Chapter 73: Game Night?
Thirty minutes passed without either of them noticing as they were enjoying each other’s company.
That was the thing about Mateo — once the wall came down he was genuinely good company. Quick, observant, the kind of teenager who processed things faster than he let on and chose carefully what he responded to. He had opinions about the game’s narrative that were actually considered. He noticed environmental details that most players walked past. He died less when he stopped trying to impress and just played.
Liam found himself genuinely engaged without planning to be.
He thought about Sophia briefly — what it looked like from the outside, raising a sixteen year old on a stylist’s income in a two bedroom apartment in a neighbourhood that required careful budgeting. The system had labelled her mid-tier but that metric had nothing to do with what she actually carried day to day. Mateo was her responsibility entirely and had been long enough that the apartment had reorganised itself around his presence without apology.
She hadn’t complained about any of it once nor even mentioned it to him until Liam basically convinced her to let him in which ultimately showed this side of her life to him.
Liam respected that more than the system’s rating suggested he should.
Mateo died on a particularly difficult sequence and kissed his teeth at the screen.
"The checkpoint is too far back," he said.
"The checkpoint is fine. You’re rushing the second phase."
"I’m not rushing."
"You panic when the second wave spawns. Every time."
Mateo opened his mouth, closed it, and respawned with slightly more patience than the previous six attempts. He cleared the second wave. Checkpoint saved.
He said nothing but the satisfaction was visible in the set of his jaw.
"Brains and brawn," Liam said.
"Don’t push it."
Sophia appeared in the hallway doorway and both of them looked up.
She had changed. The outfit she’d opened the door in was gone — replaced with a night robe, loosely tied, the kind worn by someone who had decided the evening was winding down regardless of what was happening in the living room. Her hair was still down. She looked comfortable and unhurried and entirely at home in a way that landed differently than it would have an hour ago.
Liam registered it and looked back at the screen.
"Mateo." Her voice carried the specific tone of a woman who had said this particular sentence many times. "School tomorrow. Wrap it up."
Mateo kissed his teeth with full commitment. He looked at Liam the way a man looks at a limited resource he’s about to lose access to — briefly, reluctantly, already calculating the loss.
He saved the game, stood up, and walked toward the hallway with the dragging steps of someone making their displeasure architectural.
He stopped at the doorway and turned back.
Something moved across his face — the specific internal war of a teenager who wants to say something and resents that he wants to say it. He looked at a point approximately two feet to Liam’s left.
"Would you—" He stopped but then restarted. "Are you coming tomorrow?"
Liam looked at him with the most sincere expression he had produced all evening.
"Aww." He tilted his head. "Does little Mateo miss me?"
Mateo’s face went through several colours in quick succession. His jaw tightened. He pointed at Liam with one finger, found no words adequate to the situation, and turned and walked rapidly down the hallway.
His bedroom door closed with emphasis.
Liam laughed — open, genuine, the kind that built from the chest. Sophia turned toward the hallway with the instinct of a guardian who had heard a door close like that before and was about to respond to it.
Liam touched one finger to his lips.
She stopped and looked at him.
He shook his head once, still smiling. Mateo didn’t need a talking to. He needed the moment to exist exactly as it had, awkward and unresolved and entirely his own.
Sophia understood and let it go.
She came further into the living room and Liam shifted on the sofa, making space. She sat, tucking one leg beneath her, and looked at the paused screen.
"Where were you for half an hour?" Liam asked.
"The kitchen." She glanced at him. "I was just — tidying. Thinking."
"You were watching."
She didn’t deny it. "Maybe a little."
Liam waited.
"He doesn’t make friends easily," she said. It came out simply, without performance around it. "He never has. New school last year didn’t help. He comes home, plays his game, goes to sleep." She looked at her hands briefly. "Seeing him actually relax around someone — someone who isn’t me—" She stopped.
"Made you happier than you wanted to admit," Liam finished.
She looked at him sideways. "Don’t make it weird."
"Oh, you’re doing all that on your own."
She smiled at the floor.
Liam looked at the robe. The loosely tied front, the way she’d tucked her leg beneath her, the general ease of someone who had stopped managing their presentation for the evening. She looked softer than she did in the grey dress and sharper than she did in the gym, and the combination was doing something he hadn’t anticipated.
He reached over and put his hand at her waist, unhurried, drawing her closer without asking and without rushing.
She came without resistance.
"Did it perhaps awaken your maternal instincts?" he said, his voice lower now.
Sophia turned her face toward him. She was close enough that he could see the amusement and something warmer underneath it competing for the same space.
"Maybe," she said.
She was smiling but her eyes had changed quality. Something had shifted behind them — something triggered and real. The woman who worked double shifts to keep a sixteen year old in school and still made time to look the way she looked and laugh the way she laughed. She was truly an intereting lady at the end of the day.
Liam pulled her even closer and straddled him, and they both knew in that moment where the night was about to go.