Chapter 2 Teague Fucking Jenson
Teague Fucking Jenson
Strutting through the front automatic doors of Gary’s Grocers comes a cocky shape that can only belong to one person on Earth: Teague fucking Jenson.
He has the insufferable kind of presence and attitude that screams “champion athlete”, which is all he was known for in their high school days.
Every jock was his best friend, despite the fact that he didn’t do every sport.
All the girls wanted him, which is confusing to Liam since Teague didn’t exactly have a model’s face—only a seeming overabundance of charisma and undeserved confidence.
Captain of the wrestling team. Dabbled in baseball.
Somehow a member of the student council yet never seemed to be at the meetings.
A member of ten random clubs he never attended yet was credited for.
The sneaky guy managed to slip into half of the school photos—even the back row of a faculty group shot, which he boasted about profusely and proudly signed in everyone’s yearbook.
But what has Liam struck silent isn’t just the fact that an infuriatingly popular guy like Teague exists at all. It isn’t that he showed up to the grocery store and nearly got a standing ovation.
It’s that he’s wearing the signature blue-and-white Gary’s Grocers apron.
And a goddamned hat.
“Are you kidding me??” Liam growls under his breath.
Gracie appears at the round window in the other swinging door next to Liam, sees what he sees, then puts it together. “Oh, right. I forgot. You and Teague are mortal enemies.”
“I don’t want to be mortal anything with that guy,” says Liam, seething as he peels his angry eyes from the window only to find himself drawn right back to it despite himself.
Through the small smudged glass, he glares at Teague, who continues making his rounds of handshakes as the other employees greet him.
Even a whole year after graduation, everyone in Fairview seems to adore the guy.
He looks so proud of himself, too. So entitled.
Like he knew that just with the blink of an eye, he could land this job.
“If looks could kill …” remarks Gracie, noticing Liam’s glare.
He finally pushes away from the window for good. “I wasn’t planning to spend my summer working with that douchebag. How did he even get hired here?”
“His dad’s best buddies with the mayor.”
“What sway does the mayor have over a grocery store?”
“Not our mayor. The mayor of Spruce—Nadine Strong.”
“What does any of that have to do with this?”
Gracie sighs at Liam’s apparent inability to connect dots.
“It’s a well-known fact that Gary Strong is the brother-in-law of the mayor of Spruce.
So Teague’s papa is close with the Strongs, and by extension, Gary, who owns this store, and whose ranch is closer to Fairview than Spruce …
Really, Liam? This was in the training video you watched a century ago! ”
He shrugs it off. “I don’t know about any of that. I bet Teague charmed the general manager halfway out of his pants.”
“Oh, he’s not that bad.”
“Are you kidding me? Teague is the worst.”
“I heard he changed Ms. Tawny’s flat tire in the pouring rain.”
Liam rolls his eyes. “Of course he’d stop for Ms. Tawny. All the jocks who took her ‘easy A’ history class think she’s a babe.”
“He gave away one of his championship wrestling trophies to an aspiring young athlete in junior high, just to inspire him.”
“I doubt he was allowed to do that, if it’s even true.”
“He auditioned for that play junior year, remember?”
“Oh, what a martyr,” sings Liam with mock sympathy. “I’m sure he enjoyed the figurative and literal spotlight plenty. You were only happy because the Theatre department always lacked enough male leading actors.”
“You’re doing that pacing thing again.”
Liam didn’t even realize he’d started. He stops pacing—which causes him to trip over his own foot somehow and kiss the wall in front of him with a grunt. His nervous clumsiness is in full swing, and that’s not a good sign.
“Two left feet even when you aren’t dancing,” notes Gracie.
Liam rights himself, then comes up to her.
“The problem is, no one in town seems to see Teague Jenson for what he is except for me. He doesn’t deserve the accolades everyone’s so desperate to give him.
Y’know what else he’s known for? Skirting by in class without actually doing any work.
Getting A’s on tests because he sweet talks the teachers.
He even flirted with Mr. Lou to get out of doing a group project because he had some wrestling match that weekend.
He only got an A because the rest of his group did, and he didn’t even lift a finger. Can you believe it?”
“You seem to know him so well,” says Gracie, gazing dreamily through the window at Teague.
“He’s lazy and presumptuous. I’m telling you,” Liam goes on, “just watch him. He’s gonna fly right through the summer doing bare minimum while the rest of us do the heavy lifting. Just watch him, I’m telling you.”
Gracie lets out a happy sigh, appearing all too eager to do just that: watch Teague.
It’s no use. Liam could reveal that Teague is secretly a serial killer and the girl still wouldn’t flinch.
He decides to change the subject. “Meant to ask you something. If you have extra donuts at the end of your shift, mind if I snag one on my way out? My mom is obsessed with Bavarian cream lately.”
“There are always extras. I’d better get to it.” She’s about to push her way through the door when she eyes Liam. “Hey, weren’t you back from break, like, ten minutes ago?”
With a glance at the clock, Liam realizes he’s now over seven minutes past his break time.
“Where in Hades did the time go?” he hisses to himself.
The tiny mythological reference gives him the secret pinch of confidence to push away thoughts of Teague, now fueled with thoughts of a certain Hate2LoveU, whose message still sits unanswered in Liam’s pocket.
He hurries over to the old, tiny computer squeezed between an old filing cabinet and a microwave.
He tries to clock in, but the cursed terminal chimes in complaint.
He tries three more times. No matter what he does, it doesn’t take his commands.
Great. Now Liam will be even more late as he tries to negotiate fruitlessly with a stubborn machine. Why today, of all days?
A shadow falls over him. “Did you try asking it nicely?”
Even a whole year later, Liam still recognizes the deceivingly smooth, honeyed cadence of Teague-fuckin’-Jenson’s voice.
Honestly, this is the last thing he needs right now. “I’ll just be a second longer.”
“What the heck is this old thing running on? Windows 98?” asks Teague, looming over Liam’s shoulder in the most irritatingly personal-space-invading way.
Liam tries not to tense up as he feels Teague pressing against his side. “You’re crowding me.”
“Looks like my grandpa’s computer from the stone ages.”
This close, he can smell Teague’s deodorant. The oaky aroma is unexpectedly amazing—which only annoys Liam more. “They didn’t have computers in the stone ages.”
“The screen is so small, too.”
The machine chimes three more times in protest. Is Liam so flustered in his nervousness that he keeps typing his password wrong?
Maybe the network is having some connectivity issue, and Liam isn’t doing a damned thing wrong at all.
He bites his lip as he reaches around the back of the computer to pull out the Ethernet cord. It may just need a quick reset.
Teague lets out a sigh, then leans against the desk with his arms crossed, still standing entirely too close. “Mr. Michelson sent me over to clock in,” he explains. “He said you’d show me how.”
Liam wrinkles his face. “Me? Really?”
“Well … he said someone could show me. And you’re right here, so …” He tilts his head as he studies Liam. “Hey, you remember me, right? From high school?”
He more than remembers Teague; he loathes every memory.
However, this isn’t a conversation he wants to have right now when his main concern is blindly shoving a stubborn Ethernet cable back into a hole.
“It’s easy,” Liam grunts as he struggles to get it plugged back in. “Just type your employee ID and—”
“Need some help there?”
Liam ignores that. “—and password, then click—urgh!—the ‘clock in’ button, and—”
Teague leans in closer. “Seems like you could use my help.”
“I’ve got it.” Liam grimaces uncomfortably as his fingers hunt for the Ethernet port. He keeps feeling what seems to be where the phone line used to go right next to an unused USB port. He reaches even further, causing himself to grunt deeply.
Teague’s voice somehow grows closer to Liam’s ear. “You look like you’re either frustrated or about to take a poop.”
“I said I’ve got it.”
“I can help, y’know. I have long arms. I’m flexible. And I’m—”
Liam at last finds the port. The cable clicks into place. Then he stands up straight.
Only to find his face right in front of Teague’s.
The two stare at each other, eyes inches apart, frozen in place.
Liam never realized how captivating Teague’s eyes are.
Syrupy brown and strangely deep. With just a glance into his eyes, Liam forgets who Teague is, feeling like he’s peering into the soul of a lifelong friend, someone he’s known since the days before anything made sense.
His smooth, peachy skin flushes naturally at the tops of his high-set cheeks, as if he always just ran a long way to wherever he is, flames of virile youth and limitless energy.
And his ashy brown hair goes all over the place, but it seems cute and intentional.
The way Teague’s nostrils flare with each breath this close up gives him an unanticipated intensity that’s made all the more intense by the obscenely close proximity of their faces.
It’s all so much at once.
Liam can’t even draw a breath at first.
It gives Teague a moment to give one of his slow-motion, disarming smiles. His lips are slightly wide for his face and do something funny when they become a smile, but it gives him an excessively adorable and friendly air, dangerously strengthened by the dimple that appears.
Teague’s forehead wrinkles up sweetly as he lifts an eyebrow. “Finally got it in the hole?”
His voice is breathy and suggestive.
Liam snaps out of it and frowns. “Don’t make dirty jokes.”
“What’s dirty about putting things into holes?”
“Teague, you’re in my space.”
“Maybe you’re the one being dirty.”
“I’m serious.”
“When did you get braces, by the way? They’re adorable.”
Liam didn’t realize they were showing. He clamps shut his mouth, his face burning red.
Then he shoulders Teague out of the way as he turns back to the computer, tries clocking in one more time, and is successful at last. “She’s all yours,” mutters Liam, tightlipped, before yanking his apron off of the nearby hook and leaving Teague alone at the computer.
Until: “But you didn’t tell me how to clock in.”
Liam stops at the set of swinging doors. “Yes, I did. You just weren’t listening.”
“Employee ID and password? I don’t have either of those.”
Liam whips around. “What do you mean? It’s the first thing you’re given when you’re hired.”
Teague shrugs, looking like a dopey, helpless kid.
Liam could easily push through these swinging doors, ignore Teague’s plight, and resume the task he left before his break. Can’t this former high school heart throb figure any of this out himself?
But that lost-puppy look on his face arrests Liam, imbuing him with a sense of responsibility to do his due diligence and, at the very least, send Teague in the right direction.
It’s not in Liam’s nature to leave a task undone that can easily be completed.
After all, he’s on the clock now, right?
He can literally be paid to put up with the insufferable guy a little longer.
“Mr. Michelson will have your information,” Liam finally says. “His office is down the hall near the loading dock.”
Teague squints into the semidarkness. “Where?”
“Down the hall near the … the loading dock, like I said.” Liam gestures in the general direction. “You can’t miss it. Over there.”
Teague frowns as he looks off, then returns his gaze to Liam and shrugs.
He really does need everything done for him.
Liam’s fingers ball up into two wire-tight fists.
He musters every last bit of patience he has, prepared to give Teague directions one more time. Then, realizing the fruitlessness of explaining anything to a guy as helpless as him, Liam lets out a sigh and finally gives in. “Just come with me.”