Chapter 3 Peanut
Peanut
Mr. Michelson, general manager of Gary’s Grocers and with as much personality as a bag of rocks, taps his long fingers on the keyboard with tediously slow speed—tap, tick, tap, tap, tick, tap—before finally bringing up the file.
“Ah, yes, here we are,” he says lightly, squints, jots something down onto a neon pink sticky note, peels it off delicately, then hands it to Teague with a wrinkly grin.
“Employee ID. Your password is the last four of your social.”
“Awesome!” Teague glances down at the paper, frowns, then winces. “And the last four of my social are …?”
Liam rolls his eyes and crosses his arms.
Mr. Michelson—the sweetest and most patient man on Earth—jots it down on another neon pink sticky note, peels it off daintily, then hands it to Teague.
“Now you be sure to memorize that, then throw away the paper, young man!” His voice is cheery yet soft.
“Sure don’t want anyone else to get ahold of your precious login information, of course!
They could weasel right into your profile and change you into Captain Banana who works for $1 an hour!
Not that my payroll would mind.” He chuckles at his joke and eyes them both.
“Oh, I’m just being my old fool self. Y’know, Teague, you remind me of my grandson Harry.
He was a real charmer. Brought a different girlfriend with him every holiday. ”
Liam wonders for a second if the manager is calling his own grandson a man-whore. And by extension: Teague.
But the comment only makes Teague chuckle right back.
“Oh, that’s some good advice, Mr. Michelson!
I ought to know my social by now, right?
Shame on me. And thanks again so much for hiring me last minute,” he quickly adds, turning up his otherworldly charm ten nauseating degrees.
“I am thrilled to be working here alongside some amazing people. Especially Peanut here.”
Peanut.
Liam’s eyes go wide.
Mr. Michelson quirks a bushy gray eyebrow. “Peanut …?”
“Yeah! Peanut! We went to high school together.” Teague glances back and forth between them with confusion. “Wait … You don’t call him that?”
Liam’s jaw tightens to the point of snapping. “No, Teague. No one calls me that anymore. Why would my boss—?”
“But why not? It’s so adorable! You get it, Mr. Michelson? His middle initial?” He gives the man one of his lopsided smiles. “Liam P. Knott. P … Knott. Peanut! Everyone called him that. Even some of the teachers and our assistant principal Mr. Ramos. It’s so cute!”
After an awkwardly long moment of putting it together, Mr. Michelson finally laughs, delighted by the silly play on words—while Liam’s face burns like wildfire with a mixture of fury and humiliation.
Teague, oblivious to Liam’s discomfort, only grins and crosses his arms, satisfied with himself.
Or maybe he knows exactly what he’s doing.
“Well, hey, now!” says Mr. Michelson when he recovers from his laughter. “This works out perfectly! I was going to take some time to show you around myself, but why not let Peanut do it?”
Liam recovers from his anger at once. “Wait.”
“Seeing as you two are friends already, it makes perfect sense to me. And besides, I think I slept wrong last night, I can’t for the life of me work out this knot in the middle of my back.
Knot! Knott! Ha! Now I’ve got P. Knott circling around in my head.
Why didn’t you tell me that funny little story, Liam? What a delight it is!”
“That sounds great!” agrees Teague, throwing an arm around Liam’s back and startling him. “We’re basically old pals.”
Liam bristles. “Calling us ‘old pals’ is a bit of a stretch.”
The manager rises from his desk. “You’re my best employee here,” he goes on, as if hearing nothing but himself and the noise of rocks turning over in his head, “and I think you’re more than equipped to show Teague how it’s all done. Layout of the store. Stocking duties. Shelves and aisles.”
“Mr. Michelson, please …”
“Now if you don’t mind, Peanut—ah, look at that, just rolls right off the tongue!—please show Teague how to clock in, and then let him shadow you today. Teague, now don’t you leave his side! Not for a second! You’ll get lost in the weeds!”
Teague smiles and gives the man a dorky salute. “You got it!”
Liam can literally feel his blood boiling in his cheeks. “Sir …”
“Oh, I forgot to return a call!” Mr. Michelson exclaims. “One of our sister stores is running low on … something. I may need to send Ben on an errand. Did you hear the rumor they might open a new store next door over in Spruce? Makes one wonder why they haven’t done that already, being where the Strongs are from and all.
Anyhow, go on ahead, you two, if you don’t mind.
I’ll need the office. I had a burrito from a food truck down the street and do not envy anyone in my immediate vicinity.
” He adjusts his glasses, picks up his phone, and begins slowly dialing a number.
There’s no use tempting fate here.
Liam’s fate for the rest of the day—and likely the summer—is as sealed as the tubs of organic fat-free peanut butter no one buys in this town.
Honestly, the only thing Liam wants to do right now is go home, curl up with his phone, and continue his conversation with Hate2LoveU. It started out so good. It felt so promising. And it was interrupted by the worst curveball he could have imagined.
A curveball he’s loathed and not missed since the day he took a diploma and walked off a creaky gymnasium stage.
But he doesn’t have to think about the whole summer. Only about today and surviving the rest of his shift. Then he can return home to what really matters: his unfinished conversation with a lightning-bolt-farting pair of cartoon butt cheeks.
After half an hour of Teague shadowing him, Liam realizes it won’t be nearly as easy as it sounds. “Hey, have you ever had to clean up something gross?” asks Teague.
The questions are endless. “Just do what I do,” instructs Liam through the permanent scowl he’s adopted since his break. “And pay attention. I’m not explaining everything twice.”
“Sure thing, boss.” Teague struggles to keep up with Liam’s fast pace as he pulls cereal boxes from the back of the shelf and moves them to the front. “What’s the point of all this nitpicking, anyway?”
“The better, fuller, and neater the shelves appear, the more we sell.”
“Really?”
“Obviously. You don’t want the store looking like hurricane panic—all scavenged through, messy, and bare. Older stuff to the front,” snaps Liam, yanking a box of cereal out of Teague’s hand, startling him. “This expires earlier than that, so it goes in the front. Aren’t you reading the dates?”
“Cereal expires? C’mon. No one checks for expiration dates on Cornflakes.”
“Your store manager does, and so do I.”
“If people checked expirations, no one would have anything to eat during the zombie apocalypse. Ever think of that?”
“I—You aren’t—This isn’t The Walking Dead, Teague. It isn’t a good look when you have old cereal on the shelf because no one’s—Why am I having to explain this??” bursts Liam.
Teague shrugs as he glances at another cereal box, smirking down at its date. “Thought all I’d need to do is sweep, mop spills, and hit on customers all day.”
Liam shudders in lieu of rolling his eyes as he glances up at the store clock, which hangs just above the cooler doors down the aisle. Several hours still remain of his longest shift on earth.
The day can’t end fast enough.
After realizing he can’t reach the back of the top shelf, Liam pulls the stepladder off of the dolly they’ve been pushing around the store, then climbs it. Even still, he struggles to reach.
“Can I ask you a question?”
Liam sighs as he stretches for the faraway box of Multi Grain Cheerios. “You’ve already asked a hundred and—mmph!—ninety-six of them. What’s one more?”
“Why do you hate me?”
The question throws Liam so hard, his foot flies right out from underneath him.
Down he goes, helpless to stop himself from falling.
The world twirls the wrong way as Liam throws out his hands to catch himself, but misses the shelf, the ladder, and anything else within reach.
But he doesn’t hit the ground.
When Liam opens his eyes, he finds himself in Teague’s arms, who dropped every cereal box he was holding to catch him.
The two stare into each other’s eyes, Liam catching his breath, Teague gazing down at him, stunned.
Holding him in his arms.
Both as surprised to see one another as the other.
Their faces are close again. Liam’s heart drums in his chest with the ferocity of a leopard chasing prey as he peers up at his savior’s face—his deep brown eyes, his lifted eyebrows, his wide parted lips that curl in that uniquely cute, Teague-specific fashion, though he doesn’t seem amused exactly; he seems in shock.
A pleasant shock, if that can even be described.
Liam comes to, and the spell breaks. He rights himself, getting back to his feet as he’s let down.
Teague hasn’t quite recovered, still looking at Liam with deep concern. “Hey, you okay there, Peanut?”
Maybe it’s the use of the hated nickname, but Liam at once finds himself unable to thank Teague. He just glares at him as he smooths out his shirt and apron. “I’m fine.”
“Need to reach something on that top shelf?”
“I got it.”
“I can get it for you.” He wiggles his fingers for some reason. “Long-ass arms, remember?”
“I said I got it,” snaps Liam, stepping back onto the short ladder and reaching once again for the Multi Grain Cheerios. He’s no closer to obtaining the reclusive box of cereal this time than he was a minute ago.
He feels a sudden presence behind him. With a glance over his shoulder, he finds Teague standing right by him, his syrupy eyes laser-focused on Liam while dutifully holding the ladder.
Liam frowns. “You don’t have to do that.”
“Just in case.”
“I know how to keep balanced on a ladder.”
“Do you, though?”
Teague’s taunting voice makes Liam flush with frustration.
Why is he so annoyingly insistent on being helpful all of a sudden?
Perhaps it would have been better had Teague not played the hero and let him hit the ground.
Maybe now, Liam could be comfier in the backroom nursing an aching back.
That’d probably be less of a pain than putting up with this guy.
At last, the cereal box is obtained, and Liam completes his task of bringing it to the front along with three other boxes. When he comes down the ladder, he finds himself—again—far too close to Teague, who makes no effort to back away from him.
“Yeah,” says Teague quietly, almost to himself. “Think I just decided on my mission for the summer.”
Liam tries to take a step back, but his heel hits the base of the stepladder. “Mission?”
Teague does that funny thing with his lips again as he crosses his arms, smiles broadly, then gives Liam a wink. “I’m gonna make you like me.”
Liam feels pinned against the ladder by Teague’s presence.
Pinned against the ladder by Teague’s enchanting smile.
Pinned against the ladder by his words.
“W-What?”
“It’s my goal,” Teague repeats. “I’m gonna make you like me.”
“Your … Your goal should be to …” He’s so annoying. “… to do a good job, face your products, keep the floors clean, and—”
“And get you to like me.”
“Teague …”
“But before I get you to like me … I gotta figure out why you hate me.”
Liam nudges Teague out of the way, then returns to the dolly full of their remaining stock. “We still have the rest of the aisles to fill and finish fronting. Stop dawdling.” He pushes the dolly along.
Teague steps in front of it, blocking its way. “You know what, Peanut? Whatever it is I said or did to you back in the day to make you think so badly of me, I’m gonna make up for it. Promise.”
Liam glowers at Teague, his eyes ablaze with rage.
The former captain of the wrestling team simply won’t give up until everyone in this insufferable town gives him everything he wants.
It’s perhaps for that very reason that Liam insists on keeping the glare affixed to his face.
It’s a challenge suddenly, a challenge of endurance, and he refuses to give up.
“I’m a man of my word,” insists Teague, lifting his chin and appearing proud. “This summer, I’m gonna make you downright fall in love with me.”