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He finds Hoyt in the old hangout spot by the creek, as he knew he would, because for all his unpredictability, in some ways Hoyt is nothing if not predictable.
He’s sitting in the back of a pick-up truck that Liam is almost certain isn’t his, looking like a bad cliché with the joint between his fingers and the bottle of bourbon between his legs.
The door on the driver’s side to the cabin is wide open, the stereo is blasting Losing My Religion of all things, and Liam rolls his eyes hard enough to make himself dizzy there for a bit.
“How very nineties emo of you,” he says as he climbs into the bed of the truck, a little clumsily, wincing at the dirt that clings to his pants when the fabric makes contact with the surface.
“Oh, shut up,” Hoyt grunts and watches him awkwardly pull his other leg over the edge, making no effort to help him up - not that Liam expected him to.
“You coming to gloat?” Hoyt asks. He looks rough. He looks like he might have been crying. He looks like he might be drunk.
“Gloat?” Liam asks, wide-eyed, and clamps down on a niggling sense of guilt because it’s not like there hasn't been a time when he might have enjoyed doing just that.
“No,” he finally says simply, because that time is not today. “Just coming to see how you are doing.”
Hoyt snorts, bitterly, and takes another drag on his joint. “Sure you are,” he says, gives Liam a long, lazy look from hooded eyes. “As if you aren’t always on my case about something or other. One day you actually gotta stop being mad at me for that one time at the bonfire. Because you know, that was ages ago.”
“What?” Liam blurts out, a little undignified. He feels his face heat up. “No! No – that’s –” He gestures, dismissively. “I don’t even really remember that.”
“Because you know,” Hoyt continues, as if Liam hasn’t even said anything. “You were barely fifteen. You didn’t even have hair on your chest. Cordell would have carved out my liver with a hoof pick if I had touched his innocent baby brother, and he would have been right to do so.”
“Oh, don’t be dramatic,” Liam scoffs. He leans forward to pull the whiskey bottle out from underneath Hoyt’s legs. He needs more liquor for this conversation.
“It’s not like it would have been my first time.”
“Reeaally.” Hoyt’s gaze turns a little sharper at that, a little more interested. “You don’t say. Mr. Prim and Proper was a little slut in middle school, who would have thought. Does Cordi know about this?”
“No,” Liam says sharply, “and he’s not going to find out.” He unscrews the bottle with jerky movements, winces when the cap cuts into his palm. “And what would he do about it at this point – it’s not like he’s going to go beat up Thomas Allcorn III for defiling me under the bleachers about twenty years ago.”
Hoyt weighs his head thoughtfully. “He just might,” he says. “You know what he’s like.”
“Yeah,” Liam says heavily. “I know.”
He drinks, pulls a face at the taste of cheap gas station liquor, then takes another swig, just for the hell of it.
“So,” he finally says, when he sets down the bottle. “Cordell and Geri.”
“Yep,” Hoyt says flatly. He holds his free hand out for the bottle. “Gotta say. Did not see that one coming.”
“Mmmh,” Liam nods, and hands over the whiskey, watches Hoyt drink like he’s chugging water.
“So which one of them has gotten you all turned around today,” he asks. “Geri or Cordi?” And look at that, turns out he isn’t above a little cruel needling after all.
Hoyt grimaces as if he expected better from Liam, which is quite alright – Liam expected better from himself as well. “Thought you weren’t here to gloat,” he complains.
“I’m not,” Liam says sharply. “And don’t worry, your secret’s safe. Just because everyone with eyes can see the sad little torch you are carrying for him, doesn’t mean he –”
“Oh fuck off,” Hoyt interrupts him, tiredly. “What do you want.”
Liam looks away, out across the creek. “I want my brother to be happy,” he says steadily, “and for what it’s worth, I’m pretty sure neither you nor Geri are going to get him there.”
“Right.” Hoyt laughs, briefly, sharply. “And what, you think you are?”
“What?” Liam’s head whips around. His heart is racing. “What did you say?”
Hoyt smirks at him, a little meanly. Clearly Liam is not the only one capable of a little cruelty tonight.
“Oh come on,” Hoyt says, his voice back to that deceptively casual drawl. “You know, people talk. I hear things. Like that you suddenly broke things off with your boyfriend eight months before the wedding. Lots of rumors – but me, personally? I think you either hooked up with Larry during one of your little spy adventures and felt guilty, or you dumped your perfectly nice fiancé so you could be there for your big brother in his time of need.”
Liam squeezes his eyes shut, holds his hand out blindly for the bottle, and jumps a little when he feels Hoyt’s hand pressing the joint against his fingers instead. Great. Apparently today this aspiring District Attorney is going to break the law as well.
He guides the joint to his lips, inhales, coughs a little at the acrid taste, opens his eyes.
Hoyt is looking at him, almost amused. “Do you want me to guess?”
Liam blows smoke in his direction. He’s trying to hold onto his self-righteous annoyance but already he feels the liquor and the weed working together to make the world around him a little softer. Slower. It’s difficult to stay mad when you are this tired all the time.
“How about both?” he finally says honestly, without really meaning to, but it’s almost worth it for the way Hoyt’s eyebrows climb up into his forehead in genuine surprise.
“Oh, so you are a slut,” he says, almost impressed. “My my. The journalist didn’t mention that in his newspaper article about you.”
Liam flips him off. “How is it that you can insult me,” he says dryly, “and this still sounds like the closest to a compliment I’ve ever gotten from you?”
“Aww, come on now,” Hoyt mock-soothes and takes another drink, a little sloppily, whiskey dribbling down his chin.
“I’m not trying to insult you, babe. Just delighted to discover a new side of you. Who would have thought you had it in you, huh? Did you think about Cordi while you fucked his boss?”
“Jesus Christ, shut the fuck up,” Liam swears and looks around frantically, even if he is pretty sure that they are the only living souls within a radius of twenty miles.
“Hey man, relax,” Hoyt smirks. “You know how much time I’ve spent in prison? Ah well, of course you know,” he shrugs. “Seeing as how you keep reminding people whenever you can.”
He sets the bottle aside carelessly and props his forearms up on his knees, leans in. Even across the distance and through the marijuana smoke, Liam can smell the alcohol on his breath.
“The things you see on the inside,” Hoyt says, a little distantly, “you are never quite the same afterwards, you know? Anyway,” he grins wryly, “I can assure you that having a little secret crush on your own brother? Is pretty harmless in comparison.”
Liam raises the joint to his mouth with trembling fingers. “You are insane,” he mutters, doesn’t look Hoyt in the eye.
“Takes one to know one,” Hoyt says, and it’s impossible now to miss the way he is slurring his words.
“You can act all high and mighty and pretend that you have everything under control,” he says, “and Cordi might even believe you half the time, but you can’t fool me, William Edison. You are just as messed up as the rest of us.”
He grins sharply, recklessly, and Liam is not fourteen anymore, but he still feels something hot and dangerous spark in his chest at the sight.
“So you know,” Hoyt continues, and reaches for the bottle again, lifts it in the most disrespectful of toasts, “you can get out of here and let me wallow … or you can stop judging me for a second and join me in properly regretting our terrible life choices by getting utterly and thoroughly trashed.”
There’s a smart choice to be made here, and it doesn’t take much to figure out what it is. But Cordell is incommunicado, off on a manhunt chasing a guy who wants him dead, and the last time Liam heard from Bret was weeks ago, a terse text exchange about watering their potted plants. He hasn’t talked to Larry about anything not related to Emily’s case since they came back from Mexico, and it’s entirely possible that he has lost control over pretty much everything important in his life a good long while ago.
Liam looks down at the spliff between his fingers, then gets to his knees. He shuffles across the dusty surface, gives his jeans up as a lost cause, and unceremoniously straddles Hoyt’s lap, enjoying the way the man’s eyes go shocked and dark when he settles in.
For a moment, Liam just looks down at him, takes in the sheen of sweat covering his collarbone, the bloodshot eyes, the tongue darting out to wet dry lips, and forces himself not to jump at the sharp clang when Hoyt abruptly drops the bottle onto the metal bed of the truck.
“You trying to seduce me, Liam?” Hoyt asks, almost curiously, looking up at him from half-lidded eyes.
“No,” Liam says curtly, “just trying to get you to shut up for a minute.”
He guides the sad remainder of the joint to his lips, inhales, and holds his breath until he is feeling dizzy with it, then he chucks the butt over the edge into the gravel without looking and leans in to let Hoyt eat the smoke right out of his mouth.