The M.I.L.F Rebate System: Every Woman I Spoil Makes Me Richer!

The phone started going before Liam had finished his third coffee and fhus much was to be expected to be honest.

He looked at the screen. It was Sophia. He set the mug down and watched it ring with the patience of a man who already knew the kind of the conversation that would occur the moment he did pick and wanted her to have the full experience of the anticipation before he picked up.

He let it ring out.

She called again immediately but Liam didn’t intend for the call to even end the first time, he simply got carried away.

He picked up on the third ring of the second attempt.

He didn’t get a word in.

"Liam — what did you do? Why would you — do you understand what this — a PS5? The full bundle? Ten games? Liam, that’s—" She stopped herself, reorganised, started again. "Why would you do that?"

"Good morning to you too, Sophia Reyes."

"Don’t good morning me. Answer the question!" Sophia was somewhat overwhelmed and Liam enjoyed hearing this flustered version of her but this further cemented why he couldn’t get her anything over the top.

"I thought Mateo could use an upgrade." Liam leaned back in his chair. "His setup was a generation behind."

Liam knew how important a boy’s comfort zone was and how it allowed him to enjoy his day without the pressures that came with life.

"His setup was fine," Sophia responded but not in a condescending way.

"Fine isn’t the same as good. He deserves that much," Liam countered, he wasn’t backing down.a

"Liam." Her voice dropped into something more direct. "This is too much. You understand that, right? This is — he’s going to get attached. He’s already asking about you and now you’ve done this and if things between us ever—" She stopped.

"If things between us ever what?"

A pause. "If this doesn’t work out. He’ll be devastated. He doesn’t attach to people easily. I told you that." Sophia was trying her best to look after him even when she should be grateful for this act.

Liam was quiet for a moment.

"Then tell him you got it for him," he said. "He never has to know it came from me. You take the credit, he gets the gift, nothing changes."

Silence on the other end.

Longer than he expected.

"Sophia? Did you lose consciousness?"

"I heard you." Her voice had changed quality. "I just — I hadn’t thought of that."

"It’s a clean solution."

Another pause. "It’s not genuine though. You deserve the credit for this. It came from you." She exhaled slowly. "And if I tell him it’s from me and then he finds out the truth later, that’s worse."

"Then tell him the truth."

"And what does that make us? Because Mateo doesn’t do casual, Liam. If he knows you did this, you’re not just someone his sister is seeing anymore. You’re someone he’s going to count on." Her voice was honest rather than accusatory. "I just need to know you understand what that means."

Liam looked at the wall for a moment.

"I understand," he said. And he meant it.

Sophia was quiet for a few seconds. When she spoke again the edge had gone out of her voice entirely.

"Thank you," she said. "I don’t even know how to — just, thank you. He’s going to lose his mind."

"Don’t make it awkward, or I will tell Mike to train you during my next gym session."

"Oh please, I have survived Mike."

"This is clearly Mike 2.0..."

"Liam."

"Sophia."

She laughed — brief, slightly overwhelmed, the laugh of someone who has run out of argument and landed somewhere warmer instead.

"Are you coming over later?" she said. "I’ll cook. Proper meal, not leftovers."

"I can’t today."

"Tomorrow?"

"I’m not sure yet. I have things I need to handle." He kept his voice easy. "I’ll let you know when I surface."

"Is everything okay?"

"Everything’s fine. Someone needs me right now and I need to be present for it." He didn’t elaborate and she didn’t push, which he appreciated more than he said.

"Okay," she said simply. "Take your time."

"Tell Mateo I said he better use that thing properly."

She laughed again. "I’ll tell him. Goodbye, Liam."

"Goodbye."

The call ended and the apartment went back to its quiet.

From the living room came the low, steady rhythm of Darren’s breathing — still deep, still completely under. Liam returned to his laptop and worked through another hour of firm framework, refining the cost projections, cross-referencing the bar association documentation against his timeline.

He was mid-paragraph when he heard movement.

Darren surfaced slowly — the gradual return of a man whose body had taken exactly what it needed and nothing more. He sat up on the sofa and looked around the apartment with the momentary blankness of someone reorienting to a space that wasn’t their own.

He found Liam at the kitchen counter with the laptop.

"How long was I out?" he said. His voice was rough at the edges, sleep still in it.

Liam looked up. "I lost count after the forty-seventh snore."

Darren blinked. "I don’t snore."

"Darren. The neighbour knocked on the wall."

"You’re lying."

"I am lying." Liam closed the laptop. "Two hours. Maybe a little more."

Darren rubbed his face with both hands and sat forward, elbows on knees. The eye bags were still present but the hollowness behind them had eased. He looked less like a man at the edge and more like a man who had stepped back from it, which was all Liam had wanted when he’d opened the door that morning.

He got up and made two cups of coffee without being asked, brought them both to the living room, and sat in the armchair across from the sofa.

Darren took the mug and held it.

They sat in comfortable silence for a moment.

"Can I ask you something?" Liam said.

"Go ahead."

"Have you ever thought about getting back into fighting?"

Darren looked up slowly. The question had landed in a place he hadn’t expected and his expression showed it — not defensive, just surprised.

"Where did that come from?" he said.

"Answer first," Liam was firm.

Darren turned the mug in his hands. "Every day," he said finally. "Every single day."

"Then why did you stop?"

"You know why I stopped."

"Refresh my memory, pretend I’m a man with dementia."

Darren exhaled. "No money. Training costs, camp fees, travel for bouts, equipment. It adds up fast and I was already behind. I needed something stable and fighting wasn’t stable, not at the level I was at." He shook his head. "It wasn’t a choice I wanted to make."

"What level were you at when you stopped?"

"Regional circuit. I had two promoters interested. One from Portland, one from Vancouver." He looked at the mug. "I had to walk away before either of them came to anything."

Liam nodded slowly.

"What if I sponsored you?" he said.

Darren went very still.

"Training costs, camp fees, travel, equipment — all of it covered." Liam kept his voice even. "You focus entirely on the fighting. Nothing else."

"Liam—"

"Before you say anything." Liam held up a hand. "This is not a handout. I want that to be absolutely clear before we go any further." He leaned forward. "I expect every penny returned and then some when you’re earning what you should be earning. This is an investment. I’m backing you the same way anyone backs a fighter they believe in."

Darren stared at him.

"You kept yourself in shape," Liam continued. "I’ve seen what you can do — you disarmed a man at gunpoint with your bare hands in a diner without blinking. That’s not something you learn. That’s something you are." He looked at him directly. "You have the body, the reflexes, and the discipline. You just never had the room."

The silence that followed was different from the silences earlier in the morning.

Darren looked at his hands. The same hands he’d turned over in the car last night in the dark, the same hands that had reached for something in a glovebox and then put it back. He looked at them for a long moment.

"You really think I still have it," he said. Quiet. Not quite a question.

"I think you never lost it," Liam said. "You just ran out of people willing to bet on it."

Darren’s jaw worked.

Then, slowly, something broke open in his face — not dramatically, not with any performance around it. Just a man in his mid-twenties sitting on a sofa in his best friend’s apartment at eleven in the morning, remembering something about himself that a difficult year had almost buried completely.

He smiled.

Small, real, the first genuine one Liam had seen from him since the door opened.

"You’re going to want that money back with interest," Darren said.

"Every cent," Liam confirmed.

"Then I better not lose."

"No," Liam said. "You better not."