Artificial Love (Thiam)

Chapter 8

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"Get out or I'll drag you out." Liam stared up at Brett, whose eyes were narrowed down at Liam, somewhat threateningly.

"I could have you arrested, probably." Liam groaned, and Brett just rolled his eyes, pulling on Liam's blanket again.

"Come on, Liam, please. Can't you please just do this for me? How many years have we been friends?"

Liam groaned again, because Brett was absolutely right that he had no choice, he just didn't want to. But since Brett had decided he had the biggest crush of all time on Theo's best friend, he sort of had no choice. Brett had gotten himself tentatively invited over to Theo's castle. As long as Liam was there, that was. Liam, Josh, Theo and Brett. A weird combination of people that Liam had no business being with. It felt like a double date, which seemed like the wrong place for Liam to be all things considered.

It had barely been a few days since Liam and Theo had decided that maybe they were better off staying civil, rather than trying to be friends. It wasn't really what Liam had wanted. He was hoping they could be adults about this, learn to be friends, since they were... going to be seeing a lot more of each other in the future. But then Theo had made that comment about Liam overestimating their friendship, and Liam had decided that he didn't want to sit around waiting for Theo to learn how to be a decent person.

"Yeah, okay, yeah. Fine." He grumbled. "I'm not dressing up though. And I can't promise I won't throw Theo out a window."

"That's valid, it seems like he deserves that. I don't really care what you and he do so long as you play along and let me talk to Josh."

Liam scoffed, "Okay, yeah, I get it. You're whipped already and you barely know him." He paused though, gave a little smile, "Honestly, though, Josh is a really great guy. I'm glad you two have hit it off. It's not his fault his best friend is the worst."

It felt weird to be back at the point of hating Theo (or at least pretending to) after all this time, but he also felt more like Theo deserved it than ever, because they were adults now, and Liam had truly believed that Theo had gotten over all of this bullshit. He thought they had become friends as they'd gotten older, found some sense of understanding. Realising he was wrong... it was fine, he could deal with it, but it took him right back to that teenager mentality. If Theo wasn't going to be nice to him, why should he be nice to Theo?

"Yeah, me too." Brett beamed, and Liam felt bad for being so down on the whole lunch thing.

"It's going to be fun. I'll play nice. Promise."

"Okay. So... does that mean you'll dress nice, at least? Like... just proper pants and a shirt or something?" Brett asked. Liam sighed, because yes, of course he would if Brett wanted him to, even if he didn't really want to himself.

"Yes, dickhead, get out of my room so I can shower and get dressed. I'm up now anyway." Liam said, but there was a friendly smile on his face, and Brett moved out of the room, closing the door behind him.

The wonderful and annoying thing about it all was that Brett was nearly never so excited about meeting someone. He tended to be sort of guarded with his feelings, so if he was really this far into it all and so excited, that probably meant something good for them both. Which meant Liam had to take it seriously and try not to stand in the way because of his own petty bullshit.

So Liam did what he was supposed to do. He put on a nice pair of jeans and a button down, he did his hair and shaved his face, tried to seem appropriately happy to be there, even if he'd rather do just about anything else than go hang out with Theo and think about why Theo still hated him so much after all this time.

By the time he and Brett arrived at Theo's castle, familiar territory to Liam, but that felt lifetimes away, Liam was all talked out on how perfect Josh was. It was cute really, Liam thought, but he just trying to manage all his own feelings, both positive and negative.