There Are Worse Things I Could Do (18+)

45. Ana

"You're sure you want to do this?"

"Liam, how many times are you going to ask me this?! Yessss. It'll be fine!" I widened my eyes in annoyance in the mirror as I applied more lipgloss.

"What happens if we run into one of your family members?"

"You told me you picked somewhere private, did you not?"

"Yes, but—"

"So I'd have to be the unluckiest person on the fucking planet if you picked some obscure place that one of my family members happened to be at tonight. I've gotten all my things packed and ready to move in here. Somehow managed to convince my family that me having two male roommates isn't weird, and there's nothing sexual going on between us—" Theo snorted.

"—And as I said, I would have killed to have been in that room when you had this talk, given how fucking terrible you are at lying," he commented wryly.

"But she's technically not lying about that part," Liam muttered. I sighed loudly, throwing my head back in exasperation.

"Regardless, my family knows I'm moving in with you two. I haven't tried to find a dumb excuse to leave you in an entire MONTH now. I'm ready for this date to finally happen, so we can move on with our lives."

"And then hopefully, we can start having regular date nights," Theo said, grinning happily as he played with a lock of my hair. "And doing...other things regularly again," he added quietly.

"Regular date nights... If we ever get to the point where you're not afraid to publicly acknowledge our relationship," Liam grumbled.

"Baby steps," I quipped, giving him a quick, consolatory peck on his cheek. "I'm going to tell my family. At some point. I just don't know when. And I can't tell any of my friends, because then they might run into my family or something—"

"You don't have friends!" Liam rudely blurted.

What the fuck was his problem tonight?

I did too have friends. I still occasionally texted Vera. And we ran into each other at Erewhon one time and then had an impromptu smoothie date that was surprisingly fun, given that we were both completely sober. She and Ian were living together now, though, so she pretty much spent all her time with him or at work. And I pretty much spent all my time with Theo and Liam. And Aaliyah.

We were...mostly ok now. Things were still kind of weird between us, but I don't think either of us really had the energy lately to make it right again. That was the first thing on my to-do list, after I moved in.

Ok, the second thing on my to-do list.

"You ok, bro? If you're going to be in a shit mood all night, I can just go out with Theo," I told Liam, my voice dripping with fake concern. He rolled his eyes and huffed.

"Yes. I'm sorry," he mumbled. "It's just... Taylor. She is so fucking annoying. She wants to come over tonight, after our date. I keep telling her no—"

"Why the fuck is she asking you instead of asking me?" Theo asked, suddenly irritated. It didn't seem to take much lately. "Not that my answer would've been different."

"I don't fucking know. She seems to think we're besties, since she's been led to believe that you're the only one dating Ana. She thinks I'm a part of her Lonely Losers Club. She figured you and Ana would be gone, so she and I could hang out. So then I told her it was a "group hang" to celebrate Ana moving in. And she thought I'd be depressed after having to watch you two 'lovebirds' all night, so she keeps asking if she can come afterwards." Liam groaned.