Oh, fuck. He was there? How? Everything made so much sense now. He’d seen everything. “Wait, babe, I can explain—”
“You don’t have to explain,” Liam said and turned for his bags. “Don’t worry. I still remember what you did for me. You’re still my friend. Maybe we’re just not meant to be—”
I hugged him. I didn’t care if he was going to push me away or hurt me. I wasn’t going to let go. “Don’t say it, please!” I begged. It was my turn to cry. I wouldn't be able to bear what he was about to say next. “Listen to me, babe. I mean it. Dun and I did nothing. We were just testing out clothes. I was buying clothes for you. For your birthday. Your birthday present. I didn't forget. And I didn’t want you to know. I wanted to get you a gift that you’ll like. A surprise. I needed someone there to help me. I couldn’t call Nat. She’s not a guy. And Sam is always busy. I…” I quickly got over to the room’s door to grab the paper bag I’d left on the floor before knocking on the door earlier. I brought the paper bag to Liam. “I wanted to surprise you, babe.” I held the paper bag in front of him with both hands. “Happy birthday.”
“For me?” Liam sniffled and took the paper bag. He sat on the bed and searched inside.
I sat beside him and watched.
He took out the tank tops. I didn’t even manage to remove the price and brand tags yet. I’d thought I would wrap them after I’d finished work. He saw them and then put the shirts back into the bag. He began crying again.
I tried to kiss him on the mouth, my hand reaching for his neck to pull him towards me. But he never kissed me back. His mouth never moved.
I stopped, didn’t want to force him. “Babe?”
He hugged me and cried even more. “I’m sorry, babe. I’m such an asshole. I… I was...”
“It’s okay,” I said, patting his back. “It’s my fault too. I shouldn’t have let Dun be with me in the fitting room. Didn’t know babe would be this jealous.” I smiled. Because seeing how Liam reacted like that, I must have meant a damn lot to him. “Sorry, babe, I made you cry on your birthday.”
Liam pulled back and shook his head. “I should be the one saying sorry. If only I’d just trusted you, babe…”
My smile turned into a beam. He was calling me babe again. “It’s okay,” I said and patted his hair this time. “It’s okay,” I assured him.
“Did it hurt?” Liam asked me. He touched me on the cheek where he’d punched me.
I grimaced. Must be bruised.
“I’ll go get first aid.” Liam wanted to get up from the bed, but I grabbed his wrist, pulling him back.
“Don’t go,” I said. “I’m fine. I just need your healing kiss.”
It worked. Liam laughed a little. It was good to see him finally smile again. “Healing kiss? Did you play too much video games?”
“I’m serious, babe.” I tapped my lips with my first finger twice.
Liam smiled widely this time, showing his teeth. He reached for my neck to pull me towards him. He finally kissed me, devouring my mouth hungrier than he had ever been. I didn’t just let him. I kissed him back as wild as he was.
Before things could turn even wilder, both of our stomachs growled. We stopped, looked at each other, and then laughed.
“Shall we go celebrate, birthday boy?” I grinned. “Nat and the rest are waiting.”
“Can we not?” Liam said surprisingly. I’d never expected that. “They can celebrate with me any other time but tonight…” He reached his hand to hold mine. “I just want to eat with you. And I mean, only you.”
I beamed again. That was so sweet. I loved the idea. Only us. “Okay, whatever you want. You’re the boss today.”
“Whatever I want?” he said and raised an eyebrow. “Can I have Domino’s tonight, please?”
“But that’s—” Liam knew what I wanted to say.
“I thought you said whatever I want,” Liam said. He squinted his eyes so cutely and seductively that I wasn’t sure if I wanted anything else for dinner except him. “Please, babe, please?” He rubbed his cheek against mine, like a puppy begging its master. He even whined like one.
I laughed and remembered Domino’s was his favorite food during childhood. I remembered we often had Domino’s together when we had just met. He must have wanted to relive those moments. “Fine. But you gotta workout hard tomorrow, okay?”
Liam barked. Like a dog. “Yes, babe!” He licked my face once, from the chin to the cheek and then up to the temple.
“Ew, babe!” I tried to wipe his saliva on my face. I made it even worse. “Fuck.”
“My healing saliva.” Liam laughed.
I quickly hooked my arm around his neck before he could even think of escaping. I pulled him close. “You’re not running away, bitch.” I licked him back.
“I never plan to.” Liam grinned and licked me again.
“Oh, really?” I grinned and pushed him into the bed roughly.
“No, babe, no!” Liam faked.
I ignored his screams and tore his shirt off. I was suddenly so hungry that I couldn’t wait anymore. I ended up eating him first before we could even order pizzas.
19
Friend or Enemy
(Ethan)
S everal days went by. Things seemed to have been happily ever after since Liam’s birthday. I was no longer working at Starbucks. Liam had told his parents my situation and they had agreed to cover my living cost. I was really embarrassed about it to be honest, because it meant I would be living leeching off some other people’s money. But Liam told me something that made me change my mind.
“Are you serious about being with me, babe?” Liam asked when he was talking to me about the issue after I’d gotten back from work. We were sitting on the bed, his hand reached over to hold mine. “Our relationship. Are you serious at all?”
“Of course I am,” I answered. “Or else I wouldn’t have waited five years.”
“Exactly,” he said back. “Then why are you hesitating? They’re gonna be your parents soon, too, anyway.”
“Hey, I didn’t say I’ll marry you, babe,” I said.
“Oh yeah?” Liam pushed me into the bed suddenly. “Then who will it be then, huh? Who will it be?” He began tickling me.
This person never learned. Easily, I forced him to roll over with sheer strength. I got on top of him. “You wanna play, huh?” I locked his arms with my knees. “You wanna play, huh, babe?!” I tickled him back. “You want me to fuck you round two, bitch?! Because you know, I can!”
He laughed so loudly that I was sure our neighbors could hear.
I was really lucky to have people like his parents and Nathalie’s, who all love me. Nathalie had said the same thing to me too, that her parents were willing to support me financially. She also said that if both of us got into any trouble, we must tell them so that they could help. While both Liam and Nathalie were glad I finally resigned, Duncan, on the other hand, wasn’t happy about it. It meant he lost a good friend at work, he said.
“You’ll be okay?” I asked him during my last night of work. We were closing the shop that night, and somehow, I felt that I would miss this place.
“Of course I will,” Duncan sighed. “I...”
“Thanks for everything, Dun,” I said to him.
“For what?”
“Teaching me,” I answered. “I have learned a lot. And most importantly, you stuck with me.”
Duncan made a snort, trying to act cool. “Go away, Eth. Your boyfriend is waiting.”
I looked outside. Liam was waiting beside my motorbike, giving Duncan and me some time. I gave Duncan a hug. “Thanks, friend,” I said before I left the cafe.
Classes were over. Liam and I didn’t have to go to school for a week. Students were given a “study week” to study at home for the upcoming final exams held one week after. This meant that I was much freer, especially now that I was freed from a job’s commitment.
Liam and I studied hard during the study week. In fact, we studied almost day an
d night, every day, like never before. I told him that I had to be extremely careful with my grades now. I didn’t want his parents to pay for my tuition fees, in which I knew they probably would if my scholarship was revoked due to poor results.
But no matter how hard we wanted to study, we never skipped our workouts. We knew and never forgot the importance of exercising. We got back to our regular routines, both swimming and working out in the gym.
It was Chest Day today. We wore the couple’s tank tops I’d bought for his birthday. Liam loved it. He even had both of us go back to the same shop to get more. I had argued with him, but he had insisted stubbornly.
"It's my money, babe. I'll spend however I want to spend," he said.
I couldn't fight back when he put it that way. Now, we had at least five couple’s tank tops for the gym so that we could rotate and wear a different pair every time we went.
We began our workout with a few dynamic stretches as warm-up. After that, we started with Heavy Dumbbell Bench Presses. We supported each other behind the bench. When Liam was on his last set, and when he was about to reach failure, I purposely went closer to him than usual. My dick directly on top of his face as I held his wrists to support.
“Hey, babe! Babe!” Liam exclaimed. “Fuck! Go away!”
“Nope. Not going!” I farted. “Oops.”
“Ethan!” he roared and dropped the dumbbells.
I dodged out of the way in time when his hand tried to reach for my balls, laughing. I bumped into somebody. “Sorry,” I quickly said and bowed. When I looked up, it wasn’t just any person that I’d accidentally bumped into.
It was Joanna. In her workout attire. We’d totally forgotten that her gym membership here was still on-going. “Hey, Eth,” she greeted with a smile.
Liam hurriedly got up from the bench and came to my side. Protectively but unnecessarily, he put me behind him. “What do you want?”
Joanna looked at Liam from the top to the bottom and then back to the top again. At first, I thought she would go mad like she did in Starbucks, but to my surprise, she didn’t. There was no sign of anger at all on her face. “Only almost two weeks together and you’re talking like Eth already, Liam?” she said, her tone teasing.
I was bewildered. What was happening?
Liam was as confused as I was. “What do you want, Jo? I know you. It won’t just be nothing.”
“I just came to work out,” Joanna said. She chuckled, her hand covering her mouth before she put the hand on Liam’s shoulder. If it was in the past, I wouldn’t mind. But now that Liam was mine, I pushed her hand away.
“Hey,” I said. “Look who you’re touching.”
Joanna gave me a look unlike any before. She grinned. Almost like she was a friend. “Possessive,” she commented. Then, she laughed. “Relax, guys.” She turned to talk to Liam. “I understand now, Liam. It was my fault you broke up with me. Not Eth’s. And now, I’ve accepted it. I…” She reached her hands for Liam’s and mine. She put Liam’s hand and mine together, “I sincerely wish you both happily ever after.”
Liam and I exchanged a glance. That was too sudden. Joanna let go of our hands.
Liam blinked twice. “Are you sure?”
“What do you mean am I sure?” Joanna said. “Of course, I am.” She chuckled again.
“Thanks, Jo,” Liam said.
“But I have one request, Liam,” Joanna said then. “Can we at least be friends?” She held her hand out.
We stared at the hand for a few seconds. I was wondering if her hand was poisonous or something. But I figured she wouldn’t want to hurt Liam. She would want to hurt me first. Liam looked at me, asking me for my permission. I nodded, granting my approval.
“Okay, sure,” Liam said and shook her hand.
Joanna turned to me and held out her hand, expecting me to do the same. I took a deep breath. As much as I didn’t want to, I shook it. For Liam.
“Thank you, both of you,” Joanna said. “Alright. I’m not gonna interfere with your sweet workout. I’ll do mine over there. Just pretend I’m not here.” She took out her earphones and wore them as she walked over to an empty corner. “Cute shirts, by the way.” She waved.
“What was that?” I murmured to Liam.
“I don’t know,” Liam murmured back. We didn’t ponder it further and got back to our workout.
With Liam and I supporting each other now, we were able to push beyond our usual limits, getting the most out of our workout. We’d never done this before when he was still with Joanna. Because many times, I’d just left them alone, didn’t want to disturb them. Now that we were together, I didn’t have to worry about anything anymore. Not even when we were doing Barbell Squats.
Halfway when we were doing Cable Crossovers, Joanna came back to us. “Oh, I almost forgot,” she said as she took an earphone out from her ear. “Jacqueline asked me to get you to come over for your remaining stuff,” she told Liam.
“Who’s Jacqueline?” I asked.
“Our tenant,” Joanna answered. “And also to sign the paper to cancel the room’s contract.”
Liam nodded. “Okay. We’ll come over after gym, okay?”
“You sure about ‘we’?” Joanna pointed back and forth between us. “She’s pretty homophobic.”
“It’s okay,” I told Liam. I wanted to go with him, but I didn’t want to risk making a scene or cause him any trouble. “I can go back first. There’s not a lot of stuff, right?”
“I’ve packed for Liam,” Joanna said. “Just a bag. I’m sure he’ll do fine.”
I nodded.
“You sure, babe?” Liam asked me.
“Yeah,” I said. “Just get back quickly, okay?”
“Ugh! I’m getting out of here. See you at home.” Joanne went away again to resume her workout.
Liam and I exchanged a glance again and shrugged.
“Seems like she has really gotten over it,” Liam said.
“Gotten over you,” I corrected him. “By the way, what are we going to cook later?”
Liam said he wanted beef, so we went to the superstore to get him beef. I was okay with anything, so I got myself the same as him. We bought some fishes and chicken breasts too, for our meals tomorrow and the day after, so that we didn’t have to come to the superstore again and would have more time to study.
Shopping for groceries with Liam felt different from the past. Before, we walked and bought our stuff separately, him walking on his own—with Joanna sometimes—and me walking on my own. Now, we walked every aisle together. To see if there was anything that we needed. I felt like we were husbands already.
When we got back to Swan Hills, we split up at the pool area. I went back to our apartment while he went to Joanna’s to get his stuff. I would want to wait for him at the pool area but the meats we bought wouldn’t be able to wait.
When I got into the house, Nathalie and Jerry were sitting in the living room. They weren’t sitting together. They sat separately. Nathalie looked pissed and Jerry looked apologetic, like he had done something wrong. The moment Nathalie saw me coming in, she got up from the couch and rushed towards me. At first, I thought she was about to twist my ear but instead, she looked around me.
“Where’s Liam?” she asked.
I closed the front door. “He’ll be back soon. What’s up, Nat? You look so angry.” I walked over to the kitchen to sort the groceries. “Did Jerry say something wrong again?” I opened the fridge to put away the meats first, wanting them to stay as fresh as possible.
“You gotta see this, Eth.” Nathalie showed me a phone, the screen only an inch away from my face.
I had to step back to see properly. I recognized the phone. It was Jerry’s phone. The screen showed a WhatsApp chatroom with no contact name. Only numbers. The exchanges in the chatroom didn’t make any sense to me without knowing who the person on the other side was.
“What is this, Nat?” I continued sorting the groceries.
“You don’t recognize the numbe
r?” Without even giving me a second to think or to try to remember, Nathalie grabbed my wrist and pulled me out of the kitchen. She stopped in front of Jerry.
Jerry had leaned forward, his hands grabbing his own hair.
“You tell Eth, Jer!” Nathalie shouted at him. “Your relationship with Joanna!”
Huh? Relationship?
“Nat.” Jerry put down his hands, his eyes full of tears. “Please…”
I wondered what had happened between them. They were still so sweet last night.
“Alright,” Nathalie said. “If you can’t tell him, then I’ll tell him for you.” She turned to face me. “This morning, I was waiting for him, Eth. We were supposed to go to Space Grey but his stomach was acting up. So I waited for him in his room to finish his business. While I was waiting, his phone vibrated. So out of curiosity, I took the phone to see who it was. It was Joanna. I was shocked. Because Jerry had never mentioned that he knew her. And if you read everything from the top to the most recent…” she held the phone up and scrolled the chat room for me to see, “you can tell they’re not just friends but close friends.”
Wait, Jerry and Joanna were close friends? Why didn’t he say anything about it? We’d talked about Joanna in front of him many times before. I looked at Jerry. Jerry covered his face with his hands.
“Remember the night when you were out of the hospital and when Liam wanted to move back here to take care of you? Suddenly, Jerry appeared and took Liam’s room?” Nathalie reminded me. “Yeah, it was planned. Joanna called her best friend over here to move here so that Liam would have no room and go back to her,” she told me in a tone of disgust. “And when her plan failed, do you know what Jerry’s job was?”
Nathalie didn’t even spare me a second to guess.
“To spy on you!” she continued, looking at Jerry. Her eyes full of hate. “He reported you to her like a good dog.”
I looked at Jerry again. In disbelief. “Is that true?”
“What’s worse, Eth,” Nathalie said without looking back at me. “He reported every single thing you do. In and out of the house. Literally. Even during Olivia’s match and anywhere else he could see you!” Nathalie showed me the phone again after pressing the ‘shared media’ button on WhatsApp.
A Monster's Love Page 29