Page 35 of Wanted
“Duly noted,” Liv said and cleared his throat, focusing on the fact that his phone still hadn’t buzzed. “So… if he’s gay, you guys are coupled up, and he doesn’t leave, who is he fucking?”
Shane snorted. “Well, he used to fuck his hand for many years, which is probably what made him so feral, but he met a guy who’d wandered in here, and let’s say… claimed him. They live on the other side of the junkyard because he believes that’s a good spot for patrolling. All I’m saying is, be glad you didn’t wander in when he was single.”
That was… disturbing, but Liv smiled regardless. “He’s safe as long as he keeps his hands off my man.”
My man. Such an odd thing to say, yet the words felt good on his tongue, like a tasty chewing gum he hoped would never lose its flavor. He had been watching gay porn and was turned on by it. So maybe it was weird that he’d never sought out a guy to try things out in real life, but with plenty of girls falling into his lap, it was very easy not to rock the boat. But now that fucking Knox was a possibility, his brain flared with fantasies he’d never trusted himself to entertain.
Shane took a big gulp of beer. “Nah, he won’t, as long as Knox doesn’t try to steal his meat. He’s very territorial about it.” He rolled his eyes. “Yet forsomereason thinks it’s perfectly okay to take as much as he wants from a barbecue, since it’s ‘unprotected’.”
“Ha, in that case I will need to set up traps once I get Knox to do his magic. He is the meat king, my friend,” Liv said, making a broad gesture with his hand. “Will a nice meal be enough, or will I need to go through some sort of initiation in order to work with you guys long-term?”
“You’ve had your initiation yesterday, and you didn’t piss your pants, so consider yourself on probation. And by the way? Dex claimed to be the Ramen King for years, but only learned to make it from scratch lately, so I’ll believe Knox’smeatskills when I see them. I’m willing to invest a few pounds of ground beef though.”
And speaking of the devil, Liv’s phone vibrated, and he plucked it out of his pocket as if it was in need of air. What he saw on the screen powered a bomb their encounter this morning had planted. And now it was about to go nuclear.
[I’ll be going to the party, so don’t wait up. I’ll probably be back late. Don’t worry if I don’t answer, my shitty phone is dying.]
Shane cleared his throat after Liv didn’t answer him for a long time. “Everything all right?”
It took several seconds for Liv to calm the fire burning in the pit of his stomach, because he knew he wasn’t being reasonable. Knox and he weren’t joined at the hip, and while it pissed him off that his—whoever they were to each other in this weird limbo—didn’t want to talk about something that couldn’t be ignored, maybe Knox just needed time to think. If that was the case, chasing him down would be the worst thing he could do.
A cornered Knox lashed out. Like that time when Liv had confronted him over the strange case of strawberry marshmallows. Liv had found them in the cupboard under the TV, and Knox had said his girlfriend must have left them there. Only that the next time Liv had found them, there was no girlfriend to speak of. So… maybe Liv made fun of Knox liking a baby pink treat and hiding that fact from him. Which, in hindsight, was a shitty thing to tease him about. But the whole ordeal ended up with a broken TV, melted pink marshmallows all over Liv’s bed, and a narrowly avoided fire in their trailer.
So he took a big gulp from his bottle and shrugged.
“Knox is going to that biker party.”
“Oh…” Shane hummed as if he had something more to say. “I guess he is the Meat King then,” he added cryptically, only adding fuel to Liv’s fire.
“What is that supposed to mean?” Liv snapped, already so on edge the phone creaked in his hand when he squeezed it.
Shane spread his arms. “I’m just saying that Dex told me Knox asked him if Cyborg was single.”
What was that gnawing, inescapable sensation that started deep in Liv’s stomach and soon spread up his gullet, all the way to the throat? It felt like nausea, only no stomach issue had ever made him want to grab a baseball bat and smash everything around him to pieces. As red filled his vision, all he wanted wasto rip into the pretty upholstery of Ros’s car, crush the windows, and then jump straight into a fire for a bit of cooldown.
What the hell didthatmean? Was Knox gay and just didn’t find Liv attractive enough? It definitely wasn’t about Liv’s dick, because he knew his worth in that department. Was it the diastema? Were his lips too wide? His nose too big for pretty boy Knox?
He had all the right to pick and choose, looking like that, but after everything they’d been through together, he should be a gentleman about it and say it to Liv’s face instead of going after another guy behind his back.
“Oh.”
Or was this some fucked up revenge for Amanda?
Impossible, after the last few days. And in Amanda’s own words, Knox didn’t seem that much into her, so why would he care? He’d seemed at peace in Liv’s embrace in the morning, eating porridge from his hand, and had even given Liv a fucking kiss. In front of everyone.
Shane clicked his tongue. “From what you said so far, I gather you guys aren’t open?”
“We haven’t really discussed it,” Liv forced out and had another swig from the bottle, but the beer wasn’t enough. He needed something stronger, or he’d go on a rampage.
This bothered him so much more than when Knox got his first girlfriend, Susannah, and ditched their basketball practice for a month. Or when he’d won concert tickets and took Tammy instead of Liv. Or when he’d started suggesting Amanda could be The One so frequently Liv decided to do a wooing intervention to prove to Knox she was not worth his time.
Those things had annoyed him, but it kinda made sense that Knox would spend time with a girlfriend. This? This was a full-on competition, and he was losing it to some dick Knox mettoday?
Shane raised his eyebrows. “And you’re just gonna let that slide?”
It was like a red cloth wiggled in front of a bull. He finished the beer and didn’t toss the bottle to the ground only because he didn’t want to make an enemy out of this new… maybe-friend by breaking glass in his yard.
“Fuck no,” he said and chose Knox’s number, but just as he sucked in air to give the sneaky bastard a piece of his mind, a robotic voice told him the phone he was trying to reach wasn’t available.
