Chapter 95: You Have A Deal! [FIXED!]
Sophia came through the door with two bags in each hand and the expression she had on was of someone who had taken the stairs at a pace the bags didn’t appreciate.
She set them on the kitchen counter, turned around, and found Liam on her sofa.
She looked at him.
Looked at the television, which was on.
Looked at Mateo, who was bent over the textbook with his full attention on it which was surprising, even for him, this wasn’t the Mateo she knew as he wasn’t distracted by the game in front of him.
"Mateo." Her voice was even. "I thought I said assignment first."
Mateo’s pen kept moving.
Sophia looked back at Liam.
Liam met her eyes with the open, untroubled expression of a man with nothing to hide because she couldn’t harm him so Liam didn’t care too much about her ’wraith’.
"He was reading when I got here," Liam said. "This one’s on me. I turned the TV on to game a little to pass the time seeing as you weren’t here."
Sophia crossed her arms. "Liam."
"I know, "I know."
"I specifically—" Sophia was going full on scolding mode, ready to tell him how this was enabling Mateo.
"You’re right." He nodded. "I should have checked before touching anything. That was inconsiderate."
She looked at him with surprise because Liam was taking all of the accountability and she was ready to have a little back and forth and found that the conversation had been defused before it started. She opened her mouth, found the argument had nowhere obvious to go, and closed it again.
From the sofa, Mateo’s pen continued moving without pause. He did not look up. He did not look over his shoulder. He was a student, and he had been a student the entire time, and the textbook in front of him was proof.
Sophia exhaled.
"You can’t just come in here and—" She stopped. Restarted. "This is my house, Liam."
"It is." He stood up. "And I overstepped. I’m sorry."
He said it simply. No performance, no deflection, just the words placed cleanly in front of her.
Something in her posture shifted. The arms uncrossed by a degree. She looked at him with the expression of a woman who had prepared for a longer argument and was now finding it difficult to even be angry.
He stepped into the kitchen, closing the distance between them, and pressed a kiss to her forehead.
"I’ll make it up to you," he said quietly.
Sophia looked up at him. "You can’t just do that."
"Do what?" Liam pretended to be oblivious.
"Apologise like that and then—" She gestured vaguely at his face. "Look like that."
"I don’t control how stunning and handsome I look," Liam shrugged.
"You absolutely do and you know it." But the edge was entirely gone from her voice now, replaced by something warmer that she wasn’t bothering to conceal. She shook her head and turned back to the groceries.
She unpacked for a moment in silence, then stopped.
"Is he actually doing the work?" she said, low enough that it didn’t carry to the living room.
Liam leaned against the counter. "Third problem set. He got the first two right on his own after I showed him the discriminant method."
She turned. "You taught him that?"
"He picked it up in about fifteen minutes." Liam shrugged. "Mateo’s an undercover genius."
From the living room, completely audible despite the distance: the sound of a pen stopping.
Neither of them acknowledged it as Liam had no idea was eavesdropping the moment Liam closed the distance with his older sister.
Sophia looked at Liam with a blank expression, she had no idea how to express this as there was no reason for him to go out of his way and truth be told, Sophia was having a little trouble herself teaching Mateo.
She turned back to the counter and began folding the empty bags with unnecessary concentration.
She hated to admit it but she was falling for Liam, there shouldn’t be any label slapped on this. She was enjoying it just the way it was, and putting unnessary pressure would ruin it.
"Thank you," she said quietly.
"Don’t thank me. He did the work."
She folded the last bag and set it down. When she turned around Liam was closer than the kitchen strictly required, and she looked up at him with the awareness of someone who had noticed and wasn’t moving away.
His hand found her waist — the same casual movement as before, drawing her in without rushing it. Liam was attracted to her, he couldn’t believe the way she was speaking to him turned him on.
She came without resistance and then immediately looked toward the living room.
"Not here," she said, low because Mateo was just there.
"I know." He didn’t move his hand. "Come to mine later."
She looked up at him, she could feel something poking her and instantly knew Liam was aroused.
"Sophia."
"I heard you." She was trying not to smile and losing. "Yes. Later."
He released her and went back to the living room.
-
Mateo was on the fourth problem, pen moving steadily. He didn’t look up when Liam sat back down.
"How many left?" Liam asked.
"Three," Mateo responded immediately but he was moving at an impressive pace because he was trying to impress Liam.
He was a teenager so naturally, he would want Liam’s validation as he was beginning to acknowledge him as an authoritative figure in his life.
"You’re fast," Liam pointed out.
"I know." A pause. "The discriminant thing actually works."
"Most things in maths work. That’s the point of maths," Liam informed him.
Mateo looked up briefly. "Did you get yourself a PS5 yet?"
"Ordered it the same day I got yours so I can game a little more."
Mateo processed this. "You didn’t have one before that?"
"No, I wasn’t really all that interested. You made me interested," Liam gave him some credit.
"So you got me one before you got yourself one?" Mateo was hung up on this because to him, this meant that Liam put his needs above his.
"Correct," Liam responded casually.
Mateo stared at him a surprised expression even though this meant so much to him, Mateo had to play it cool. "That’s weird."
"Is it?"
"Most people get themselves things first," Mateo pointed out.
"I’m not most people." Liam picked up the remote. "I told you that."
Mateo returned to the problem but the pen moved slower now, the mental bandwidth partially redirected. "What games did you get?"
"Spider-Man 2. God of War. Few others."
"God of War." Mateo repeated it. "Have you played the first one?"
"I started with Ragnarök."
Mateo put the pen down. Fully. On the table, he turned and looked at Liam, giving him his full attention without hesitation.
He knew this conversation required it because this was his area of expertise, and Liam was clearly a noob because why did he mean he started with Ragnarök and missed out on the previous beauties?
"You started with Ragnarök?" Mateo asked with a raised brow, mimicking the expression of a disappointed parent.
"Is that wrong?" Liam questioned.
"You can’t — that’s—" He rubbed his face. "There’s an entire story. Kratos has a whole arc. You just walked in at the end!" Mateo took it personal.
"I followed it fine. Angry emo god, killing gods?" Liam said, intentionally trying to agitate Mateo.
"You followed nothing. You thought you followed it because that’s not the story!" Mateo shook his head with the deep, bone-level disappointment of a gamer confronting a fundamental violation. "That’s like watching the last ten minutes of a film and saying you watched it."
"I watched the cutscenes," Liam wasn’t backing down.
"Oh my—" Mateo pressed both palms to the table. "The cutscenes."
Liam kept his face completely neutral.
"I’ll send you the list," Mateo said finally, with the resigned authority of someone accepting an obligation they hadn’t asked for.
"You need to play them in order. From the beginning."
"If you insist."
"I do insist." He picked the pen back up, muttering something under his breath about cutscenes that Liam chose not to fully hear.
He let a moment pass.
"Hey." He kept his voice low, angled away from the kitchen.
Mateo looked up.
"I’m taking your sister out tonight," Liam said. "Which means you’ve got the place to yourself."
Mateo looked at him.
"Full console access," Liam added. "No bedtime obligation. She’ll be back whenever."
Mateo held the eye contact for a moment as he thought about how this could be advantageous to him.
"Okay," he said.
"Okay," Liam confirmed.
Mateo turned back to the problem set with renewed focus and the energy of a young man who had just received news that the evening had significantly improved.
From the kitchen, Sophia moved around between the counter and the refrigerator, entirely unaware of the arrangement that had just been made on her behalf.