Chapter 12 Electric Butt Cheeks
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. ”
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 be made! 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 …
was you.” 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 he could be 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. Liam Knott.”
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 … to you … this whole time … ?”
“Yeah.” Liam sits back, unpinning Teague. “And … apparently I’ve been doing the same. Like an idiot.”
Teague sits up at once, surprising Liam, then wraps his arms around him. “Oh my gods. My gods. All of the gods and goddesses. Oh my gods …”
“Teague, you’re choking me.”
Teague lets go and brings his face close. “Are you pranking me right now? Did you open my phone? Did you read the messages and are pretending to be the tongue-tied guy?”
Liam snorts. “Really?”
“Are you serious? We’ve been falling in love this whole past month and didn’t even realize it until tonight?”
Liam’s face freezes. “Wait … what? Falling in—?”
“You’re the sexy nerd with untamable cowlicks?
” Teague goes on, his heart ablaze. “You’re the one who’s kept me sane all those nights when my dad was a total jerk?
All those nights I felt lonely? But you said you didn’t have braces!
You said …” He overturns him suddenly, startling Liam as Teague now pins Liam to the bed with expert skill.
“I dunno whether to shout or cry,” he says, staring down at Liam, pinning him just like in his dream.
“I can’t believe it’s really you. I … I can barely breathe I’m so happy. ”
After a moment of recovery, Liam finds himself smiling. “At least if you pass out, I’ll only have one mouth to choose from.”
Teague dives into Liam’s face right then, and at once, kisses replace words, and the boys lose the rest of the night to each other’s desires—this time, with no more mysteries between them.