Page 31 of Hate To Love You
“Tongue tied in knots,” states Liam flatly.
Teague squints, confused for a moment. Then it hits him. “Oh, shit. Did he message my phone again? It’s not, uh … yikes, this is awkward … I just, uh—” Teague tries to sit up, but Liamhas him pinned to the bed with the weight of his body. Teague stares at Liam, blinking. “Now look who’s tongue-tied.”
“Did you know?” asks Liam.
Teague is completely lost. “Know what?”
Liam is back to his old angry self for some reason, glaring at Teague with burning irises. Teague can’t make a bit of sense out of it. Did Liam see a message on Teague’s phone? Did it make him jealous or angry? How could it? The two of them weren’t even properly a thing until tonight.
Since Liam isn’t saying anything else, Teague resorts to the only tool he has left: rambling. “Okay, so it’s not the easiest thing to meet a guy in this town, or even any neighboring towns like Spruce, or to drive out to whatever nearest city, so I got this funny dating app. I know I said I don’t use them. Don’t know why I said it. But I …” His face wrinkles up. Suddenly, he can’t do it. “This is super humiliating, Liam. Do Ireallyhave to explain?”
“Humiliating? I thought you were—what was it?—entirely un-humiliate-able.”
Teague smirks. “Well-played.” He sighs. “Okay, fine. I … made a profile. Used some silly pic I doodled in a notebook back in high school. And the app makes you ask an unusual question, and … honestly, the only damned thing I could think of was you.”
That throws Liam off. “Me?”
“Yeah. You.” This trulyishumiliating to admit aloud. “I told you I’ve had a thing for you. It didn’t just start this summer. I’ve always been curious about you, even back in school. Every time I saw you in the cafeteria, you were studying instead of chatting with friends. When I saw you working backstage during that play Gracie got me to audition for, I thought you looked so cute in your black clothes with your little headset on, completely oblivious to the fact that I was staring like a weirdo. I had a secret crush. I can’t deny it anymore. I’ve always had it.”
Whatever anger lived in Liam’s face is breaking off like a clay mask. “Secret … crush …?I… was your secret crush?”
Teague fights the fire burning in his cheeks. “Yeah. You were. Need me to say it twelve more times?”
“Maybe,” mumbles Liam, still baffled.
“And it was our senior year when I learned you were obsessed with Greek mythology,” Teague goes on. “And for some reason, I … decided to check out a book about it from the library. And then I realized Greek mythology was, like, fucking cool. Messed-up and weird, but cool. It was my way of getting closer to you … without ever having actually spoken to you. Fast-forward to when I got this dating app, it asked me for a question, and I just … I thought of you. I thought: maybe he’s on this app, too. Everyone around here seemed to be on it. I thought: what if I ask a question that’ll grab his attention? What if he’ll finally see me?” Teague sighs. “It did catch a guy’s attention. And for a second, I thought it might’ve been you … but it wasn’t. He doesn’t have braces. Andyoudo.”
Liam sucks in a breath. Eyes wide.
Then looks away.
Teague chuckles at Liam’s reaction, unsure how to take it. His voice softens. “So imagine my surprise when I found out you were working at the store I just got hired at. Funny thing, my first day working, was the first day I talked to this guy on this app. It gave me the confidence to walk into that store. I almost chickened out! And when I saw you, I thought … my whole summer … it would bemade!But nothing’s gone right. Every time I thought we were growing closer, I’d just mess things up. Just like I did earlier with our errand out to Gary’s. I couldn’t even bear to keep things going with the guy on the app these past few days, because all I could think about … wasyou.” He shrugs. “You’d probably like him, y’know. He reminds me … of you.”
“Teague …”
“But I’m sorry. I’m sorry about how this looks. I … I shouldn’t have ghosted him. I should’ve had the respect to end things. That is so crummy of me, to lead him on, to keep feeding my fantasy that hecouldbe you in some other Greek multiverse, that maybe Zeus or Aphrodite or Cupid was sending me a sign …”
“Teague…”
“No, no, really, it’s out of character for me to be like this, but my emotions have been, like, fucking everywhere lately, and I—”
“The middle one.”
Teague stops talking. Liam’s eyes are clamped shut, with his head turned slightly, like he can’t bear to make eye contact.
It confuses Teague. “Uh … what?”
“The middle one,” Liam repeats.
Teague doesn’t follow. “The middle …? What … What do you mean? The middle what?”
“Head. Cerberus. My answer. To your question. The … middle one. That’s the one I’d give CPR to. Quickest path to the lungs.” Liam finally opens his eyes and turns to him. “Simple biology.”
Teague’s lips hang open. “You …? You’re …?”
“Tongue Tied In Knots. Knots.” Liam’s face tightens. “My last name, Teague, you big dork. LiamKnott.”
The dots slowly connect in Teague’s eyes. Electricity fires in every corner of his brain as he, in the cramped and unforgiving space of seconds, relives his entire summer so far with a totally altered understanding. His eyes glow with incapacitating disbelief. “I’ve been … been talking … toyou… this whole time …?”
