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It’s not that Liam doesn’t love Hayden, because he does, but after a while their relationship has begun to feel predictable and bland, almost simple. Maybe he’s an idiot for thinking that, but he couldn’t help it.
He doesn’t want to want something else; he wishes he could be happy with Hayden, but the truth is, no matter how much it hurts to admit, he isn’t. He’s content, they’re good, but that’s just it, it’s good, it’s not great, or passionate, or spontaneous, it’s routine.
Liam knows that he should be happy with it. He’s in a semi happy, stable relationship with Hayden, he has the love of an amazing, strong woman, but he just…wants something more. Funny enough, it’s Hayden who ends up delivering him the more, just not in the way that either of them would have hoped for.
Theo is Hayden’s friend from some society in college. Someone that Liam had heard about for weeks before meeting him. In the dark parts of his mind before they met, he found himself hoping that Hayden would fall for him, that she’d be the one to actually turn around and say that their relationship wasn’t working so he wasn’t the one who had too, because he would have to, eventually.
When Liam finally meets Theo he hates him, it’s not because Theo’s an asshole, which he is, it’s because he loves that he’s an asshole. He loves that every time they’re together he feels alive like he never has with Hayden. Hayden is an ember, but Theo is a roaring fire.
He tries really hard to hate him, he tries to be mean, to keep Theo at arm’s length, but Theo doesn’t seem to care, every snappy comment he makes Theo replies with a quick retort and a smirk that haunts Liam’s dreams.
Theo comes around constantly after the first meeting. One day Theo’s just a faceless person in Hayden’s stories and then the next he’s a permanent fixture in their lives, and Liam hates that he likes it so much.
A few weeks after Hayden introduces him to Theo, she tells him that he has to try and get along with him, that he has to at least give the man a chance, that he has to be fair, and Liam can’t exactly say no, because then he’ll have to admit that he wants something else, so he tries. He gives Theo hesitant smiles and tries to talk to him, and sure half the time it still seems to end in one of them insulting the other, but it’s fun and exciting.
Theo is fun. He’s crazy, he’s unpredictable, and Liam can’t get enough of him. His and Hayden’s similarities seemed to wear them down till they were nothing more than the shell of the people they were before they meet, but with Theo, their similarities only seemed to make them more themselves.
Before Liam knows it, Theo’s stealing him away from Hayden. At first he’s thinks it’s only in the literal sense, but deep down he’s knows the truth. Each time Theo’s shows up on his doorstep with his car keys swinging around his fingers and a lazy smirk spread across his face as he tells Liam to grab his coat it pulls another thread out of his and Hayden’s relationship.
And it’s not that he’ll just randomly turn up with no warning and take Liam on strange adventures. It started with the simpler things, Liam will head out to buy milk and they’ll come back twelve hours later with a new story about a group of bikers they meet and a few bruises to show for it. It’s not just the spontaneous adventures that Theo drags him too, or his addictive presence, it’s that Theo could talk for hours, and Liam would never get bored. Liam can’t help but hang off of Theo’s words, it doesn’t matter what he’s saying, or how many other people are talking, Liam will always hear Theo first.
He's a riptide and Liam doesn’t even try to stop himself from being pulled under anymore.
Liam knows he’s fallen for Theo long before he does anything about it. He tells himself that it’s fine, that it doesn’t mean he and Hayden are over, it just means that he’s attracted to someone else, no big deal, it happens to everyone, it’ll go away eventually, but it doesn’t, and Liam finds himself bringing Hayden flowers after he hangs out with Theo like an apology.
It’s Theo who kisses him first, it’s rough and hot, with a touch of desperation, and they’re both drunk, stuck at a dive bar in the middle of nowhere because Theo may be fun and interesting, but he’s not a moron and he’s hidden his keys deep within the seats so neither of them could be tempted to try and drive them back home.
They’re talking about Hayden when it happens. Liam admitted for the first time that he wants something else. Someone else, and then Theo’s pushing him back up against the door and kissing him hot and filthy, leaving Liam burning for more.
Liam wants to say that he regrets the kiss the next morning when they eventually leave the dive bar, that he really hates Theo now for kissing him when he’s trying to have a serious conversation about his relationship issues, but he doesn’t. It wouldn’t have taken a genius to read between the lines of what Liam was saying, or the way his eyes kept glancing at Theo’s lips as he spoke, and Theo is a genius.
He breaks up with Hayden when they get back. Hayden knows that it’s coming, she’d felt Liam pulling away from her, seen the way he drifted off towards Theo. She watched from the sidelines as they spoke in low tones with their eyes shining, every single speck of their attention focused on each other.
It doesn’t make it any easier for either of them though. Their breakup was always going to be a messy one, the fact that he doesn’t leave with a broken nose is honestly a miracle. She does break Theo’s nose though when he walks in mid breakup acting like he hadn’t almost fucked her boyfriend in the back seat of his car the night before.
Liam’s first date with Theo is the same day as the breakup. He’s sure most people wouldn't call eating jelly in a hospital waiting room while Theo’s nose refuses to stop leaking blood a date, but that’s the thing he likes about Theo, the fact that he’s not most people. He’s interesting, a bit weird. Their second kiss tastes of blood and Theo murmurs about how their second date will be better in a nasally voice as a doctor prods at his nose.