Semua Bab Puck Me, One More Time: Bab 111 - Bab 120

Liam's POVIt had started before break even properly began.I had seen it happen from the other end of the corridor — Eric and his people moving in on Trevor; the quiet boy who sat three rows from the back in two of my classes and who had the specific misfortune of being exactly the kind of person that groups like Eric's treated as prey…Small, kept to himself and never made noise. Which, in the particular logic of people like Eric, read as an advantage.I had watched Eric reach into Trevor's bag while the other two kept him boxed in, and I had already been moving before I made a decision to move.There were three of them. That was still fine as I had dealt with worse numbers in tighter spaces on race nights when things went sideways, and school corridors were considerably more predictable than underground circuits at 2 in the morning.It was over before most people nearby had fully registered that it had started. One. Two. Three — each of them finding themselves right on the floor in

Liam's POVI watched Ken disappear around the corner with his personal assistant beside him, and then looked back at the locker in front of me.The gift bag was still sitting there, cream coloured and ribboned, just there like that by the fact that I had no idea what to do with it.I reached in and pulled it out carefully, holding it by the handle. Inside, through the tissue paper, I could make out the shape of a square box which was compact and wrapped properly, with a red ribbon tied across the top in a way that said someone had taken actual time over this and was intentional about this.‘I have never gotten a gift before.’ The thought arrived quietly and stayed. ‘Not even from anyone at school.’I turned it over once in my hands.‘Does this mean Ken wants us to be friends?’I considered that for approximately two seconds before the more realistic possibilities started presenting themselves.‘Or maybe it's a prank. Or maybe it's his version of a truce.’ I set the bag on the shelf be

Liam's POV"This is the precious gift you were freaking out over?" Eric's voice came from right behind me, loud and theatrical in the way it got when he had found something he intended to milk for everything it was worth. "A dog leash. With your name on it."He said it demonstratively… drawing the words out, holding them up for the rest of his team like he was presenting evidence at a trial.And they erupted so loud at that.The laughter hit the locker bay from every direction, the kind that bounced off metal doors and came back louder than it started."Liam Carson is into collars?" One of them managed to get out between breaths. "Bro, I did not take you for the kinky type."I stood there with the leash in my left hand and the empty box in my right, and I looked at them — at their faces, at the way they were folded over each other with the specific delight of people who had stumbled into something better than they planned for — and I felt the heat of it move through my chest clean and

Author's POVThe key slid into the lock on the first try.Jenny took it from the guard who spent a little time from where he went to get the key, with her usual efficiency…no wasted movement, no unnecessary words — and turned it until the mechanism clicked.She had her other hand already on the door handle, the specific posture of someone who had been trained to manage entrances and exits and was prepared to do exactly that.Behind her, the lead interviewer had stepped forward, microphone already live and the camera crew fanning out into position with the practiced ease of people who had done remote broadcasts from stranger places than a school corridor."Finally." The interviewer's voice carried the particular brightness of someone who had been holding their energy for this moment and was now releasing it in full. She turned toward the camera with a smile that belonged on a billboard. "Our viewers… we are live at Pathway High School." She held the pause just long enough. "Are you rea

Liam's POVWith about 15 cameras, but… just one question. Every eye in the room was pointed at my face.I looked at the microphone being held toward me and then at the reporter behind it, who had the specific expression of someone who had stumbled into a story bigger than the one they came for and was not going to waste it.Then, I stepped forward.Not because I had a plan. And not because I had thought through what came next either. But because the question was hanging in the air and the longer it hung, the worse every possible outcome got — for the livestream, for the Royal family's reputation, and for reasons I was not going to examine right now, for the look on Ken's face that I had caught from the corner of my eye approximately two seconds ago. But unfortunately for him, I knew that I was going to turn Ken down right here as I could practically read the pleas written all over his face while he had sent his gaze to me."We are not friends." I said it directly into the microphone,