Total pages in book: 31
Estimated words: 29464 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 147(@200wpm)___ 118(@250wpm)___ 98(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 29464 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 147(@200wpm)___ 118(@250wpm)___ 98(@300wpm)
With a smile on his face, Liam hits the send button.
He hears a chime nearby. He lifts his gaze from the glow of his phone and stares at the desk where it came, confused.
Teague’s phone rests there, its screen lit up.
Liam stares at that phone. He seems incapable of blinking as he waits for Teague’s phone to make another sound, to convince him it isn’t what he just heard.
But the words on the screen are plain.
And it only takes one step toward the desk to make them out.
A single notification: Unread message from TongueTiedInKnots.
12
Electric Butt Cheeks
One moment, Teague is in the middle of a wrestling match, which is quite odd seeing as he hasn’t wrestled since graduation. But that doesn’t seem to concern him as he grapples with his opponent, attempting to flip him. Suddenly he has his opponent pinned to the ground and they lock eyes.
It’s Liam.
He’s wrestling with Liam.
“T-Teague?” he whimpers.
Teague squints down at him, confused. The voice seems very close and strangely disconnected, as if coming from an intercom rather than the person he just pinned.
The very next moment, the wrestling tournament and the gymnasium and all the bright lights vanish, and in their place is another Liam—the real Liam—who straddles him on his bed.
It’s Teague who is pinned to the bed sheets, with a somewhat perturbed Liam atop him, his face stony and his eyes intense.
The expression sobers Teague at once. “Liam? You okay?”
“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 Liam has 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 I really have 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 truly is humiliating 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. And you do.”