Hang Out with Liam

Liam cracked open another can of soda. I eyed him jealously as he took a liberal sip before setting it aside. He offered me one, which I reluctantly took and did the same. Once Mr. Webb and I started going to the gym, I was going to have to reexamine my diet as well.

“You sure?” he asked. “I get that Zoe is a bitch and all, but you know how the saying is. ‘Keep friends close, enemies closer,’ nonsense.”

“I’m sure,” I said as my hand tightened around the can. “As I told Kaylee, I’m done with Zoe’s shit and want nothing to do with her.”

He shrugged. “No skin off my back. You know, Sam and Ally have the same lunch as we do. Maybe we can sit with them?”

It took me a second to realize who he was talking about. “Oh. You still with them?”

He rubbed the back of his neck. “Kinda?”

“Kinda?” I repeated back.

“It’s complicated.” He took another drink. “So... I might have had a threesome with them.”

I grinned. “Congrats.”

“Yeah, I was in a bad mood when the whole test thing got pushed back. Thought that would cheer me up and they've been pushing for one so...”

“Did it?”

“It’s complicated.”

“Good complicated?”

He paused for a moment, looking uncomfortable. “We’ve uh… been hanging out more. Hanging out without the sex part.”

“That’s… good?”

“Yeah.” He didn’t look too happy about it to me.

“But?”

“They are fucking other guys now.” He sighed. “I mean, I get it. We were never together. I was always just the dick they shared, and I accepted that. But once we started hanging out as friends, I thought it was going somewhere else. I mean, the threesome was amazing. I didn’t feel like an accessory at all. The opposite, actually. Like I was… you know… a part of it.”

“Their relationship?” He nodded. “How do you know they are fucking other guys?”

“Remember how we were hanging out? Yeah. They talk about it. Last time we hung out, they mentioned being sore because they had two guys over and they spent the night jumping between the two of them.”

“Dude, that sucks.”

“I’m not angry about them with other guys. It was that they never bothered to tell me. We have this great time and I feel the three of us connected, our relationship expands beyond sex, then they drop that on me. I have no idea where we stand now. Is our relationship improving, or is it all wishful thinking on my part?”

“Have you talked to them about it?”

“Not yet. I’ve wanted to, but I’ve never worked up the nerve to ask them about it. Afraid I might not like the answer I guess.”

I took a drink of my soda. “Well, we can sit with them tomorrow. Maybe you can get a better idea of where things stand.”

“Thanks.” He waved his hand in front of him. “But that’s enough about that.”

“What about your test?”

“Oh, getting it this weekend if all things go well. One of the reasons why I haven’t had a chance to talk to the girls yet. I think they’re afraid I’ll catch cooties or something,” he said with a chuckle. He was trying to laugh it off, but I could tell he was nervous. Not so much for the test, but because the girls were avoiding him. This was new for him. He must have truly liked Sam and Ally because this was the first time we’d ever had a conversation like this one before. All our limited relationship talk before was about Kaylee and me.

“What I want to know is how things between you and Kaylee are,” Liam said with a grin. “Is it everything you dreamed it would be?”

I bought time with a sip of my drink. “Exhausting.”

He laughed, slapping at his leg. “I bet. I’ve heard all sorts of stories of her in bed. You, sir, are a lucky man.”

My grin slipped slightly. “I am.”

Unfortunately, Liam caught that. “But it’s not all sunshine and rainbows, is it?”

“Is anything?”

“Fair enough.”

I spent the next twenty minutes filling Liam in on the issues Kaylee and I have been running into. I didn’t feel too bad about sharing considering all the times I listened to Kaylee vent to her friends. Had to admit, it felt good to vent. Liam was a champ and listened to it all with zero judgment.

He was sipping on his drink when I finally finished. “You know,” he started after listening to me without a word, “it comes with zero surprise that Kaylee is like that. She always struck me as the domineering type.”

“I get that she likes being in control and knows what she likes, but she’s not even trying to slow down. It’s like I’m in a relay race and the person I’m supposed to pass the baton to runs off at full speed the moment the race starts. It doesn’t help that whenever I try to talk to her about it, she brushes it off as a work-in-progress. That I’m the work in progress that needs to catch up instead of her trying to meet me somewhere towards the middle.”

We fell silent, both of us taking a moment to process all the heavy stuff we had been talking about.

“Girls,” Liam finally said, shaking his head as he held his can out towards me.

I chucked and tapped my can against his. “You’re telling me.”