Liam had an odd look on his face. He paused a long while and then nodded. “It happens,” he said and then closed the door. He ran around the car and got back in behind the wheel. He took off down the road.
It was five miles before they got to an actual highway, and they crossed the border into North Carolina before they got to the closest motel. It was one of those old ones, like the Bates Motel from that horror movie. It had a generic name but the Vacancy sign was still on. Liam offered to find one that didn’t look like a dump, but Blake said not to worry about it. “I need to sleep, too,” he said, feeling the weariness to his bones. “And soon. We just need a few hours.”
Liam paid for the room and got the key. He got back in the car and pulled around to the room. Blake carried Kayli into the room after Liam opened the door. She woke briefly, calling to him. He tried to soothe her, asking her to go back to sleep. He adjusted the blanket around her, ignoring the moldy smell and the scorched cigarette marks in the blanket. “Sweetheart,” he whispered. “You’ll be fine.” He wanted to believe it.
Before she passed out again, he took the wet shirt off of her body. He thought to clean the sand off of her skin, but she was out and he decided to let her sleep, tucking the sheet over her. She could shower when she got up.
Liam hovered in the doorway the entire time. Blake wanted to sleep, but he supposed he needed to update Liam on their plans if he was in touch with Corey. He didn’t think he’d get away with just shooing him out the door at this point.
Blake closed the door of the motel room as quietly as possible. Liam leaned against the metal railing of the old porch façade. He stared at the rows of vehicles in the parking lot.
Blake joined him, unsure of what to say. “She’s dead asleep,” Blake said.
“I would be, too,” Liam said. “I can’t blame her. Sounds like you all have been through a lot.”
“So you’re a part of this Academy?” he asked. He didn’t want to talk about her.
Liam turned his head and squinted at Blake, studying. His reddish hair was too fair for his tan skin. It looked funny. He wasn’t ugly, might even be handsome to the right girl. Still, he had an edge to him. Blake could imagine him with a temper. “Did they tell you I was?”
Corey hadn’t said anything about who was coming to get them when they were on the phone. He didn’t give Blake much info about anything, only that he was glad Blake was with Kayli and they were safe. They hadn’t even known they’d gotten off the ship, although they had been looking for her.
Blake focused on the man in front of him. “I assumed you might be, since you’re friends and all.”
“Then I hope you’ll forgive me if I don’t answer the question. Not something I like talking about.”
Blake nodded. Reasonable assumption to think Liam was part of the Academy, but he understood they wanted to keep their secrets. At the moment, he didn’t care. “Can I ask you something?”
“Sure,” he said. “Just as long as it isn’t about that.”
“Back when you picked us up and I introduced myself, you looked...funny.”
“Funny?” Liam roughed a palm across his chin. “I’m not that ugly, am I?”
“No,” Blake said. “I mean, when I said my name and whatever else, you seemed to hesitate. Was there a reason?” He wondered if Corey might have said anything. He was fishing for clues to see if there was any prejudice from Corey, in case he had been wrong about him. He couldn’t rule out anyone from throwing him—or Kayli, for that matter—overboard.
Liam sucked in a breath and then turned his attention back to the parking lot. “No. Honestly, I just...never mind. It’s not important.”
“What?”
Liam pressed his lips together tightly. He continued to stare out at the cars, as if he were going to memorize every single one. He went without talking for so long that Blake was sure he wasn’t going to answer. Eventually, Liam’s palm slid against the rail, bringing him from his thoughts. “You introduced yourself as her boyfriend.”
“So?”
“So when I got the call from Corey, he specifically said, ‘My girlfriend Kayli is in trouble. Please help her.’” Liam turned his head, meeting Blake’s eyes. “It’s none of my business, really.”
Heaviness settled into Blake’s heart, something he’d felt since he’d met Kayli and had discovered she was with Brandon, and then later became confused when each one of them seemed to be interested in her, in more than just protecting her. Corey had been protective of her when they first met. He wasn’t sure what Kayli had told them, although she’d said she’d never asked for a commitment. Had they all assumed? It was doubly confusing when Kayli had said Corey was gay. It didn’t make sense. He obviously felt pretty strongly about her. “I can’t account for what Corey might have said.”
“It doesn’t matter to me. Maybe he meant girl friend, as in his friend that’s a girl. Maybe you called her your girlfriend because of some protective need when I was a stranger to you. Maybe you’re both her boyfriends. I don’t know. Like I said, it really doesn’t have anything to do with me.”
Blake hung over the rail, looking at a car coming into the motel lot. An older gentleman emerged, making his tired way toward the lobby. He didn’t seem interested in Blake and Liam other than to flick a concerned glance that they were outside staring at the lot, but he walked on anyway.
When he was inside, Blake continued. “You’re right,” he said. “Not really your business.”
Liam sighed. “Being that it isn’t my business, but I’m here anyway, can I give you some advice? Just out of the blue from an outside perspective?”
Without a shirt, Blake was feeling the cool breeze hard against his skin now. Sleep was close, and he wasn’t in the mood to do anything else but curl up near Kayli and call it a day.
Curiosity got the better of him, though. It had always been a problem for him. It was how he’d gotten into this mess. “Advice is usually fre
e.”
“Yeah.” Liam tapped his fingers against the rail, drumming. He was either musical, or nervous and not really sure about this conversation, a move Blake had witnessed before. “You see, I come from a very unusual...family.”
This threw off Blake’s assumption of what Liam might say. Family? What did this have to do with himself and Kayli? “Huh?”
Liam tapped at the rail and traced the edges between his fingers. “My wife. She has...other men in her life.”
A cheater? Well, that sucked. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“No. Not like that,” he said. He looked up, meeting Blake’s eyes with sincerity. “They were my friends. I loved her first, but they grew to love her over time, since they had to spend a lot of time together. Eventually, there was a mutual arrangement of sorts. We agreed we’d share her.”
Blake’s head reeled back a bit, but then he recovered. He wasn’t totally ignorant in the understanding that a girl might have two boyfriends, or a guy have two girlfriends. It was just never a situation he’d encountered himself. He’d never thought about it seriously. “O…Oh.”
“I don’t mean to shock you,” Liam said. “To be honest, I never bring it up with anyone. No one really understands. It’s hard enough in life if a man’s gay, or likes to dress as a woman for fun, or if a white couple adopts a black baby. Things like that are still no one’s business but those involved. Unless there’s a direct reason to involve others, a man’s business is his own.”
“So why are you telling me about it?”
“I guess I just wanted to offer myself up to talking about it if that’s a place you’re headed. There’s not exactly a lot of people out there like us, so running into another one...”
“I’m not another one,” Blake said quickly. He wasn’t usually so snappy, but it had to do with Kayli and his usual air of politeness had disappeared when he got thrown off of a boat, and she after him. “There’s just a mix up.”
Liam lifted his hands up in a gesture of surrender. “Okay. My apologies. I must have gotten the wrong impression.” He put his arms down, leaning back against the rail. “Especially when Axel sent me twenty texts since I left to come get you, and in no less than two, he’s called her ‘my girl’.”