Families of Superbia. There were pages and pages of Mulgrews, but he stopped when he reached a familiar face.
Not familiar, that was the wrong word for someone he had never seen before. Yet wasn’t there something in that hard cheek, in the jaw, in the set of the eyes, that greeted him every morning when he looked in the mirror? Something similar in Judah’s face as well.
“So, the Late Great Uncle Silas,” he said, turning the book around and showing Mason the picture. “Or, wait, Great-Great-Uncle? Is this Silas The First or Silas The Second? Who the hell names all these guys the same thing?”
“You don’t recognize who is who? How come you never met any of them?” He pointed at one of the pictures. “Is that one your grandpa?”
Liam clucked his tongue in recognition. “Yeah…yeah, that’s him. Grand-Dad Cooper. No, I never met him. Growing up, it always seemed a little weird, because other kids had two sets of grandparents, but not me. It was like my dad existed all by himself, the only Adult Cooper in the world. You’d try to get him to talk about his childhood, or his side of the family, and he’d just shake his head and change the subject.”
“You look like you want to change the subject, too. I’m sorry if it brought up bad memories or something, I just thought—”
Liam grabbed Mason’s hand. “No. Stop that. This is perfect. I love it. I just wish it included my dad’s generation too. Look how it stops, right at Grand-Dad. Like my family tree gets pruned at that point.”
“Maybe Thaddeus Mulgrew could be convinced to write a new edition. Include all the new Coopers coming back to town. You, and Roo—”
Oh, that hopeful tone in his voice. The one thing, the one single little thing they hadn’t quite worked out yet: How Liam could stay.
The most obvious answer: Sell the house. That would bring enough money that Liam could live anywhere he wanted.
It was also the thing that Liam couldn’t quite bring himself to do.
They’d talked about this historical preservation grant Alex was looking into, but that process would take months.
Neither of them wanted a long-distance relationship. They could barely stand to be apart long enough to do their jobs, let alone have miles and miles between them.
“I thought this afternoon we could take Roo to the library,” said Mason. “They’re having story time. I know she’s a little young—”
Liam raised an eyebrow at him. How quickly and easily it had happened, Mason incorporating not just Liam, but Roo as well, into his thoughts, his plans. But of course he had. Roo loved him, and always wanted Mason to pick her up and tote her around. She didn’t try to squirm out of his arms. Liam at first had that momentary fear—don’t drop her!—but Mason was so strong, so steady, and took to her so naturally, that he’d stopped worrying about stuff like that. That’s why Roo was on Mason’s side of the booth, tearing up her napkin. Mason’s careful hand close to her, so she didn’t launch herself onto the table. Some kind of latent dad-reflex had come out, keeping her from falling.
Liam’s life was changing. For once, it was changing for the better.
I’ll have to figure out something quickly. It’s the only fair thing for both of us…for all three of us.
They didn’t make it to story time, but they did end up hearing a story told in a room full of books.
Alex’s text had hit both their phones, buzzing on Liam’s, and making that holiday jingle on Mason’s. (Remind me to get you to fix my ringer, he muttered to Liam.)
It’s not often in life you get an urgent request to rush to a bookstore, with no details, but when it happens, Liam found, it makes the stomach twist into a curious knot. Why the bookstore? Why right this minute? Mason tapped out a response as Liam packed Roo into her stroller, but Alex didn’t answer him.
“Your friend has a flair for the dramatic,” Liam said.
“In his defense, the bookstore’s pretty quiet. He has to liven it up somehow.”
If Liam and Roo were going to move here permanently, he was going to have to get a better stroller. The sidewalks of Superbia were bumpier than the ones back home, and the hard-plastic tires didn’t enjoy the little ruts. Maybe the Beautification League should do something about this, he thought. I’ll petition Town Hall. Although at the speed with which she was growing, she’d probably demand to walk solely on her own soon enough.
When they reached the bookshop, Alex pulled them inside with an unusual haste, shutting the door behind them…and locking it…and putting up the Closed sign.
“Um, buddy, you want to clue us in here?” said Mason. “Last time you locked me in the shop, it was so Violet Mulgrew could go for my throat. What’s the emergency?”
But Alex didn’t look like he had an emergency. He looked like he had a surprise. He was practically beaming. “Funny you should mention that. I have news. Good ol’ melodramatic small-town crazy news. Or, rather, he does.”
Alex stepped aside and gestured toward a man standing at the back of the store, a man who stepped out of the shadows.
It looked like Justin Fucking Mulgrew, except after a split-second, the eye adjusted, and Liam saw that it wasn’t Justin, but someone in that same lineage. This man was older, more comfortable in his skin. No, that didn’t go far enough. He was positively louche, with his Old South cream-colored suit, his posture made for leaning against pillars and balustrades, taking in the world with his permanently amused face.
“My, my,” he said, “would you look at that? A Cooper boy, in this day and age. It takes me back, it does.” His voice was a drawling river of sweet syrup. “And with a baby no less…that’s something I never would’ve expected to see. The world sure has changed, hasn’t it, shug?” He said this while looking down at Roo, who raised her chubby little hands to him in delight.
“Everybody,” said Alex, “meet town historian Thaddeus S. Mulgrew.”
“Former town historian,” said the man. “Before I was cast out in disgrace by my beloved sister-in-law Violet, protector of Superbia’s increasingly questionable virtue. I am told,” he said to Mason, “that you bought a copy of my book.”
Mason’s eyes flicked between Alex and Thaddeus, as though trying to measure whether a threat was in the air. His natural response to Mulgrews was hostile, but Alex wouldn’t have brought them together for trouble’s sake.
“It was a gift,” said Liam. “For me. To learn about the town. My dad—”
“Oh, I know your father, Liam Cooper. I should say, I knew him. That was long, long ago. But funny how the past informs the present, isn’t it? History never stays history. Alex, sugar, why aren’t you serving us tea and coffee, or something stronger if you’ve got it? I’d say the sun is over the yardarm, is it not? Story-telling is thirsty work, and children, I have a story to tell.”
“Are you cozy?” Thaddeus asked them. They were in Alex’s reading nook, Roo on the floor on her play mat, happily looking at everyone with her wide eyes.
“Listen, Mr. Mulgrew—” began Mason.
“Ooh, the hostility! You know, the Tisdales have always sounded like they wanted a duel with us,” said Thaddeus, “but I promise you that I mean no
harm. I have seen what my family is capable of, Mason Lee. That’s what I’m here to tell you about. Now, just so you know, I got a phone call from my charming sister-in-law. That is a rare, rare thing. Violet hates me the way a debutante hates a crow’s-foot. But she said that you were going to be trouble for my dear nephew Justin. A man who, if I am honest, I have never liked. Coddled from infancy with an idea of his own greatness, he has grown up as stunted and twisted as one of those bonsai trees. And now, Violet fears, the truth will come out about his youthful dalliances with one Mason Lee Tisdale. Dalliances which were painfully obvious to some of us while they were happening, even if Violet’s own all-seeing eye did not catch on at the time.”
One thing was for sure, Thaddeus’ voice was making Liam tired. He was eager to hear what the man had to say, but something in the lilting tone of his rich, soft voice was relaxing beyond words. Roo felt it too, now blinking sleepily at him.
“We knew she’d do something,” said Mason. “I’ve been trying not to think about it.”
“Well, the first thing Violet always does is call in the family. We are her ammunition, you see. And she wanted all the dirt in the world on the Tisdales. To destroy you, in her own elegant words. And when I questioned this, she said it was because you were seeing Liam Cooper. And that took my breath away. Liam Goddamn Cooper. Pardon my French, young lady,” he said down at Roo, “but it captures my sense of exaltation at hearing the name, because I finally have a chance to strike a blow against my darling sister-in-law, and unburden my soul in these last few moments before I leave this earthly plane entirely.”
It was an odd thing to hear from a man who seemed in a hale and trim middle age, nowhere near becoming elderly and frail, but that ironic note in his voice suggested he knew he’d be around for a long time to come. Nonetheless, both Mason and Liam found themselves sitting forward on their chairs. “How so?” Liam asked.
Thaddeus turned to him. “How much do you know about your father’s life, boy? I don’t want to shock you with revelations, but considering you’re here with a boyfriend, I have to assume you know that your father was—”
