Chapter 4 I call the shots inside the school.

Trevor's POV

"You thought I could hide what and what exactly did you catch?

Point of correction... that boner wasn't about you. It's not like I can control it." I defended myself real quick.

It came out more confident than I felt but I held the energy behind it. It was the cleanest exit I had and I needed him to just take it and drop the whole thing so I could walk out of here with whatever was left of my dignity today.

But he interjected right away, reaching into his school bag and pulling out a thick booklet that he'd apparently had on him this whole time. "This isn't about your boner, Trevor." He placed the booklet on the desk, flipped it open to the printed A4 sheet inside and pointed at it. "It's about your activities budget."

I seized the booklet immediately. "How did you get this?"

He looked at me like that was the most pointless question I could have asked. "Please." He scoffed, waving it off. Then he folded his arms and stared at me with that expression he wore when he thought he had already won something. "Two weeks as the 'student body president' and you are already abusing your power."

I set the booklet down flat on the desk and met his eyes. "Well, equitable distribution of resources isn't abuse."

"It's just a fancy way of saying that you hate football and you want to kill the budget." He snapped back, and I had already seen that one coming from the moment he pulled the booklet out. It was exactly the narrative he had walked in here with and I had a very clean answer for it.

"Football gets 90 percent of activity funds." I kept my voice steady. "That is not fair to the rest of us and other activities in school who got only scraps."

He scoffed loudly at that, almost tipping into a laugh like I had said something genuinely amusing. "Dude, come on. You don't really think that your LGBTQIA whatever committee needs as much money as we do?"

I looked at him for a second. Just a second. "Why do you care? Besides, it's not like you are paying for any of this."

I could bet that landed as I could see it in the way his jaw shifted. He stepped forward, closing the space between us with that particular brand of boldness that came from years of being the person every room adjusted itself around.

"We need that money to go to Nationals." His voice had dropped that it has less performance in it now and more pressure. I mean, real pressure. "That's my only chance to get scouted. To get away from my dad, this town and..." He stopped himself right there, with his jaw tightening around whatever the rest of that sentence was supposed to be.

The pause sat between us for a moment.

But I caught it in the way he had cut himself off and the way his shoulders were carrying something heavier than football logistics. "...to get away from this town and my dad too," had slipped out before he could pull it back and there was clearly a lot more road behind those words that he hadn't planned on showing me. But part of me 'clocked it' and filed it somewhere.

But I couldn't let it move me. The moment I started making room for exceptions based on how someone looked when they were desperate, I was going to be making them every single time. That was not how I had gotten to where I was to be the 'student body president' and it was not how I was staying there.

"You know what?" My tone came out final, the kind that wasn't an invitation to keep going. "I have dreams too, Sean. Cambridge only takes students that made an impact. This budget is the way to prove that I can." I closed the booklet and placed it flat against his chest.

He took it without dropping his eyes from mine. "Well, the football team isn't going to take it lying down." He pushed the booklet back at me, harder than necessary.

I didn't even flinch. "You may call the shots on the field." I pushed it straight back to his chest. "But I call the shots inside the school. So my budget proposal stays."

Something moved behind his eyes. Not quite anger though, but it was more like he was switching gears in real time and deciding that whatever plan A was as it wasn't working and he needed a different angle.

He smirked. "Change the budget back, or I will make you do that." Then he shoved me - not enough to put me down but enough that I had to catch my footing and reset myself.

I straightened up and rolled my shoulders back. Then I moved toward him, one step at a time, closing the distance he had just tried to put between us. "How are you going to do that?"

He tilted his head slightly, that smirk still sitting on his face like he had been holding onto the next line for a while. "By giving you what you really want."

Then his hand went to his waistband.

I kept my eyes on his face and I was very deliberate about that. But then he unbuttoned his trousers, slow and easy, and I heard the zip come down and my brain just... stopped producing useful thoughts for about three full seconds.

I didn't look down as I told myself very firmly that I was not going to look down.

I couldn't work out what exactly he was trying to pull here. Either he had completely lost it, or today's classroom incident had handed him a card he felt comfortable enough to play now that there was no audience. Like he had filed it away the moment it happened and had been waiting for exactly this - an empty room, a closed door, and me with nowhere to go.

The worst part wasn't even what he was doing. It was the fact that I couldn't fully decide if I wanted him to stop because I might end up liking what he was about to show me or better still, what I was eventually about to see.