Liar, Liar

"They pulled this on me too." Duncan said.

-

Things were good between us, on the whole, although I did get sick of his multiple personalities getting me in trouble.

It happened in the cinema. I was closing up and Michael and I started making out behind the coffee machine. We were obviously way too loud because someone cleared their throat and I looked up to see Red, and fuck he really was Big Red right at that moment, frowning at me. He pulled Lindsay off me by collar and pointed at the door. Lindsay scrammed, gee, thanks buddy.

Red put his hands on his hips.

"Are you telling Jasper or am I?" I gulped. It was hard to keep track of who knew which guy. Red definitely knew Jasper, he came to pick me up once a fortnight for our campaign. And he'd warned me about Michael often enough.

"I swear that's not what it looked like." Red raised his eyebrows.

"That wasn't you sticking your tongue down Michaels throat?"

"Well..."

"I am so disappointed in you Wiri. Get the fuck out. I'll close up."

"Wait, Red..." He looked at me expectantly. "I'm sorry?" I whispered. He rolled his eyes.

"Tell your boyfriend that."

Dammit. Fucking Lindsay making me look like I was cheating on Jasper with Michael. We had to stage a make up scene in front of Red. Michael was banned from the cinema, which just meant Lindsay was getting creative with another costume.

I got in trouble again at our Cthulhu session. Linds went to pee and suddenly everyone was glaring at me.

"Uh..."

"You go to Lulu without Jasper every week or just last night?" Oh fuck. I'd been dancing between Carl and Toby and had at one point or another been groping, groped, and kissed, bitten, and squeezed by one or both of them.

"It was just dancing!" I protested.

"I was there." Amanda folded her eyes. "That was not. Just. Dancing." I sighed. Great. Luckily Lindsay was returning and I appealed to him to help me out.

"Amanda was at Lulu last night." I said to him. He looked at her.

"Yeah he goes out with some friends once a month." He rolled his eyes. "Clubs." He shuddered. "Not really my thing." Oh fucker, he knew what he'd just done. I glared at him and looked guiltily across the table at the others.

-

"I'm getting a reputation!" I complained. "Everyone in Wellington thinks I'm a cheating asshole." Lindsay rolled his eyes.

"I don't."

"You don't count. Can you please just come clean?" He avoided that question. Because stupid Lindsay always came first. Somehow at some point I deferred to him and his crazy whims. It was obvious why. The sex was great, and the fact that I was falling for him didn't help.

Part 3.

I was throwing darts angrily at a board in my local pub. Linds wasn't replying to my texts. My friends from school had mentioned to Red I hung out with a guy named George between lectures and I hadn't come up with an explanation fast enough, so he wasn't speaking to me. Mum had caught me in town hand in hand with Jasper and since she only knew Lindsay she was waiting at home to give me a firm talking to. It was a shitty week.

I heard someone clear their throat and glanced over. There was a guy watching me and laughing. I looked over at him.

"Something amusing?"

"You're very passionate for someone who's shit at that." My mouth twitched in spite of itself.

"I'm not shit." I said as I went to collect the darts. "His forehead." I pulled one out. "His eyes." I grabbed the next two. "His big fat lying mouth... and his dick." I reached for the dart that had completely missed the board and turned to the guy watching me. He was laughing.

"Rough break up?"

I grabbed my drink.

"Break up? I wish. He's going to marry me and I'll be stuck with him forever." I sighed. "You any good at this?" I nodded my head to the board. He shrugged kind of modestly. "Great. Show me how to make it look like an accident." I joked.

To my surprise he stood up. Oof. He was tall. Tall and wide and almost an identical body to mine except twice the size. I gulped, hoping I hadn't been talking my way into a beating but he shook back his hair and I found his hands on my waist.

"Stand like this." He said. "Weight on your back foot but transfer it to your front as you throw. Don't lock your knees. Relax your shoulders. Follow through." He practically threw the dart with me and it landed almost dead centre. My stomach twisted as he dropped his hands from his waist.

"Wiremu." I held out my hand.

"Jase." He cleared his throat. "I'll buy you a beer."

"Oh... no..."

"We can moan about our shitty boyfriends who we aren't leaving anytime soon." He gave me a look that said he knew exactly the electricity that had just passed between us and he was putting a pin in it.

"Um. Ok. Rawe tena." He grinned at me.

"Ka pai."

—-

We had a few rounds at darts. I got better, but never good. I was still kind of avoiding going home so I bought some chips with the next round.

"So ahh... what's yours like?" I said as we sat down. I'd moaned about Lindsay for the last hour.

"Cagey." He said. "I mean, I guess I'm grateful he's just one person having heard all that but sometimes I'm not even sure who that person is. We've been dating for three years and I've never met his family, or his friends. He works at Maranui and I go there sometimes but... he's gotta be lying about something right?" I shrugged.

"Bit on the side? Drug habit? What do you think?"

"Fuck I don't know. Part of me thinks I'm a dick for even worrying about it. I mean Marty is just kind of shy like that. I don't need to know everything about him to know he loves me." Jase stared at me gloomily.

"Beginning to think love isn't much." I said grumpily. That broke Jase out of his reverie and he laughed.

"You're very cute when you're angry." He said. "Maybe that's why Lindsay winds you up."

"Call me cute again, I dare you." Jase raised his eyebrows and looked me over. I felt totally exposed and started to blush under his gaze.

"Cute." He said. My eyes flashed and I could feel my muscles tense up. Jase saw that too. "Woah." He said. "Not taking you on in an arm wrestle, even if you are pint sized."

"I'm above average height."

"For what?" My lips twitched.

"A Kiwi woman." I shrugged. "By half a centimetre." Jase grinned. I could see he was about to call me cute again which would have resulted in me either attacking him or making out with him- but my phone rang. I glanced at it.

"Lindsay?"

"My mother." I took the call with a sigh and agreed to come home. The pub was just round the corner so I could be there in 10minutes.

I sighed at Jase.

"Hey, thanks. I had a good time."

"I'm here pretty often." He said with a shrug. "Don't be a stranger."

"Never."

——

I sat down to dinner with Mum and she opened a bottle of red wine. She gave me a look.

"You seem tired Wiri." She said.

"A little.".

"How's school?" I shrugged.

"Not great." I admitted. "But I'm passing." Mum nodded and her mouth settled into a small frown.

"I'm not sure this thing with Lindsay is healthy." She said slowly. I glanced at her.

"I thought you liked Lindsay?"

"Funny thing. I do like Lindsay. I don't like Jasper, or Carl, or Michael though. I think they wear you out." I blinked at her.

"How...?"

"I'm your mother. I know everything." She said with a sigh. "Wiri... maybe you and Lindsay could stop playing games. At least for your exams. If he can't do that I think you should really take some time to figure out what you want from a relationship. Because.. he's a lot, kiddo." I glanced at her. I always suspected she had an extra sense for that kind of stuff.

"He's a lot." I agreed.

—-

Of course, stopping the games with Lindsay meant actually talking to him, which he'd decided he wasn't doing this month I guess. Great. I didn't see him at all except for on campus, as George. But George never acknowledged me around his friends on campus because George was still ostensibly straight. He could see me watching him and I motioned with my head to come over. He must have seen the look on my face. I was tired. He didn't even nod to show he'd seen me, just looked right through me. Well fuck him then.

I had one last exam which I got through before marching up the hill to the pub. I threw my first glass of wine back and started my second in earnest when I felt someone touch my shoulder.

"Hey. Slow down." Jase looked concerned. I rolled my eyes.

"Well the good thing is I don't think I have to worry about Lindsay anymore. I think I've been dumped." Jase put some coins in the pool table and pulled me away from the bar.

"Oh." He didn't sound particularly upset. I raised an eyebrow.

"Oh?"

"Sorry." He cleared his throat. "I'm just struggling to be anything but really stoked for you. That relationship was fucking toxic."

"You're one to talk." Jase shrugged. He was handing me a Pool Cue. "Can't give you much of a game." I warned him.

"I'm teaching you." He said. "In about six months you can give me a real game, but I'll still win."

"You're so cocky." Jase grinned and raised his eyebrows.

"I'm in a good mood." He said.

——

"Anyone ever told you you're really bad at pool?" He said half an hour later. I put my hand on my hip and frowned at him.

"I told you I wouldn't give you much of a game."

"So we'll just have to keep practicing." He said. "Here." He put his Pool Cue down and walked over to me. He sighed as he put his hands on my hips. "You have to lean over the table." He said, gently pushing me over to line my eye up with the ball. His hands were huge on my frame and the sheer closeness of another guy... another crazy hot guy... was making my palms sweat.

I could feel my heartbeat going wild as he placed his hand on the small of my back. He was talking but I wasn't hearing a single word. I looked back over my shoulder and noticed he was blushing as we caught each other's eyes.

"I'm beginning to suspect you have ulterior motives here, Jase." I managed to say, slowly. Jase straightened up.

"No!" He said unconvincingly. "Just a mate trying to teach another mate Pool."

"Ah-huh." I grinned at him. "Well either way you should know I'm usually the one bending people over Pool tables." I took the shot and missed. I stood up with a shrug and went back to my wine. Only Jase had caught my hips.

We stared at each other for a second. He had fire in his eyes and was holding my hips tight.

"Jase..." I said quietly. He pushed my hair off my face.

"You wanna bend me over a pool table Wiri?" He murmured softly.

"Well. Yeah. Sure." I squeaked out. Hmm. That wasn't selling it. I glanced up at him and bit my lip. "I want to bend you over any surface you stand next to but I figure I'm not your type." He chuckled.

"What do you imagine my type is?"

"Ahh... I'll hazard a guess at whatever Marty looks like?" His hands had moved from my hips and were caressing my shoulders now.

"I broke up with Marty." He murmured. "Talking to you was just so easy. You're such an open book. I realised I was wasting my life on a guy who was only ever gonna give me a part of himself." I realised I was about to fall into those eyes... worse, that mouth... and suddenly I was moaning against him as our tongues met.

"Wait. Jase." I pulled myself away reluctantly. "Lindsay's not talking to me but we haven't broken up."

"So? You think he doesn't fuck other guys?"

"I don't have to stoop to his level." Jase growled as he held me close.

"Damn." He said. "You're right." He sighed and his hands fell back to his sides. "Leave him." He said. "Leave him and his stupid games and take me over a Pool table."

"Shit Jase."

"Please." I bit my lip.

"Yeah." I said slowly.

—-

We hung out for hours, talking about our lives and our plans and our goals, and Jase kept his hands off me even though the tension between us was practically causing sparks.

"I have to go." I said after my fifth glass of wine. "I'm about to become an extremely regrettable person." Jase nodded.

"Here." He took my phone and plugged in his number. "Call me the second you're single." I rolled my eyes and tried not to look at him as I walked away.

Of course Lindsay would call then.

"I missed you." He sighed into the phone.

"We need to talk." I said. Lindsay hung up on me. I stared at the phone in disbelief. What a cunt.

—-

Lindsay showed up at work the next day, with nothing on to pretend he was anyone else. Red frowned at him as he approached me.

"Michael?" He asked, confused. Lindsay sighed.

"Lindsay." He said. "But yeah, Michael. And actually you know me as Jasper." He stuck out his hand and Red shook it slowly as he looked between us.

"Oh." He said as the pieces fell into place. I stared at Lindsay.

"What the hell Linds?" He folded his arms.

"I know what we need to talk means. And I know why we need to talk. And you're right, ok, I've been an asshole." I frowned at him. "No more games. Just you, Wir, and me Lindsay. I can't afford to lose you." My mouth fell open.

"You have really shitty timing to decide that Linds." I moaned.

"Well... I lost... someone else... for similar reasons." He muttered. "I don't want to lose you too." I moaned and thumped my head against the desk.

"Tell me that a week ago." I whined.

I glanced up at him and took a deep breath.

"I met someone." I said quietly.

"So? We can fuck him together."

"No Linds. I mean I met someone. Someone who is... all in. He wants me for me. He's not gonna take nine months to tell my best friend who he is." Lindsay sighed.

"But what about us?"

"I don't know! What about us? What even is us?" Lindsay bit his lips and I saw tears in his eyes- but I'd seen him cry before.

Still. I'm only human and I loved him. I loved him for all his faults. I loved his dumb games and I loved his long legs and I loved his freckles and the way he held me when we fell asleep.

"Can this wait till after work Linds? We'll talk. For real. KVP at 7 ok?" The Kelburn Village Pub was a risk because Jase might be there, but maybe I secretly wanted Jase to be there. Maybe I wanted the two of them to fight it out so I didn't have to make a decision.

—-

To my slight disappointment, Jase wasn't there, and I had to be an adult and sit down with Linds.

He arrived after me and looked at my face. He sighed and rested his chin on his hands.

"I've fucked it, haven't I?" He said. "Too many games. Do you hate me?"

"I don't hate you. I just can't do it any more Linds. I want you but I can't handle everything else." He bit his lip.

"Wir, what if I really, truly am just me? Please give me another chance." He reached across the table. "You've met someone but there's no way someone you just met knows you like me."

"Do you even know me?"

"Of course! You put on a macho thing because you're scared people won't see you as manly. You're only studying Economics because you have no idea what you want to do and your dad was an Economist. You don't want to move out but it's not because of money, it's because you're worried about your mum on her own. You listen to Boney-M when you work out." I blushed.

"How did you know..."

"The guy you just met doesn't know any of that. Please Wir. I'll do you right, ok?"

Lindsay wrapped his long fingers around my hands and stared deep into my eyes. I smiled in spite of myself, looking at him. He smiled back.

"Don't fucking breathe a word about Boney-M."

——

I saw Jase at the pub a few days later. He grinned at me and jumped up from his chess game he was playing against himself.

"Single yet?" I laughed.

"Ugh..." I bit my lip. He rolled his eyes.

"Oh well. I'll buy you a drink regardless." He began to motion for our usual round and I stopped him.

"Look... Linds and I are giving it another shot." I mumbled. Jase nodded slowly, his face falling a little.

"Ka pai." He nodded. "Well. Happy for you mate." I nodded silently and let him buy me a drink while I tried to pick up his chess game. He fucking slaughtered me in six moves. I looked up.

"You've been holding out on me." He shrugged with a coy smile.

"Maybe." I held his gaze... and I suddenly realised I couldn't be friends with Jase. I liked him way too much. I was either going to cheat on Lindsay or keep Jase just close enough that if things with Linds did fall apart, he'd be there to pick up the pieces. I sighed and hung my head.

"Jase..." He sighed and clasped his hand around mine.

"Yeah mate. I know. Maybe we split up days here. You get Wednesday and Friday and I get Thursday and Saturday." I nodded slowly. "It's ok. You should give it a fair shot with Lindsay, and that's not gonna happen with me fucking eyeing you up all the time." I nodded. Yeah. The mature thing to do was to leave. So I pulled my hand away from Jase and looked up... And Lindsay was there, looking between the two of us.

I blushed as he walked slowly towards us and tried to work out how to say it's not what it looks like without betraying that it was exactly what it looked like...

"I suppose that wasn't entirely unexpected." He said as he sat down, frowning. "Wellington is too small " I frowned at him and turned to Jase to explain who he was. Jase was sighing and shaking his head. I glanced between them. I was missing something. What was I...?

"Marty." Jase introduced me. My mouth fell open and I looked in shock at Linds.

"... Lindsay." I stuttered.

Well. He didn't half have a type.

—-

"You played me! Fucking hell Linds! I am such a fucking moron. I cannot fucking believe it. I know your family!"

"You met his family?" Jase said quietly. I ignored him, too focussed on my own heartbreak.

"And fuck me, he would look like that. Bet his dick is twice the size as well."

"Actually..." Lindsay interjected. He coughed. "I mean... why do you think I cheated in the first place?" Jase thumped him and Lindsay held his chest dramatically.

"Ouch." He said.

"Ouch!" Jase said pointedly. Lindsay rolled his eyes.

"Surprised you didn't know that already Wir, you seemed pretty keen to move on."

"Unlike some people, I think cheating is kind of a shitty thing to do." I growled and looked at Jase. "He poauau tatou."

"Uhh... Translate?" Lindsay squeaked out. I shook my head.

"E toru tau? Kare ia i ako Te Reo?" Jase shrugged.

"Kaore ia e aro." I grunted and looked between the two of them. Frankly, I should have known.

Jase looked so tense. His mouth was a thin frown and he couldn't look at either of us. I reached for his hand across the table and Lindsay sighed as our fingers grazed each others.

"Kai me te pia?" I suggested. Jase nodded and headed to the bar. Lindsay gulped as he looked at me.

"Why?" I asked. Dumb question. He does this for fun, I knew that. He rolled his eyes. "Why pretend to be honest?" I clarified. "I didn't care! I just wanted to know what I was in for! Don't know why I ever believed a word out of your fucking mouth."

"I wanted you to feel special... I really genuinely like you guys. I don't get that very often. It's probably cos you both called me out and that's always hot." I growled and Jase placed my wine in front of me with a tiny smile. He glanced at Linds.

"Cute when he's mad." He muttered. I furrowed my brow.

"Call me cute one more time." Lindsay bit his lip and glanced at Jase.

"Wind him up more and he'll give you a dicking down you won't forget."

"Huh." Jase looked at me thoughtfully and I looked pointedly at Lindsay.

Jase sighed.

"So. Lindsay, is it? Games up. What's the plan?"

"Is it up?" He asked me. I almost laughed.

"Are you fucking kidding me? Yes! Fucking hell dude!" He sighed.

"Understood." He looked between us. "You two huh?" Jase rolled his eyes.