The Way We Learned to Love ✓

20 - liam

The amount of noise coming from Ezra Torres' apartment when Liam knocked on the door was a good sign.

There was definitely some chatter coming from inside so he knew he wasn't about to embarrass himself by showing up at the wrong place, but nothing sounded too wild, either.

Bennett answered the door, looking less stiff and awkward than he had when they met. Not that Liam could blame him for that; introducing himself to strangers was pretty low on the list of things he liked to do. "Hey, glad you could make it. Let me introduce you to the others."

Liam realized that it was more crowded than he anticipated as he stepped inside the dark apartment, but the chaos at least seemed controlled. Most everyone was in the living room, piled up on the couch and floor and watching an episode of Stranger Things (he wasn't familiar enough with it to tell which season this was), while a few people were raiding the kitchen for snacks.

Another guy with a flop of black hair and a lopsided grin appeared behind Bennett and slung his arm around his shoulder. The latter shook his happy-go-lucky friend's arm off but appeared very unsurprised by the gesture, hinting that it was a common occurrence. Liam assumed this was Ezra.

"The name's Ezra, but I'm guessing Benny here already told you that much." It took all of Liam's self-restraint not to laugh; Bennett definitely did not look like a Benny. Ezra held out his hand and Liam shook it. "Lemme find..."

Rather than finish his sentence, Ezra turned around and scanned the room for whoever he was looking for, waving them over once he spotted them. Two new figures approached, a tall blonde guy and a girl with choppy, shoulder-length hair dyed a bright shade of electric blue.

"Adam, Robin - this is Liam," Ezra introduced. "Our new Lucas." Liam could only presume that Lucas was the guy whose spot in their ensemble he was taking.

Ezra glanced back at him. "Lucas kind of sucked. Hopefully you're better. On the bright side, it would be really hard to be worse."

Robin rolled her eyes and elbowed Ezra. "Don't scare him," she chided before giving Liam a reassuring smile. "I promise he's actually nice. He just doesn't know how to keep his mouth shut."

"Just don't get on his bad side," Adam added.

"I don't have a bad side," Ezra corrected him. "And I only trash talk people who bail on us a month before our concert. Don't be a moron and you're fine."

Liam racked his brain for all of the information Bennett had given him about the others, which wasn't a lot. If he was remembering correctly, Robin sang and Adam played bass guitar.

The one thing he was sure of was that Ezra was their drummer. Bennett had given a word of advice about him in advance: "Ezra's way better at drums than the rest of us are at anything, but don't let it bother you too much. He's ambidextrous, so he picks up on stuff in like five seconds."

Unless Liam was forgetting about someone, there was only one person missing from their group: the apparently elusive Izzy.

"Is Izzy around here somewhere?" Ezra asked the other three.

"I think so," Adam answered. "I saw her just a minute ago."

He turned and peered around the room like Ezra had when looking for him and Robin. "Izzy, get over here!" he called once he spotted her, earning him a couple of annoyed looks from people who were trying to hear the TV.

Izzy showed up a moment later with a plastic cup in her hand and a couple of friends in tow. She introduced herself to Liam, but he struggled to make himself focus on her.