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Theo hates jocks.
He's got quite the reputation for hating things, but near the top of his list are jocks--those raucous, straight-teethed, wolf-whistling bros who swagger around the park like it's any of their business to be there. Like they have a right to be straddling the benches and tossing a spare football back and forth in the sacred space that belongs to the skater kids.
Above all, Theo hates one particular jock, the one with the loudest and brightest laugh that rings out above the voices of his teammates. A kid with messy sun-kissed hair that he especially resents when it’s soft and air-dried in waves after a shower instead of gelled back from his eyes. Eyes that glow brighter than an April sky, so light they look fiery and unnatural when they sweep over the park and snag on Theo’s figure and linger there. And his lips: lips that stay parted just so, except for when he’s biting down on them in concentration, a picture of deceptive innocence with those quirked-up eyebrows and fresh-cut jawline like puberty’s just starting to hit him with the weight of a freight train.
And, G-d, those muscles. Theo doesn’t always have the privilege of glimpsing them, because the kid is almost always wearing that irritating red and white letterman jacket with Beacon Hills emblazoned across the back and his initials in a patch on front. But the few times that the kid named L.D. shed his jacket to escape the heat, the biceps and pecs straining at the cotton of his t-shirt infuriated Theo so swiftly and so intensely that he had to throw down his skateboard and punch out his emotions against the chain link fence several hundred yards away.
Letterman jacket kid definitely smirked at him that day, the lazy kind of pull at his lips and innocent stretch of his arms over his head that almost sent Theo into another blind rage.
Josh and Tracy never let Theo hear the end of his nonverbal tug-of-war across the park with L.D. "Get a bedroom or pay me for some damn A/C!" Tracy ribs him once. And Josh hollers at him unabashedly, “When will you put us out of our misery and just let me win the bet on when you two are gonna rail already?”
“I don’t like him,” Theo snaps at them. “I’m not even remotely attracted to him. He is the antithesis of everything I look for in a guy. I fucking hate him and everything he stands for.”
“Whoa, chill, Theo,” Josh laughs.
“Methinks the lady doth protest too much,” Tracy muses, tossing back the rest of her Red Bull, crushing the can in her fist and pitching it across the park into the trash receptacle. When it sinks into her target dead center, she and Josh erupt into cheers and high fives like she just scored a touchdown. Which, considering Theo was just complaining vehemently and vociferously about his resentment against anyone associated with football, is kind of low.
“Fine,” Josh drawls. “What do you look for in a guy, Teddy?”
“First off, somebody who won’t call me Teddy,” says Theo with a roll of his eyes.
“Ha. Good thing I’m not into you, then. What else?”
“Not a jock, so jot that down and imprint that in your brains. Somebody...smart. Sensitive. Has a fine taste in music. Can actually read and appreciate literature, probably. Oh, and tall.”
“Last one’s a lie,” says Josh, very tacitly reminding them all of the three consecutive pint-sized crushes Theo’s had on a waiter, a barista and a fair ticket booth guy.
“My dad was an excellent wingback and he also published a bestselling novel,” says Tracy. “Personally, I’m offended.”
“You know what I mean,” says Theo.
“No, we don’t. How do you know that kid doesn’t check all your boxes unless you go over and ask him?”
“Stepping within six feet of him would deplete my lifespan by a decade,” Theo deadpans.
“All the better, because you can’t punch each other if you’re six feet apart,” Josh chirps with disturbing cheer.
“Not happening. Period.”
“I bet you’re just afraid you’re gonna find out you’re wrong about him,” says Tracy. Which, astute but highly uncalled for.
“You trying to dare me? I’m too old for dares.”
“Another bald-faced lie. I just dared you last week to jump off the top bleacher and clear the puddle of mud and you did it.”
“It was for science.”
“It was also great for Vine,” Tracy snickers. “C’mon, Theo. Don’t be a chicken now. What’s the worst that could happen?”
----
The worst that could happen, Theo quickly finds out, is falling head over heels in love with his objectively annoying and unattractive non-crush.
Letterman jacket kid glances up as Theo’s shadow falls over him. He raises one brow at Theo, then slowly pulls out an earbud when he realizes that this is real, and Theo’s not going to budge until he acknowledges him.
“What’re you listening to?” Theo asks.
“John Farnham,” says the boy. “‘You’re the Voice.’ You know it?”
Theo fights to keep his face neutral. Of course he knows the song. Since he was thirteen, he’s been playing the same ’80s playlist and jamming to it with Tara as they get ready for school in the morning.
“Yeah, of course I know it,” says Theo. “Just didn’t expect somebody like you to know it.”
The kid’s characteristic teasing mirth returns to his eyes. “Why, what did you expect me to be listening to?”
“Crap,” says Theo honestly, spinning his skateboard on its tail between his hands.
“Sorry to disappoint,” says the kid with a blinding smile. “I’m Liam. Liam Dunbar.”
Liam Dunbar. Hence the embroidered L.D.
“Theo Raeken.”
“I know.”
“Wow, still a babyface and already a stalker? Knew there was a reason you showed up at this park every day.”
“Pretty sure it’s you that’s stalking me.”
“Don’t kid yourself, Dunbar. I’m not interested in watching you toss around a ball like the most boring game humanity has ever invented.”
“And I’m not interested in seeing your subpar skateboarding skills interrupt me when I’m reading, and yet here you are, bothering me every day.”
Theo’s mouth drops open before he can help it. Liam’s eyes are dancing again, blazing with a challenge in those impossibly blue irises.
“Try one lap around on this skateboard and tell me it isn’t the hardest thing you’ve done,” says Theo. “I dare you.”
“Nah, man. I don’t do dares,” says Liam with an easy grin.
“Bet you’re just saying that because your motor skills are so fucked, you know you’re gonna fall on your ass.”
Liam crosses his arms. “Bet you’re just trying to get me to stand up to check out my ass.”
Wow. Way to jump to correct but totally irrelevant conclusions.
Theo just barely fights back the urge to lick his lips. He jerks his head toward the bowl ramp in the center of the skate park. “Bet you won’t make it from one end to the other without falling.”
Liam eyes the slightly worrisome slope. Apprehension wars with excitement on his face. After a few brief seconds, he smiles up at Theo. “Bet you I can, on my first try.”
“Damn, Dunbar. You always bite off more than you can chew?”
“Trust me, I always bite off exactly what I can chew,” Liam says, and then stands and has the gall to wink.
If Theo’s pants suddenly feel a hair tighter at the double entendre, it’s nobody’s business but his.
“If you lose,” says Theo as they make their way over to the edge of the bowl, “you have to take off your jacket and give it to me.”
“What, this jacket?” Liam asks innocently, hands in his pockets, glancing over his shoulder.
“No, I was referring to your fucking firefighter jacket. Yes, Dunbar, your letterman jacket.”
“Hm. Okay. And if you lose--”
“Well, the probability of that is zero, but go ahead.”
“If you lose,” Liam goes on, “you’ve gotta give me a kiss.”
Theo’s brain short-circuits. If his skull were filled with gears, they’d all be grinding now to an audible, painful halt. He swallows down the hammering of his heart--wonders if the flicker of Liam’s smile means he’s doing the same--and says: “Bold move. It’s a good thing I never lose.”
“Neither do I,” says Liam, and suddenly he’s close, so awfully close, enough that if he stepped another inch into Theo’s space their breaths would be tangling together.
Theo’s the one to break the moment. He grunts at Liam to follow him to the edge of the bowl, then sets down his skateboard on the cement and taps it with his sneakered foot for Liam to get on. Liam steps on gamely enough, but teeters from end to end for a moment as he fights to find his balance.
Before he knows what’s happening or can control the filter that normally stops his body from doing stupid shit, Theo finds his hands drifting to Liam’s hips to steady him. Liam stiffens momentarily under his touch, and then he wiggles a little and grabs Theo by the wrist when Theo instinctively goes to pull away.
“If you’re gonna show me something, show me. You either do this a hundred percent or don’t do it at all,” Liam says, amusement audible in his voice even though his back is to Theo.
“I didn’t ask for you to spill your team captain bullshit at me.”
“Never told you I was team captain,” Liam teases him. “Guess I’m not the only stalker.”
Theo pinches him at the hips. Which seemed like a good mode of retribution at the time, but after the fact felt far too friendly.
“Bend your knees and angle your body like this,” Theo instructs him.
“What--”
“Like this. Here.” Theo steps closer, very studiously ignoring the flush of heat that’s crawling up from his toes to his eartips, and presses the front of his body infinitesimally against Liam’s back.
“I don’t get it. Show me.”
There’s definitely a coyness to Liam’s request that makes Theo’s blood pound, and not in entirely unwelcome ways. He shoves the thought from his mind and presses even closer against Liam’s body. “There,” he mutters. “Now you get it?”
“Mm. I think so.” Both of Liam’s hands are encircling Theo’s wrists now.
“Getting too comfortable there?” Theo mocks him. “Too scared to let go and skate to the other side?”
“Fuck you, I was born ready.”
“Then prove it,” Theo whispers in his ear through a sharp-toothed smile. And then without warning, he lets go and pushes Liam by the core of his back toward the edge.
Liam yelps and flails but, to his immense credit, regains his balance through sheer athleticism. He hurtles down the ramp and swoops up the other side, then by the power of gravity yanking him down, slides back and flies up toward the spot where Theo is waiting for him.
Theo knows to look for it, for Liam to go cartwheeling, and he may be a dick but he’s not a total asshole who’s willing to send a kid to the hospital, so he reaches out and seizes Liam by the front of his jacket to hold him there and draw him back over the edge.
“Hm. Not bad, but you would’ve fallen if I hadn’t caught you,” Theo notes triumphantly. “I think you owe me a new jacket.”
Liam is speechless for a long moment, still winded from the shock and the adrenaline rush, and his chest heaves between the two of them. He swallows, eyes flickering between Theo’s hands fisted at his chest and Theo’s face overcome with a smirk.
Liam steps off the skateboard and shrugs off the jacket. “What, this jacket?”
Theo rolls his eyes. “Yes, Dunbar, that jacket--”
But he doesn’t get the chance to deliver another joke about it, because suddenly Liam’s wrapping the jacket himself around Theo’s shoulders. And then in the space of a breath, Liam’s yanking him closer by his grip on the empty sleeves, twisting them between his fingers, and Liam tilts his chin up just a bit to level Theo with a look before he says: “Actually, you told me to make it to the other side without falling on my ass. I did that, and I came back to this side, too. You saving me doesn’t count.”
Theo’s heart has abruptly decided to make house in the center of his throat. “Oh, really.”
“Yeah, really,” says Liam, shuffling even closer. He doesn’t hide it anymore, how his gaze is flitting from Theo’s eyes to the cupid’s bow of his lips and back. If Theo were to be completely honest with himself, he’s doing the same.
“I think,” Liam whispers, “it’s you who owes me a kiss.”
“Only one of us can lose,” Theo whispers back. “Wanna explain why I have your jacket?”
Liam bites his bottom lip, teeth sinking sinfully into warm flesh there and flinging Theo’s coherence straight into the sun. “Wanted to make sure you didn’t run away.”
“Guess you don’t know me, then,” Theo breathes. “I never run away.”
“Then prove it.”
That’s as good a dare as any to trigger Theo to grab Liam by the belt loops of his jeans and haul him in, closing the distance, pressing their chests flush against each other and mashing his warm mouth against Liam’s. His lips are impossibly soft under Theo’s, melding against his and opening up readily to breathe Theo in. He tastes like vinegar chips and cherry Cola--two things that Theo despises separately but somehow they make a combination on Liam’s tongue that Theo is irrevocably addicted to now.
When Theo stumbles back for air, he’s pleased to find Liam as wild-eyed and disheveled as he feels. Liam’s still got his eyes closed, leaning forward as if to chase Theo’s lips. Liam blinks his eyes open slowly, seeming disoriented.
“If you wanted to kiss me so bad, you should’ve just told me on day one,” Theo chuckles.
“Shut up,” says Liam with color in his cheeks.
“I mean, I guess I’m not surprised, since you’re too chicken to do dares--”
“I said shut up,” Liam growls. “This is the opposite of what I told you to do.”
“I don’t do well with directions,” Theo says, the picture of smugness.
Liam releases his grip on the sleeves of the jacket to wrap his arms around Theo’s shoulders, trapping him there. “Well, then, I guess you’ll have to learn from direct instruction,” he snarks, and lifts himself a bit on his toes to launch himself at Theo in another heated kiss.
And if Josh and Tracy decide to confront him the next day at the park after seeing Theo and Liam tangling their hands together in front of Liam’s locker at school, well, Theo pleads the fifth.