Page 25 of Hold

Pat McConnell got out of the passenger side and looked up at the house, his eyes narrowing. Thea found herself feeling guilty all over again for what needed doing on the exterior but drew herself up. No more apologizing, not even to the Famous Pat himself.

Pat said something to Liam as he came up alongside his father, and they walked up the path—the weedy, crooked path, but who cared, right?—and the three steps to the porch.

Thea was moving to the front door, but the window was open. She heard a voice, lower than Liam’s and with the slight scratch of age, say, “This porch is a liability. Look at that railing.”

“I know, Dad. They don’t spend much time out here. I’ll get to it.”

I’ll get to it. Class was over. Everyone was coming over tonight to celebrate. In a couple of weeks, the online technology class would begin. Was Liam still planning on coming by to work on her house? She’d thought that him knowing she was a Fielding meant she was beneath his notice, his help. She’d reconciled herself to this, mostly. It would be a shame not to see his brawny arms fixing stuff around her house, but it would also be a lot less complicated. Maybe she’d cool her jets herself, stop feeling so breathless around him, stop missing him when he wasn’t here.

You are a glutton for punishment, she’d told herself four times this week.Are you always going to go for the guys who don’t think you’re worth much?

“You know you’re mine, pet,” Gabe would say when he was feeling vicious or Thea had tried, again, to be the one to close the door on their pathetic marriage. “I mean, who else would have you?” And then he’d slam out of the house and go drinking, and come back maudlin and contrite, swearing that he couldn’t live without her and the boys. And Thea hated herself for loving him in the first place, and felt ugly and unkempt and nothing beyond a maker of meals and wiper of noses, and before she knew it, she’d be making him coffee the next morning. And a couple of months later, Jake would need money for a school trip and Gabe would be gone again.

The knock on the door shook her out of her memories. She opened it to find Pat filling the doorway. He was the same height as his son but had about forty pounds on him. His hair was white and he was clean-shaven, but his eyes were the same sharp blue as Liam’s. He looked at her with the same skepticism as Liam had.

That look straightened her spine. Fuck ’em both. She was done explaining herself. “Mr. McConnell,” she said, holding out her hand and lifting her chin. “I appreciate you coming out.”

Pat shook hands, his own large, red hand swallowing hers. “My son told me your radiators were banging all winter.”

“Yes. This is the first I’ve heard that that’s not normal.” She gave him a determined Fielding smile. “Come on through.”

She led them into the kitchen and out through the back door. When she went to open the cellar door, Liam said, “I got it,” and leaned across her to grasp the handle.

Chivalrous? Or assy?Before she could decide which, he and his father were halfway down the stairs.

Turning back to her, Liam said, “You don’t have to come down.”

“Good,” she said, though she felt dismissed. “I still have to get ready for tonight.”

As she climbed the back porch to the kitchen, she heard Pat say, “What’s tonight? Hot date?”

“No.”

If Liam had used that tone of voice with her, Thea would have known not to pursue the subject. But Pat didn’t seem to have gotten the memo. She closed the kitchen door with a bang, but now she could hear him through the floorboards.

“’Cause she’s pretty enough, I’ll give you that.”

“Dad. Can we focus on the boiler?”

Thea pulled open the oven door with excessive force and closed it again, hoping that they’d hear and lower their voices. She really did have food to make—proper food, not stuff she was reheating from the supermarket—and needed to stay in the kitchen. Jake had disappeared off with his friends, and Benji was at day camp. Despite the boys’ general lack of noise during the day once their noses were stuck to their computer screens, the house was a gaping maw of silence without them. One where every sound from the basement carried.

It was curious to hear Liam defer to someone else’s wisdom for a change. He asked questions; Pat explained. They referred back to projects they’d done together in the past, but mostly Liam listened and agreed. Pat was the expert now. Thea bridled a little at the way Pat spoke to him sometimes: impatient when Liam asked a question Pat thought meant he hadn’t understood the explanation. Liam stuck up for himself at these moments but never brought out the sarcasm Thea was so familiar with.

“So,” Pat said eventually. “What about all this damp?”

“Short of repointing the entire basement or replacing the walls, there’s not much she can do about it.”

“It’s a shame,” Pat said, “seeing these old houses go like this.”

Thea paused in stirring her cookie batter. Waited for Liam to agree with him.

“She’s not trying to ‘let it go,’ Dad. Her ex split, and she’s had almost no help since then. The house had to come second. Or third.”

Well, well, well.Thea was far too pleased to hear him defend her.

“Might have known you’d be on her side. What exactly is going on, anyway? You bringing her to July Fourth?”

“God, no!”

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