Chapter 5— What Do You Want?

Liam's POV

"Liam, you are so talented."

I moved to my mum's side slightly, bracing myself because I could vouch my mum and I knew exactly where her head went with anything that leaned even slightly in that direction. But as I got closer, I realized she was looking at the still life drawings I still drew from behind the sketchbook. I guess the side Ken had been smart enough to present it from. My chest slowly came back down from my throat.

"Why didn't you tell me about this?" She turned to look at me with this genuinely proud expression and I almost laughed out of sheer relief.

‘You have no idea how close that was.’

"Yeah, it's… just for fun." I said, keeping my voice as relaxed as I could manage.

Ken nodded beside me in a clear picture of innocence that he just portrayed. "Fun? I see." Then he glanced at me sideways. "But I think you got so lucky today, though."

I shot him a look that I hoped communicated everything I couldn't say out loud right now. He held my gaze and smiled like he hadn't just nearly blown up my entire life in my own bedroom.

"Mum, we should really get back to studying now." I said, turning back to her before she could pick up on anything passing between us. I didn't have to rush the sketchbook because she might have to suspect a thing and I wouldn't want that. Besides, from her facial demeanor, it was obvious that she was done with the sketchbook.

"Okay." She closed the sketchbook gently and I stepped forward to collect it from her, setting it back down on the table right next to the orange soda and close enough that I could grab it the moment she was out of the room. "Have fun." She said warmly and then turned to leave.

"Thank you, Ms. Carson." Ken called after her in a full smile, completely charming.

I waited until I heard her footsteps fade down the hall.

The second the coast was clear, I went straight for the sketchbook. My hand was literally reaching for it when Ken moved faster than he had any right to and snatched it clean off the table before my fingers got anywhere near it. He held it up with this look on his face like he had just won something and wanted credit for it.

"What do you want?" I asked flatly.

He tilted his head. "Run your mouth one more time."

"Or what?" I didn't move back and didn't flinch either. This was my house and whatever game he thought he was running at school didn't have the same rules here. "You are going to tell my mum that I draw nudes? Then go ahead."

I said it like it didn't scare me or let's say, like the thought of my mum finding out wasn't something that had been sitting at the back of my throat since the moment Ken pulled that book out of his pocket.

He studied me for a second as if he was deciding something and then pushed me straight onto the bed again. Same position as before. Both my hands pinned down, his weight making it pointless to struggle, but I struggled anyway because I wasn't just going to lie there and accept it.

"What do you think she would say if she walked in right now?" His voice dropped low, close to my ear. "Too scared to come out to her? Because she is your mum who knows nothing about her lovely secretive son." He pulled back just enough to look at me directly. "To tell her who you really are?"

Something about the way he said it made it land differently than I expected. Not cruel exactly, just uncomfortably close to a truth I hadn't finished working out for myself yet.

I smiled right at him. "That is not for you to decide. It's not your choice." I held his eyes steady. "I will come out on my own terms."

He laughed, although it was not loud but genuine, like I had said something that actually surprised him. "Oh, on your own terms?"

"Yes."

He laughed again, softer this time, and then just let go. Just like that, he rolled off me, picked up the sketchbook and started flipping through it casually. One page. Two pages. Right in front of my face like he was browsing a magazine in a waiting room.

"Give it back, asshole!" I launched off the bed and went for it. He caught my wrist with one hand mid-reach and held it there, and when I looked up at him, he was licking his lips again with that same lazy, deliberate energy that was starting to feel less like a habit and more like something he did specifically to get under my skin.

We were actually too close at this point… the kind of close that only happens when you are either fighting someone or something else entirely and right now I genuinely wasn't sure which one this was.

"What do you want from me?" I snapped.

And that was the exact moment I felt it.

Something pressing against me firmly which was impossible to mistake for anything other than what it was. My brain short-circuited for a full second.

I looked down and then back up at him. "Wait…" I kept my voice even, even though nothing about this moment was actually even. "What's in your pocket? It keeps poking me."

Ken released my wrist so fast you would have thought my skin burned him. "Crap!" He took a full step back and covered his cock region with both hands, which honestly did nothing except to confirm everything.

Then… and I still don't fully understand the logic here but he hastily grabbed the orange soda off the table and took a long drink from it. Like cold soda was going to sort out whatever was happening on his end. I could bet that it didn't. What it could only do was send most of the contents straight down his white top when his hand slipped, leaving a wide orange stain spreading across his chest.

"Damn it!" He looked down at himself, then immediately turned and walked straight through to my bathroom without even asking.

I stood there in the middle of my room and didn't move.

Was it because of me?

The question arrived before I could stop it and once it was there, I couldn't shake it loose. Because the first time which was back at the bookshelf at school when I had teased him about it but genuinely chalked it up to leftover energy from whatever Ms. Scott had started with him in that office. He had come straight from there. So, it made sense and it was easy to dismiss.

But this?

We were in my bedroom. There was no Ms. Scott here. There was no teacher, no seduction, no setup. It was just the two of us and my sketchbook and whatever that was that just happened.

Was he hard because of me?

I stood there listening to the water running in my bathroom and I could not come up with a single explanation that made more sense than the one I was trying very hard not to think about.