Page 24 of Hate To Love You
“Love that shit! Even my dog’s name is short for Cer—”
“Are you going somewhere with this mindless chatter?” sighs Liam, cutting him off. “It’s not gonna distract me from the game.”
“I’m not trying to distract or deceive you. I just …” Teague’s voice turns soft. “I just want you to be my friend, Peanut. Is that too much to ask?”
Something passes quickly over Liam’s eyes.
Everything turns steely and tense.
Teague has been staring into those eyes for so long, he’s instantly aware of the tiniest change. “You okay?” he asks. “Did … Did I say something wrong?”
The question only seems to further annoy Liam, whose eyes darken as he narrows them.
This isn’t what Teague was hoping to achieve. Maybe it was an impossible task from the start, but he was truly hoping to break through with him. Or at the very least chisel into those rock-hard emotional walls. But with every word he utters, he only seems to push Liam farther away. Those walls look more fortified now than ever as he stares into Liam’s increasingly agitated eyes.
Then it hits him. “Was it the Peanut thing? Using it yet again? After swearing I wouldn’t?”
Still no response.
Tension and agitation and nothing more.
“I didn’t even deserve to use it the first two times. It wasn’t a birthday present. Not my birthday, as we both well know. I should really learn from my mistakes. But I don’t. I’m a terrible learner. I envied you for being so smart in school. Did you know that?”
Nothing.
Not even a flinch of an eyelash.
“What’s it gonna take,” Teague then whispers, resorting now to speaking with barely a breath, “to get you to forgive me?”
At once, Liam slips off of the couch and rises to his feet, the game brought to an abrupt end. With no explanation to anyone in the room, he heads for the door.
“Liam?” calls out Teague, rising from the couch, too.
Liam stops at the door. “I just realized I would much rather be discussing Greek gods with someone who actually gets me instead of wasting my time staring into the eyes of someone who can’t see past his own face.”
Then Liam sees himself out.
The door slams heavily behind him.
Teague stares at that door, stunned speechless. The others in the room start talking, asking him questions he doesn’t hear, remarking on how aloof and touchy Liam’s been these past fewweeks, then discussing the issue amongst themselves when they realize Teague isn’t answering. All he can do is wonder what he did wrong and whether it would be crossing some unspoken line to go after him.
“Well, so much for my gingersnaps,” mumbles Gracie, picking one up and shoving it into her mouth with a scowl. “Anyone want to play charades?”
10
A Horny Satyr
Liam leans against the side of Gracie’s mailbox with a sigh.
Does he really want to call his parents for a ride home? Does he really want to leave? He should have taken his own car and not gotten a ride with Zeke. Now he’s stuck here sulking on the curb of a neighborhood on the wrong side of town. It would probably take him over an hour to walk home from here. Fairview isn’t a huge place, but it’s wide and full of broken streets and forks and cut in half by one very noisy freeway.
Nothing he can do about it now, except stare at his phone and wonder why the hell Hate2LoveU hasn’t replied to his last three messages, even though the notification shows he read them. Is the only guy Liam cares about ghosting him now? Are there no decent men left in the world?
Nothing is working out well tonight.
Even Hate2LoveU is letting him down.
Maybe it’s no one’s fault Liam feels this way other than his own. No one else to blame for his mood. Not Hate2LoveU. Gracie or his other friends inside that house.
