Chapter 1. Liam #2
Other students filter in from outside. A kid with a shaved head and a dragon tattoo wrapping his scalp drifts closer. Santana. I know almost everybody's name by now and at least a little of their reputation. Santana was in a street gang, but he's alright.
"Can I have some?" he asks in a much more polite way than I'd have imagined.
"Help yourself," Jack says, like a fucking French chef presenting a five-star Michelin dish. Santana grabs a handful of snow with syrup, shoves it in his mouth, and grins.
"Yo! Marsal and Perry got snow cones!" he screams at nearby kids.
Within seconds, there are six, seven, eight kids crowded around us, everyone reaching, pouring, and the snow is getting more watery, now more slush than ice, more sugar than flavor, dripping through fingers and onto the serving line and the floor in sticky rivers of color.
Someone tips a tray and snow slides across the counter.
A kid steps in a puddle and slides three feet, catching himself on the counter with a yelp that only makes everyone laugh harder. The cafeteria is a fucking wreck.
I don't hear Griff approach. No one ever does. He's that good, that scary motherfucker. One moment the cafeteria is a riot of laughter and dripping syrup, and the next there's complete silence, something that never happens when you live with sixty delinquents.
Gray hair in that military-precise cut. Green eyes looking at every spill, every overturned tray, every guilty face. His jaw is set in the way that means someone is about to wish they'd made better choices or had never been born. Most of the kids bolt or step back, leaving Jack and me alone. Uh oh.
His gaze lands on me. Slides to Jack. Returns to me. He’s really fucking scary, and if I didn’t see him as a father figure, I’d find him attractive.
"Marsal. Perry." He looks like he's about to snap. "I'd ask for an explanation, but I think the state of this cafeteria speaks for itself."
He doesn't yell. He hardly ever needs to.
But what he does is much worse: he starts a scolding about respect.
For the facilities that other people clean.
For the staff who prepare food on these counters.
For ourselves, because boys who want to be treated with dignity need to extend it to their surroundings.
"Why on Earth did you think this would be a good idea?"
Jack and I stare at our feet, trying to look very sorry.
"You will clean this. All of it. Right now. While your peers go to free time." He turns to the room. "I don't want to see anybody else here." Every lunatic who was brave enough to be still there gets up and leaves. He steps back, crosses his arms, and watches us with a frown.
Jack grabs a mop from the supply closet, accepting his sentence.
I grab a rag. The mop water turns pink immediately.
Jack dunks, wrings, and pushes the mop across the floor in wide arcs.
I'm on my knees with the rag, scrubbing syrup from the serving line.
We don't talk for a minute. Then Jack catches my eye and his mouth twitches, and I have to look away before the laughter comes back, because Griff hasn't left, and it's so fucking hard not to laugh that my chest hurts with the effort. He’d literally murder us. Ask us what’s so funny, and start the scolding all over again.
But my eyes are watering with the effort of staying cool.
My rag turns orange. My knees are wet. I'm stupidly fucking embarrassed and happy at the same time, which is a common combination for me.
The cafeteria looks almost normal when we finish. It still smells like raspberry syrup mixed with cleaner. My knees ache. My hands are pruned and sticky despite the washing.
Griff gives us a final nod before leaving. Still not amused, but he looks like he wants to murder us slightly less now.
"Phew," Jack exhales. "I'll put these back." He gathers the bucket and rags and kicks the supply closet door open with his foot.
I lean against the stainless steel of the serving counter and let my head drop forward.
My hair falls over my eyes. I'm tired in a good way.
My shirt is damp, my socks are wet from kneeling in mop water, and there's a faint ache between my shoulder blades.
But I'm still thrilled about our little snow cone adventure. Fuck, I’d do it all over again in a heartbeat.
I could stay like this for a while. Just breathing.
When I lift my head, he's already here.
He’s three feet away with his hands at his sides, watching me with those green eyes and an amused frown that only he can create. How can he look so mean and threatening and annoyed when he’s smiling? God knows how.
He knows I've been bad.
Oh, hell yes.
I straighten up against the counter, but I don't step away from it. I couldn't if I tried. He always makes me fucking nervous, so much so that I usually freeze on the spot, waiting for my fate.
One of his eyebrows goes up in that ridiculously sexy way only he can muster. He lets the silence stretch. He's good at this, at letting the quiet do the work, letting me fill it with my own heartbeat, my own breathing, my own imagination running ahead to what's coming, my own cock hardening.
"You two made quite the spectacle today," he says with that magnificent low voice that sometimes becomes almost a growl, which produces a spectacular heat that makes my skin tighten. "Aren't you lucky I can't punish you, Jack?" he asks him, ignoring me.
Jack laughs from somewhere behind me.
"You're fucked. Daddy is angry."
My cock throbs. Instantly. So damn fucking embarrassing. I press my hips back against the counter.
Ethan doesn't react to Jack. Doesn't break eye contact with me, and now he's grinning like the Joker, which is scarier than his serious face. He takes a step closer.
"Do you think what you did in here was acceptable behavior, puppy?" he asks quietly—looking only at me. Fuuuuuuck.
"No," I say. It comes out barely above a whisper. I want to sound brave. I never sound brave when he's like this.
"No, what?"
"No, Daddy."
His eyes darken, my cock throbs, and he takes another step.
I feel like a fucking bunny trapped by a wolf, and my cock goes to town with that thought.
He's close enough now that I can feel the warmth radiating off his body, and I really fucking want to hug his waist, but I stop myself.
My two sides: wanting him to hunt and punish me, wanting him to comfort me.
My breathing is shallow and fast, and I can't control it.
His hand lifts. I think he's going to touch me, my face, my neck, anywhere, please, but instead he places it flat on the counter beside my hip. His thumb is half an inch from my body.
"Mm." He leans closer. His lips brush the shell of my ear, and every nerve ending in my body fires at once, a full-body shudder I can't suppress. "Cleaning the cafeteria wasn't enough. You know that, right?"
I swallow. My throat clicks. "What do you mean?"
"I mean..." His hand comes up, finally, and his fingers trace along my jaw, feather-light, a touch so gentle it's almost worse than if he grabbed me.
I want him to grab me. He gives me only the tip, and I want the whole thing.
"...you're going to come to my office during rec time tonight.
And I'm going to give you proper discipline. Since Griff clearly went easy on you."
My blood goes hot. I can feel my face flushing, feel the heat spreading down my neck and into my chest, and lower.
I try to meet his eyes and can't because I'm so fucking embarrassed in the best way possible.
I try again, and his green eyes are dark, pupils wide.
He loves to tease me like that; it's the most fun he has.
"Yes, Daddy," I whisper.
“Such a good boy when you want to be,” he whispers.
I feel even more embarrassed and delighted.
He pulls back just enough to look at my face.
His eyes drop to my mouth. They stay there for two full seconds, long enough that I feel my lips part on their own, long enough that I lean forward an inch before catching myself.
He sees it. A flicker crosses his face, and it's a hungry expression.
His thumb brushes my lower lip. Then he steps back.
Straightens his shirt. Adjusts his expression back to neutral.
I don't know how he can fucking do that.
It's like he becomes a different Ethan, from one second to the next, and I'm always the same messy Liam, clearly shaken by him, clearly unable to play it cool, ever.
"Finish up here," he says, normal volume. "And stay out of the kitchen. Both of you."
"Yes, boss," Jack jokes, fake-saluting.
Ethan turns and walks away. The cafeteria doors open and close behind him.
I stay pressed against the counter, breathing hard. Heartbeat so loud I can hear it in my ears. My whole body is buzzing, blood too hot. Fuck.
Jack gives me one of his cheeky smirks.
"Don't," I say.
"Didn't say anything."
"Don't."
He grins. I'm going to die before rec time.
I replay his words for the rest of the day—every single one. Proper discipline. Good boy. The way his mouth moved next to my ear. The almost-touch that was worse than touching. The hunger in his eyes when he looked at my lips.
I can't focus on anything else. How would I ever be able to?