Just Like That (Albin Academy)

by Cole McCade

  In the end, he could only hurt Summer.

  And he’d just...just callously made certain that when it came, that hurt would be ten times worse.

  All because he was selfish.

  He was selfish, and wanted to hold on to this for a few months longer before he...

  Before he gave up, he thought.

  He didn’t know what he would do once he left Albin Academy.

  He just knew that he was tired, and had no reason to stay...and he thought, perhaps, once he left he would give up on trying to be a man at all, and simply find somewhere to be until time finally did its work and ended this haunting when he’d been a ghost for so very long already.

  His body just hadn’t figured that out yet.

  Summer shifted against him, letting out a soft sigh in his sleep, a murmur, one that blended into a tired call of “...Fox...”

  Fox tightened his hold, smoothing his hand down that strong, sloping back. “I’m here, Summer,” he whispered, even if that felt like a lie, a false promise. “I’m here. Sleep.”

  Summer settled against him with a low sound of contentment, and Fox closed his eyes, pain reverberating through him like the echoes of a struck bell.

  What am I doing?

  What can I offer him, while I continuously take and take and take as if I can feel alive again on his vitality alone?

  He found no answer inside himself.

  No answer in the beat of Summer’s heart against his chest, strong and vibrant and seeming as if it would beat for the both of them, until the dead thing inside Fox’s chest remembered how.

  And so he only told himself to sleep, to let go, to rest, to forget.

  Only to lie awake well into the night, his only companion the sound of Summer’s sleeping breaths.

  Chapter Twelve

  Summer was alone when he woke in the morning.

  At first he didn’t quite realize where he was, when he rolled over and his arm sprawled across a bed that...wasn’t his.

  His bed was piled high with pillows, and if he was waking up he should be smelling something burning as Dr. Liu torched whatever he made for breakfast.

  But instead he was alone against cool sheets, and as he fumbled out groggily his fingers brushed against something dry that crinkled like paper.

  He creaked one eye open on gray sheets.

  Only to slam awake as if he’d been struck, awareness rocking through him with an earthquake’s force as his senses started to filter in. The scent of honeysuckles that seemed burnt into the sheets beneath his cheek; the sensation of a body that had been pressed against his own; the deep, sore ache inside himself where Fox had filled him and teased him and made him burn for that deep-stroking sensation coursing wildly through him.

  That...that had really happened last night, hadn’t it?

  Right there at the pool, where anyone could have caught them.

  Summer let out a breathless laugh, burying himself into the pillows and breathing in deep of Fox’s scent. Of Fox himself.

  And remembering the bittersweet ache of watching Fox take his hair down, something that had felt so painfully intimate and yet somehow not enough when Fox had told Summer in no uncertain terms...

  This was temporary.

  But it was something.

  And Summer had been telling the truth, when he’d said he’d always had hope.

  Hope that maybe, just maybe, he could change Fox’s mind.

  ...maybe, just maybe, he could...he could make Fox understand that Summer loved him.

  Not the terrifying idealization he’d known as a boy.

  Cranky, stubborn Fox himself, who didn’t seem to know what to do with himself when someone asked him to just be a person instead of an authority figure.

  He was so much more than that, to Summer.

  He was sweet, in his own quiet ways. Much more easily flustered than he let on. Awkward, but he hid it behind an intellect that could be terrifying in its incisiveness, used to create a defensive barrier that protected him from others. Quiet. Thoughtful. Sometimes so absorbed in whatever was going through his mind that he was as bad as Dr. Liu, if not as destructive—forgetting his papers in the classroom, forgetting to charge his phone.

  And he made Summer feel...

  Like he could be something more than this frightened thing he was.

  Knowing that Fox had come to the States and felt like he hadn’t fit in, and yet still had managed to survive and become someone others respected, admired, even if they also feared him a little...

  It told Summer he could do it, too.

  That he could find a place for himself.

  That place right now, though, should probably be in Fox’s office, reviewing homework assignments to get ahead of schedule.

  He had a feeling that no matter how deeply, how hotly Fox had loved his body last night...

  There was no way in hell he’d go easy on Summer in the office.

  Grinning to himself, practically bouncing to the beat of his heart, he rolled over and caught up the scrap of neatly folded paper left on Fox’s side of the bed, flicking it open with his thumb.

  Faculty meeting this morning. Nothing interesting.

  Sleep in.

  I left breakfast in the oven for you.

  Terse words in Fox’s sharp, slashing handwriting, but with a subtle touch of...something, something that made Summer’s heart beat faster still.

  If he didn’t calm down before class, the boys were going to give him hell.

  He rolled out of bed, nearly tripped over the over-long hems of his borrowed pajama pants, and padded into the kitchen to peer into the oven—where a thickly piled panini oozing with cheese and bits of egg waited, left to keep warm on low heat. Grinning to himself, he pulled on a pair of oven mitts and tugged it out, transferring it to a plate and settling in to enjoy his breakfast with that hope inside him burning brighter than ever.

  It was one thing for Fox to feel enough attraction to fuck him.

  But if he actually liked him enough to feed him, Summer just might have a real chance.

  * * *

  Fox wasn’t sure what he was expecting, when he escaped another interminably dull staff meeting and returned to his office.

  He had expected to find Summer waiting.

  He hadn’t expected to find Summer sitting in Fox’s chair, rather than the chair he usually claimed opposite the desk.

  When Fox opened the door, for a moment he halted on the threshold; Summer stopped moving in quiet freeze-frame, not even breathing, his gaze darting up.

  They stared at each other for several frozen seconds, Fox’s heart an odd and light thing in his chest.

  Before Summer smiled, breaking the silence and shifting to rise out of the seat.

  “Sorry,” he said, soft and almost embarrassed, as he edged to one side. “I... I wanted to...”

  “Don’t,” Fox said dryly, rounding the desk and settling into his chair. “If you say something ridiculously sentimental, you’re working out in the hall today.”

  “...I’m still going to think it.”

  “I can’t control your thoughts,” Fox pointed out, settling his satchel on the desk next to a stack of papers. “But I can ask you not to embarrass yourse—”

  He broke off.

  Because he suddenly had a lap full of young man, Summer’s body settling warm across his thighs, weight quite pleasingly heavy and body heat washing over him in a liquid wave. Summer’s arms slipped around his neck, and the tip of Summer’s nose brushed Fox’s as that shy, almost coy smile returned.

  “Not saying anything,” Summer whispered. “Is this still embarrassing?”

  “Quite,” Fox grumbled...and settled his hands on Summer’s waist, soaking that warmth into his palms. “We cannot possibly work like this.”

  “Sure we
can.”

  Summer shifted against him—and Fox found himself entirely and suddenly far too distracted, as trim hips and the taut muscle of his bottom dragged against Fox’s lap. He still felt...raw. Sensitive, as if the nerves controlling arousal had temporarily died only to flare to life in shocking intensity, far too real after years without...and he sucked in a breath through clenched teeth, dropping his hands to grip at the arms of the chair as Summer wriggled his way between Fox’s thighs and settled perched on the chair between his legs, leaning his back against Fox’s chest.

  “There,” Summer said, looking over his shoulder at Fox with his eyes glittering, his cheeks faintly flushed. “Now we can both use the desk.”

  Fox eyed him. “...how, exactly, are we supposed to work on simultaneous tasks like this?”

  He lifted his hips, rocking them rather pointedly into Summer, letting him feel exactly the damnable effect he had on Fox—and Summer caught a quiet breath, before exhaling in a soft moan.

  “Ah... F-Fox, I...” He took a deep breath. “Maybe I didn’t...quite think this through...”

  “That seems to be a hallmark of many of your life decisions, yes.”

  “Ouch.” But Summer was still smiling, still flushed, even as he leaned away from Fox with ginger, careful movements that still couldn’t stop how their bodies slid together, nestled as they were. He dragged over the open course gradebook he’d been reviewing, before snuggling back into Fox. “But I actually needed your help with this...so we can look at it together?”

  The soft note of entreaty in Summer’s voice made Fox sigh.

  Because he already knew damned well that he would do whatever Summer asked, even if it meant working in this highly compromising position.

  “What were you looking at?” he asked, ignoring the tight, pulling sensation in his cock and instead settling his arms around Summer’s waist, resting his chin to his shoulder. “Show me.”

  He couldn’t miss the pleased tinge to Summer’s smile, as Summer turned his head and kissed Fox’s cheek, before bowing his head to look down at the gradebook.

  “I’ve been talking to some of the students,” he said. “The ones who get bullied the most. Asking when it started... I’m not clueless enough to ask who, or they’d clam up. No one wants to be the snitch. But based on the conversations...” He sighed, his body going a bit heavier in Fox’s arms. “The slow decline in their grades almost exactly matches up with when their bullying started.”

  Fox kept his smile to himself, if only because the urge to smile unbidden was so strange he naturally suppressed it.

  Of course Summer cared about that, to the point of going far beyond his duties.

  Of course.

  He pressed his mouth against the back of Summer’s shoulder, watching one tanned fingertip skim down the lines, stopping on specific names. As expected, Jay Corey and Eli Schumaker were on the list...but several others, as well.

  “You know the Assistant Principal won’t like this,” he murmured. “He’s still worried about risk of liability, when you’re only a TA.”

  “I know,” Summer said. “There’s not much I can do, but...” He bit his lip. “A teacher, an actual tenured teacher, could call parent-teacher conferences, couldn’t they?”

  With a groan, Fox rested his brow against Summer’s back, tightening his hold around his waist. “Did you seduce me simply so you could use your wiles to convince me to call their parents in so you might intervene?”

  Summer made a strangled noise. “I... I didn’t seduce you at all! I...i-it...it just happened, you were there and I was there and then you kissed me and...and...”

  “Breathe, Summer.” Fox smoothed his hand against the tight planes of Summer’s stomach, feeling the shallowness of his inhalations. “I suppose my utter lack of tone makes attempts at humor fall short.”

  “Dick,” Summer said, but laughed, reaching back to lightly thump Fox’s thigh. “Will...will you help, then?”

  Fox wrinkled his nose. “I suppose they cannot fire me if I already intend to quit. But are you certain you know what you’re getting into? You do recall who the parents of these students are, don’t you? It will likely take two weeks simply to wrangle them into showing their faces.”

  “And they’ll probably be assholes, I know.” Summer sighed. “But I have to try, Fox. What’s the worst that could happen if I try? That those boys know someone cares about them, even if their parents threw them away like trash?”

  Fox just...looked at Summer.

  He didn’t know how anyone could be so very terrified of the world at large, and yet still open his heart so freely and invite the very world that frightened him into its inner chambers.

  Summer was a strange beast, indeed.

  And, with a deep exhalation, Fox offered a smile. “You did not have to convince me,” he said. “I already knew I would say yes the moment you asked.”

  In a flurry, he had his arms full of Summer—as the gradebook landed messily on the desk, and Summer landed messily across Fox’s lap again, that soft sweet mouth finding his with a quiet urgency, a need that was almost clumsy in its eagerness, only making it that much more alluring for its guilelessness.

  “Thank you,” Summer breathed against his lips. “You won’t regret it.”

  Fox had his doubts about that.

  But he had other things on his mind, right now, as he pushed Summer back against the desk, leaning into him, leaning into that enticing, wetly stroking mouth, sliding his fingers over the buttons of Summer’s shirt.

  “If that was all you wanted,” he rumbled, “I suggest we find a reason to make better use of our office hours.”

  And better use they made, indeed.

  As Summer arched beneath him, and the desk shook and rattled while Summer twisted his gloriously golden body against it, making a mess of the papers and books, making a mess of himself. The door was unlocked, Summer’s voice a rush of gasps and cries stifled against the back of his hand, but in this moment...

  Fox didn’t care.

  Because sweet thighs were around his hips, sweet flesh tight around his cock...

  And a sweet voice called his name on slick, needy lips, and he couldn’t stop even if he wanted to.

  If he had only months...

  Then for those months while he gave himself to Summer without thinking of the consequences of the future, he might as well live.

  * * *

  Summer thought he might just have to get used to being sore.

  Not that he minded it.

  Especially when it gave Fox another reason to use those long, devious fingers on him, slipping them inside Summer coated with a soothing, specially handmade herbal cream that at once eased the pain and made it burn that much deeper as the warming salve soaked into his abused, battered, swollen flesh.

  He just...hadn’t been particularly sexually active before, save for a few one-night stands while he was figuring out himself and what he liked, and he hadn’t really built up any stamina for the perpetual feeling of being stretched open and filled until he thought he would burst, then left throbbing with the perfect empty ache of it that wouldn’t let him forget Fox even when they weren’t in the same room.

  But it sure as hell made sitting an interesting prospect.

  And he’d thought, over the past few days of quiet mornings working over assignments and lesson plans, quieter evenings taking work back to Fox’s suite over dinners they made together with a sort of familiar comfort that shouldn’t have come so easily but that did...

  He’d thought for all his stoic expressionlessness, Fox had enjoyed watching Summer squirm to get comfortable on the sofa, in the easy chairs, in the office chairs, on the little café stools where they’d gone out for lunch yesterday, just a simple thing and yet it had brought Summer such pleasure to be out under the midday sun with Fox’s eyes always on him, trailing him with so
many things left unsaid.

  Things that made Summer’s heart seize up tight.

  Things that told him by the time they got back to the bedroom every night...

  Fox would give him even more reasons to be so deliciously, wonderfully uncomfortable.

  But Summer was struggling with the desk chair now, as he tried to squirm his way into a comfortable position on the thin padded seat and keep his concentration on digging up phone numbers, names. He’d already tried sending emails to the parents of several of the boys he wanted to speak to, and only gotten four responses when he’d contacted over a dozen.

  This was going to be like herding cats, he could tell.

  But he had to try.

  Even if a backwoods like Omen was somewhere people sent their kids to forget about them, somewhere so hidden that they couldn’t embarrass their wealthy, prestigious parents in the public eye or be easily scoped by the paparazzi...

  Summer had to believe at least some of those parents cared.

  And wouldn’t want their boys to be as unhappy as they were.

  He glanced up, though, as a little alarm on Fox’s laptop went off, chiming the signal for ten minutes to the day’s block of afternoon classes.

  And Fox wasn’t back.

  He’d gone off to dig up something for class at the town library, some obscure older book on Fechner, and he’d be late and Summer...

  Summer still wasn’t sure he’d be ready to lead the class on his own, not after almost two weeks.

  He’d try, if he had to.

  But he was starting to think, more and more, that his place wasn’t at the front of the class.

  He dug his phone out, though, and tapped out a quick text message. Ten minutes to class and the clock is ticking. Did you want to do something for dinner tonight? Maybe in town?