Just Like This (Albin Academy)

by Cole McCade

  Damon didn’t have it in him to argue right now.

  He only rested his hand on Chris’s ankle, squeezing through the thin drape of the blankets, then slid off the bed. Rian flashed Chris a small, almost apologetic smile, one that seemed to say Please. Please, trust us...

  Before Rian turned and slipped past Damon, pausing only for a moment.

  His hand curled against Damon’s arm. That butterfly, flitting to rest, lingering warm and soft, a wordless inquiry, a silent entreaty.

  Then he stepped out into the hall.

  And, drawn as if Rian had Damon on a leash...

  Damon followed, with one last look back for the boy who watched them as if he was watching his last and only hope walk away from him.

  Chapter Ten

  Rian barely managed to wait for the door to close behind Damon, shutting off that wrenching, heartbreaking sight of Chris lying bruised and forlorn in that bed.

  Before he exploded.

  “Someone is hurting that boy,” he flung out, pacing a few steps down the hall, then back, digging his hands into his hair and grasping up handfuls. “Damon, someone did that to him! He didn’t do that in the gym!”

  “I know,” Damon said grimly, leaning against the wall next to the door. His face was a mask of stone, his eyes burning dark and frustrated. “But he doesn’t really seem to want to tell us who.”

  “I don’t understand.” Rian’s throat ached, tight and closing tighter. He stopped, forcing himself to take a deep breath, trying to calm himself. “Is he protecting the person who’s hurting him? Is that what’s happening? Why would he do that?”

  “Abusive relationship, maybe,” Damon said with a tight shrug that looked like it was trying to be diffident, but only gave away his tension when his shoulders were drawn so hard, muscle standing out in stark relief against his T-shirt. “Or even consenting kink. Or non-consenting kink.”

  Rian just stared at him. “I can’t know that about him. He’s sixteen. I can’t picture him like that. You really think that’s what he’s involved with?”

  Damon paused, working his jaw, then sighed. “...no. I don’t know what the hell this is, but I know I don’t like it.”

  “What about his parents?” Rian dragged through his mind, trying to come up with something, anything that would make sense, turning over possibility after possibility. “Could they be the ones who abused him? Is that why he’s so afraid to call them?”

  “That might make sense if his parents lived in Massachusetts,” Damon pointed out. “Sneaking home to see them because they demanded it, or whatever reasons. But I think he’s from California. Somewhere out there on the West Coast.”

  “Then a bully,” Rian insisted. “What about that Theo boy? The one who was terrorizing Jay and the others last semester?”

  Damon only let out a long, slow breath through his nose, thudding his head back against the wall. He said nothing for long moments, and Rian fought the overwhelming urge to just...just...

  Throw himself against Damon.

  Bury his face in his chest, and take comfort from his warmth; take comfort from the fact that they weren’t working on this alone, and they were both doing everything they could to figure out the right thing to do for Chris.

  He just wanted to wrap his arms around Damon’s neck, and tell Damon it would be okay.

  But Rian couldn’t make that promise.

  Finally, though, Damon said, “There was an incident, in Chris’s freshman year. First semester. First scrimmage.” He spoke slowly, his eyes slightly unfocused, a touch of fondness in his voice. “Chris was... Chris. A natural. Good at everything. But there were a few other kids, too. Real good. Angling for starting spots on the JV team. But this sophomore, David Lane...he’d been the star starter the year before. He didn’t want to lose his spot to some freshies. So he’d do all these things to put the fear of God and David Lane into them. Corner them. Intimidate them. He was smart enough not to go after Chris—sharks know better than to go after a blue whale, most of the time—but he was going to run every last other top-scoring freshman off the team if he could.”

  Rian had a feeling he knew where this was going, and he smiled faintly, even if he felt like crying. “Chris put a stop to it, didn’t he?”

  “Yeah,” Damon answered softly. “Even though it meant standing there while David beat the shit out of him. He didn’t fight back. He just took it. Got between David and the other freshmen every time, until David just...got sick of it. Walked away. When I found out, David was off the team—but Chris had already ended what needed to be ended.”

  “And hurt himself to do it,” Rian murmured. “To protect other people. Noble to a fault.”

  “That’s Chris.” Damon smiled bitterly. “So if he’s being bullied, there’s more to the story than that. But I’d bet if anyone’s trying to hurt him, he’d rather sit there and take it than swing a punch back.”

  “That still means he’s protecting his bully.” Rian shook his head. “And I still don’t understand why.”

  “Friendship. Loyalty. Not wanting to bother people, or get someone with no other safe harbor evicted from the school.”

  “Oh.” That...that didn’t help. At all. And after a hesitant moment, Rian settled to lean against the wall next to Damon, not quite touching when after a week of silence he didn’t know where he stood with Damon, but now wasn’t the time to ask. Instead he just let his gaze drift across the hall, to the long rows of windows on the other side, the trees reaching in high clusters toward the sky outside. “So what do we do? How do we figure out who it is?”

  “I don’t know.” Quiet, ragged, raw. “Because just passively watching ain’t enough.” Damon’s head turned toward him, those brown eyes falling over him. “But we don’t do half bad together. We put our heads together, we’ll think of something.”

  Tilting his head, Rian looked up at Damon. Lines creased Damon’s face, his dusky brown skin seamed, as if his pain and helplessness had been written on his features in map lines.

  And Rian didn’t know how to ease it, but...but...

  Something inside him snapped.

  It snapped hard, with a force that felt like something of fragile glass within him breaking, and with a rough sound he pushed away from the wall, gathering himself together and trying to find his resolve as he stalked away, down the hall.

  Because he couldn’t just stand here and wait anymore.

  Damon’s voice drifted after him in low question. “Falwell...?”

  “I’m calling his parents,” Rian threw back; the words came out hard and harsh around the lump in his throat. “To hell with Walden and his tiptoeing around.”

  “Hey.”

  He braced himself for Damon to stop him—to cut him off, to snarl at him, to tell him to follow the rules, to not risk this.

  So he didn’t expect to feel warm, rough-tipped fingers catching his.

  Just barely; just Damon’s fingertips, slipping between Rian’s and lacing together. Yet despite the light touch, it was enough to pull Rian to a halt in his tracks, his heart swelling as thick and hard as the knotted thing blocking his throat. Breathing shallowly, he looked over his shoulder; Damon watched him with those dark brown eyes strange, unreadable, his brows drawn together in a worried line.

  “C’mon,” Damon said, tossing his head, and gave their interlaced fingertips a light tug. “You can call them from my room. It’s private, at least.”

  “...yeah,” Rian said numbly, because he couldn’t quite process anything else. “Sure.”

  And he didn’t protest, as Damon wrapped his hand around Rian’s and drew him gently toward the stairs.

  Because at least if he was going to do this, possibly even risk his job...

  At least he wasn’t doing it alone.

  * * *

  Damon sat on the arm of his easy chair and watched as Rian
tapped at Damon’s laptop; Rian sat primly on the very edge of the seat, his sandals kicked off and his legs crossed with his feet tucked under his knees and thighs when he could never seem to just sit in a chair the way it was meant to be used. The gray and purple accents of the school’s colors stood out against the stark white grids of the faculty intranet on-screen, and Rian’s fingers slipped in rapid sequence over the keyboard as he typed Northcote into the search function.

  “There,” Rian said triumphantly, and shifted the laptop over to one thigh so he could retrieve his phone from—Damon didn’t know where, when neither his sapphire blue caftan nor his loose white linen pants seemed to have pockets; as he moved, his shoulder brushed against Damon’s thigh. “I’ve only got one contact, it looks like... Aurelia Northcote? His mother. Her cellphone. But there are email addresses for his mother and father both.”

  “Try calling first,” Damon said. “Then we can send a follow-up email.”

  “Okay.” But Rian hesitated, looking down at his phone, his thumb hovering over the dark screen—before he tilted his head back, his hair tumbling back over his shoulder in a sweep of shadow as he looked up at Damon uncertainly. “This...is the right thing to do, right?”

  Damon’s fingers itched with the urge to reach out, to brush Rian’s hair back from that smooth brow, touch his thumb to the worried dimple in the corner of his mouth; he curled his hand against his knee instead, keeping it to himself.

  One impulsive kiss was already one boundary crossed too far.

  “Hey,” he said, offering the best smile he could manage to dredge up. “What happened to ‘to hell with Walden’ and all that stomping around? Thought you’d punch through the floor.”

  “Funny.” Rian’s smile was weak, but there—though it faded as he lowered his eyes again, idly stroking his thumb over his phone screen, back and forth until he lifted it off and the lock screen came up, bright-lit with an image of sunlight shining through stained glass in palest blue. “Just...are we making the best choice? Is this really what’s best for Chris?”

  “You tell me,” Damon said—and this time gave in to that urge, not to brush Rian’s hair back, but to at least touch him, the comfort of human contact, the warmth of Rian’s slim shoulder under Damon’s fingers as he rested his hand to the curve of it. “You said if your parents had been a little more neglectful, you’d be like these boys. This is your world more than it is mine. So if Chris was your kid...would you want to get that call?”

  “Yes,” Rian said emphatically, with a sharp nod. Then he turned his head toward Damon, his smooth cheek brushing Damon’s knuckles. “But if Chris were my son, I would never send him here in the first place. So I don’t know, Damon. I know I’d want to know my son was hurting. But I’m not them. I’m not the Northcotes. They may not care.”

  Such distress in Rian’s voice; such pure, open emotion for someone who wasn’t even his blood. Fuck, Damon didn’t want this tension between them, this...whatever it was, making the air fraught and pushed aside only by the looming importance of this issue with Chris; making it hard to do something so simple as offer tactile comfort without it being so laden and significant. But after a moment, he shifted his hand enough to trace his thumb along Rian’s jaw, watching how his eyes widened, his lashes trembled, his chest swelled with his roughly indrawn breath.

  “It doesn’t matter if they don’t care,” Damon murmured. “It’s still the right thing to do.”

  Rian smiled shakily. “Walden’s going to kill us.”

  “I’ll hold him off while you run. I’m a much bigger target anyway.” Damon made himself withdraw his hand, then, nodding toward Rian’s phone. “Go ahead. Or if you don’t want to, I can.”

  “No—no, I’ve got it.” Rian pressed his lips together, ducking his head, staring at his phone screen again—but then rapidly punched in the unlock code, and took a deep breath as he tapped the phone app and swiped his thumb over the numbers in quick sequence, glancing at the laptop. “Here we go,” he said, hovering his thumb over the call button. “Wish me luck.”

  “You don’t need it. Like you said—you’ve got this.”

  Rian flashed him a quick smile, grateful...and genuine.

  Then hit the button and lifted the phone to his ear, holding himself tense, still, his eyes a little wide. Damon could hear the faint repetitive sound of the call tone coming through the speaker, ringing again and again and again, and he couldn’t help but hold his breath as he counted the rings and waited and hoped.

  But that hope was dashed in less than thirty seconds as, with an audible click, the call picked up on that telltale staticky silence that warned of voicemail even before the detached sound of a pre-recorded voice came over the line; a woman’s voice with a faint mechanical edge from the fuzziness of the phone’s projection.

  “You’ve reached Aurelia Northcote. I can’t come to the phone right now; please leave a message, and I’ll contact you at an appropriate time.”

  Rian’s next breath hitched, his posture shifting as he sat up straighter as if the recorded woman on the other end of the line could hear him, and he darted Damon a nervous look. “Hi—er, hello, Mrs. Northcote.” The pleasant edge to his voice sounded strained, forced, to Damon; as if he was trying to sound like he was smiling when his expression was troubled, withdrawn. “This is Rian Falwell. I’m one of Chris’s teachers at Albin Academy. I—”

  He faltered, stopped; his mouth drew up tight, his eyes closing, brows knitting.

  Come on, Damon thought, and reached over to squeeze Rian’s shoulder again. You can handle this.

  Rian opened his eyes, and his gaze locked on Damon—and Damon caught that sense of pleading again, that quiet entreaty, that wordless need.

  But Rian’s voice was steadier, as he continued, “I’m calling about a matter with your son that we need to discuss. It’s urgent, and I’d appreciate your call back as soon as possible. I’ll also send you an email, if you’d prefer to speak that way. My number is—”

  He rattled off ten digits, followed by a soft thank you, then pulled the phone away from his ear, looking down at it pensively for several moments before tapping the button to end the call.

  “I didn’t want... I didn’t want to give too many details on the phone,” he said, almost apologetically. “What if she listened to it late at night and thought she couldn’t call back until school hours? What if...what if she was up all night worrying about her son, pacing, frantic? Or what if someone else handles her voicemail and I’d given away confidential information, or...or...”

  “Hey.” Damon squeezed Rian’s shoulder tighter. “You handled it just fine. Stop worrying. You can explain when she calls back, or if she comes up to the school.”

  “...yeah. I guess so.” Rian kept his gaze fixed on his phone, while the call screen automatically flashed out to the list of most recent calls.

  Damon instinctively averted his eyes out of courtesy—not his business to be snooping in someone else’s phone—but couldn’t quite un-see the quick glimpse he got; practically seized on the distraction with a low whistle. “Eighteen missed calls from the same number. Stalker ex?”

  Rian smiled weakly, gripping tighter at his phone as if clutching a comfort object. “Worried parents.”

  “I thought you said you liked your parents.”

  “That’s the thing. I do.” Rian swallowed, pulling his phone to his chest. “I just don’t want them to try to help me. I don’t need help. I don’t need them judging. I’m... I’m good here. I like it here.” He bit his lip. “I like doing things for myself.”

  “You’re not half bad at cooking stir-fry.” Damon managed a smile. “So why not just tell them that? Just say it up front, instead of avoiding them?”

  “Apparently it’s easier with Chris’s parents than with my own.” With a sigh, Rian leaned against the chair enough to thunk his head against the padded back, looking up at Damon. �
�I guess I’m afraid they won’t understand it. They just...live in this different world that doesn’t even seem real, compared to here.”

  “You used to live in that world, too. And you looked outside it.”

  “Guess I did.”

  “See anything interesting out there...?” Damon teased softly.

  Rian flushed, his lashes flickering as his gaze darted searchingly over Damon’s face, before he looked away. “...yeah. I think I did.”

  It hit Damon, then, that he was still holding on to Rian’s shoulder, that slim curve fitting comfortably into his palm, fine articulated bones pressing against him and body heat soaking into his skin.

  And they were alone in his apartment.

  Again.

  Only this time a kiss they hadn’t spoken of and so much more stood between them, and Damon couldn’t ignore the charge in the air and the heaviness in his gut.

  He pulled back quickly, sliding off the arm of the chair and standing. “You want something to drink?” he tossed over his shoulder, rubbing the back of his neck. “I could put water on for tea.”

  “Tea would be nice, thank you,” Rian said faintly at his back, after a pretty long damned pause. “I... Damon, what do we do now?”

  “We wait.” Damon checked the coffee pot, then lifted out a soggy filter full of grounds and dumped it into the trash. “You can go ahead and use my laptop to send that email, if you want.”

  “Sure.” The whispered sound of typing, quick-fire patters and clicks, followed...and then, quieter, more hesitant, “But... I...” The rattle of typing stopped. “I wasn’t just talking about Chris.”

  Shit.

  Tension caught Damon up in an iron claw, but he forced himself to keep moving, keep focusing on practical things. Spraying a little food-grade cleaner into the filter basket and wiping it out, so the water passing through wouldn’t pick up the lingering flavor of coffee; rinsing out the already-clean glass carafe just in case; filling it from the sink and using it to top up the tank in the back of the pot. Mundane things. Ordinary things. Anything to keep from dreading what he knew Rian was about to ask.