Page 1 of Hate To Love You
1
The Town Next Door
If Cerberus needed mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, which mouth
would you give it to?
The backroom of Gary’s Grocers is poorly lit, but the question beams like a lighthouse from Liam’s phone, illuminating his sandy, freckled face and moody blue eyes in the semidarkness.
After swiping past dozens of lame questions on this weird new prompt-based dating app a friend from his alma mater, Fairview High School, pushed him to download, it’s this one that makes the stoic Liam crack a smile, which is a rare occurrence lately, as he’s recently acquired a habit of hiding his braces from the world.
His break ends in just a handful of minutes. That’s a handful too soon, as far as he and his exhausted body are concerned.
But the intriguing question calls out to him from the glow of his screen like warm sunlight pouring in through the window on the first morning of summer.
Should he answer it?
He slaps a hand to his head of short hair and gives it a fierce rubbing, as if to shake the answer out of his brain. His elbow accidentally knocks into an empty water bottle on the table nextto him, causing it to crash to the ground. When he goes to pick it up, the tip of his shoe kicks the thing even further away, sending it skittering under a pallet, out of reach. He gives up and drops back down onto his chair with a sigh. His natural clumsiness gets even worse the more nervous he is. And with this question from the dating app looming over him, his nerves are pulled as tight as they can get.
It’s not just any question, either. It’s a question about Greek mythology—something Liam happens to have a deep affection for. In a sea of inane and uninspired questions, it’s as if this one was handmade just for him, for Mr. Liam Knott, the lonely gay dude in the backroom of a grocery store with a tragic mouthful of braces.
The one asking the question has the username “Hate2LoveU”.
Something about the nerdiness of the question as well as the guy’s perplexing profile photo—which isn’t an actual face, but a glowing fuchsia lightning bolt shooting out of a pair of cartoon butt cheeks—has utterly captured Liam’s attention.
Hopefully it’s more the question and less the cartoon butt cheeks.
Liam takes the bait:
TongueTiedInKnots
Obviously the middle one.
After pressing send, he nods to himself, satisfied, then pockets his phone in preparation of clocking back in for work.
Until he hears the ding.
Surprised, he pulls his phone right back out and looks.
Hate2LoveU
Why the middle one?
Liam blinks at the reply, amazed. It’s a private message now, replying to his answer. Is Hate2LoveU online right now? In lieu of the vaguely flirtatious answers most users of the app seem to enjoy trading with one another that lead nowhere, Liam opts to be direct with the guy.
TongueTiedInKnots
The middle one is the most likely to have a direct path to the lungs. Simple biology.
It is, admittedly, a brainy answer, but Liam happens to have a good well of knowledge in biology. He excelled in both high school as well as the college he attends now. He’s one of the weird ones already itching for the summer to end so he can get back to the dorms, to his studies, and to everything that gives him purpose—which is not this summer gig as a stocker at Gary’s Grocers.
The phone dings back.
Hate2LoveU
So you’re an expert in mythological three-headed dog biology?
Liam chuckles. This is getting fun.
