Page 75 of Open Water
He straightened when he saw me. Read my face the way he reads water.
"Well?"
"I'm okay. Suspended the two weeks I'm already doing. Back in January."
"And Marcus?"
"Probation."
He nodded slowly. Took it in. "And your dad?"
"He saved me," I said. "Without showing up. I'll be paying for it at Christmas."
Liam didn't say anything stupid. Didn't tell me it would be fine. He just looked at me for a second — the suit, the building, the whole apparatus of the name behind me — and then he said the truest thing anyone had said to me all day.
"His protection costs you everything." He nodded at the step he'd been standing on for an hour. "Mine's free. I just stand here. And I always will… no matter what."
I couldn't answer it because my heart was lodged in it.
That was the whole difference, laid out on a stone step in the cold. My father protected me and it cost me my life. Liam protected me by freezing his ass off and being there for real.
Turns out he was the only thing in the world really worth having.
"Come on." He bumped my shoulder with his, started us down the steps, away from the oak doors, toward the bridge and his side of the river. "Tyler bought a cake for Jace's send-off tonight. Some monstrosity from the grocery store. He told me to 'bring my boyfriend or whatever.'"
"That sounds nice I guess."
"It will be." He glanced over. "You don't have to come. But you should. Be around people who actually want you there."
I looked back once at Whitaker Hall, then I turned my back on it and walked toward the river with him, and I didn't look back again.
Chapter 17: Liam
Tyler ordered for the whole table without asking anyone.
"Four lasagnas, three of the big spaghetti, the chicken parm, and whatever that is." He pointed at a menu he hadn't read. "And breadsticks. All of them. I know what rowers need and it's carbs!"
The waitress looked at him. "All of them is a lot of breadsticks."
"Then you understand the assignment."
The Riverside Club hadn't changed. Brick walls, the downtown side street out the windows, long tables, mismatched chairs, the walls crowded with framed crew composites going back to the seventies.
Jace was at the head and the team was packed in shoulder to shoulder, loud, steam coming off the radiator in the corner, the windows fogged against the cold. All of us crammed in.
And Alex, sitting next to me, in my hoodie. My doubles partner and my boyfriend.
This same room that nearly ended us, and now we were together in public, and no one here seemed to have a problemwith it. It was still uncomfortable thinking that everyone here knew that we were together. I'm sure the thought crossed their mind that me and Alex, two guys, were having sex. But I couldn't change their thoughts, just learn to be comfortable with them.
A couple of the guys clocked him when he sat down. I saw it. The half-second double-take —that's the Kingswell guy, that's the photo guy.One or two looks held a beat too long. But that was it. Nobody said anything bad.
The food came and we began eating.
Then Tyler started it. Tyler always started it.
"Okay, I have to say it." He pointed a breadstick at Alex. "You two realize you've both decked the same guy? At different times." He looked around for support. "Marcus Caldwell has now been punched by both halves of this couple. That's a stat. That goes on a banner."
"The party," Remy said, tipping his cup at me.
