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)
14
Love To Hate You
It’s the best Christmas Eve Liam could have asked for.
All day, Gracie’s house is packed with their coworkers from the grocery store as well as friends from around town—even the neighboring town of Spruce. The gathering is all over the front and backyard, too, the house not big enough to accommodate all of its guests. Liam is sure a fire code or neighborhood ordinance is being broken, but no one around here cares.
Teague and Liam are glued to one another’s sides the whole time, catching up with their friends—as a proper couple—after an eventful fall semester. No one seemed all that surprised about the two of them; apparently behind the scenes, Gracie was shipping them together to everyone whose ears she could find.
Liam passed all his classes. Teague, too, though he had a scare when he got a call in October about his dog being sick. He took off in his truck and made the several-hour trip home to be there for Rus. It was a frightening night for him that had nothing to do with Halloween or ghost stories, but it became a night of unexpected healing when Teague found himself having a heart-to-heart with his dad in the lobby of the animal clinic. Apparently Mr. Jenson had attended a luncheon recently with the Strongs, which roped him into a discussion about gay sons and their boyfriends, which in turn had Nadine Strong howling when she found out Teague was gay. Before his father knew it, he was caught in the middle of the happy hurricane that is the Mayor of Spruce’s adoration for the gay community. That interaction with the Strong matriarch had a big influence on Mr. Jenson, enough to inspire a long and meaningful conversation with his son about his shortcomings as a father and his desires to be better for Teague. The two cried in that veterinary lobby, and then minutes later, Teague found out that his dog would be totally okay and coming home healthy.
The next day, Teague decided he was transferring colleges to join Liam in the spring.
“Wait, you’re what?” cries Gracie when she hears the news at the party. They’re surrounding a kitchen island full of homemade cookies and bowls of colorful candy-coated popcorn. “The two of you are gonna be together next semester??”
“Liam’s school is closer to town by a few hours,” Teague then points out. Liam is next to him with a cup of eggnog in his hand and a mouthful of cookies, snuggled by his side. “And we’re tired of the back-and-forth--Don’t get me wrong, I’d travel a thousand miles a day for Liam!—but I think it’d be much better to have my special guy by my side than any amount of miles away.”
“That’s so cute I could cry!” sings Gracie.
The two found themselves an affordable place just off campus, a place that fortunately allows pets, as Teague’s secret motivation was to take the burden of taking care of Rus off his parents’ hands completely. After all, testing his mother’s allergies and his father’s patience any longer after the dog’s health scare was enough—and the adoring animal belonged with the boys, standing guard like a proper not-quite-three-headed guard dog at the door of their new place. Liam is obsessed with the idea of having such a sweet dog to come home to after a stressful day of classes. Though which “dog” he means—Rus and his overactive tongue, or Teague and his total, boundless golden-retriever energy—depends on the day.
When late afternoon rolls in, a somewhat disorganized blind gift exchange occurs, in which both Liam and Teague somehow end up with an ugly sweater each. They wear one another’s, laugh about it, then end up befriending the handsome gay couple from Spruce who brought them: Malcolm and Sam. Despite living in Spruce now, Malcolm actually grew up here in Fairview and has mutual friends with Gracie. “Not often one of us finds love here,” he points out with a wink at Liam and Teague—causing the boys to look at each other and, with pleasant drumming in their hearts, realize how special their connection is. “I mean, look at us. I had to run away from here to meet this dog-loving vet who swept me off my feet,” Malcolm goes on with a nudge into the ribcage of his boyfriend Sam, then adds, “literally.” His boyfriend Sam grins, wraps his arms around Malcolm so fast that it catches him by surprise and causes him to laugh, then gently nuzzles his face into Malcolm’s neck, not unlike a dog, and says, “I’m sure awful glad you came out to Spruce when you did. Was around this time of year, too. ‘Tis the season for love.”
Liam and Teague watched the two of them, each of them just as touched as the other by the show of affection between the men. It isn’t often they see love expressed so freely and openly without any fear of judgment. It’s such a simple concept, yet one that can be so quickly taken for granted. Liam’s hand finds Teague’s almost by instinct, and the two gaze into one another’s eyes. A smile finds their lips, before their lips find each other’s.