by Cole McCade
“Then you don’t understand what I like about you.”
How could Summer stand here in Iseya’s arms, listening to the lulling rhythm of his heartbeat, and say these things so simply, so easily, as if they were intimate secrets between them...
But he couldn’t even introduce himself to a class of teenage boys?
It didn’t make sense.
But somehow, around Iseya...
Everything made sense.
Everything felt right, and calm...as if Iseya’s steady calm was an aura that soothed the entire world around him, settling the ripples of the pond of life into calm stillness.
And Summer wanted to hold on to it for just a little while longer, before Iseya iced over again and pushed him away.
But Iseya only sighed, his chest rising and falling heavily underneath Summer’s cheek. “Very well, you bizarrely impudent monster,” he said flatly. “I will agree to your...utterly nonsensical terms and conditions.”
Summer couldn’t help a laugh—until it sank in what Iseya meant, and that laugh choked off in his throat as he lifted his head sharply, staring up into mercury-silver eyes.
Mercury-silver eyes that glimmered with something other than cold contempt or irritated disdain, though Summer couldn’t quite tell what it might be.
Not warmth, maybe, not yet.
But perhaps...
Curiosity.
“You...mean it?” he asked breathlessly, his entire body alight with soft-touch prickles, tingles, little spark-feelings all over every inch of his skin, spark-feelings that turned into a burn where his body pressed against Iseya’s, where Iseya’s hands rested against his back. “One kiss for one brave thing each day?”
“On one condition,” Iseya said sternly, and pressed a finger to Summer’s lips, stopping his question before it could start. That fingertip was subtly roughened, as if weathered by years of paper cuts and turning pages in soft slow reverence and the pressure of pens and pencils against it, its texture subtle and sensuous against Summer’s mouth.
Summer swallowed thickly, waiting.
Waiting, and hoping that condition wouldn’t dash his hope before it could flutter more than a few inches from his tightening chest.
“Pace yourself,” Iseya said, eyes narrowing, mouth setting in that commanding line Summer was so familiar with—and that made his entire body turn melting-hot with that desire to obey. “You have a year to learn to lead a class. You don’t have to give yourself an anxiety attack diving in on the first day. One moderate task that you feel is within your limits each day, but that is more than you would do unprompted. And I choose when and where we kiss. Are we understood?”
Summer’s eyes widened.
Was...was Iseya using Summer’s own desperate, needy wanting to get him to moderate and manage his anxiety?
He almost laughed.
Almost laughed, this bright thing inside him just growing brighter, because in its own way...
In its own way, it was terribly, wonderfully sweet.
And he didn’t understand how Iseya could do things like this, and then wonder why Summer liked him.
“Understood,” he promised—and kissed the fingertip pressed against his mouth, only to earn an absolutely disgusted look as Iseya drew his hand back sharply. Summer wrinkled his nose playfully. “That didn’t count.”
“It most certainly counted, and you’re lucky I’m feeling lenient or I’d make you forfeit tomorrow’s kiss for it.” Iseya huffed, turning his face away, glaring down the hall—before reluctantly sliding gray eyes toward Summer from the corner of angled lids, watching him through the fringe of long, straight lashes that swept downward rather than curling. “You will tire of this game soon, Summer. You will tire of me. And then we can resume a relationship as professional colleagues, perhaps friends. Nothing more.”
“I don’t think that will happen.” It ached, that Iseya saw so little in himself, and Summer’s smile felt like a bittersweet thing of melancholy and warmth, as he tilted his head. “But if it does... I’d be happy to be your friend.”
“Oh, do stop. You’re like a puppy in human form.” Iseya made a flustered, irritable sound, pressed a hand firmly against Summer’s chest, and pushed him away. “And you are quite clearly fine now, so let’s go back in before they destroy the classroom. I’ll introduce you properly, and put the fear of you into those whelps.”
“I... I don’t really think that’s possible.”
Summer smiled, though, stepping back, straightening his clothing, breathing in deep. He could do this, he thought.
He could do this.
This job might not be what he wanted to do. It might just be another step in these holding patterns he always fell into, until he felt like an impostor walking into that room like he belonged there. But he’d committed to this—so if he was going to do it, he’d try his best to do it right.
And as long as Iseya had his back...
He’d be fine.
And he’d have tomorrow’s kiss to look forward to, to always carry him through.
Chapter Six
Fox was beginning to think he’d been a little too on the nose, calling Summer a puppy.
Because it was starting to feel like he’d adopted one.
The first day of class had been somewhat uneventful, at least.
He’d tamed the class back into obedience, introduced Summer, and then let Summer take a back seat to work on grading papers and observing his teaching methods while Fox led the three afternoon sessions, repeating each time—and impressing very clearly on his unruly pupils that even if they might not fear Summer...
They wouldn’t escape Fox’s wrath if they kept trying to fuck with him.
It wasn’t that he was protective of Summer.
Not at all.
He simply liked a quiet classroom, of course.
Of course.
And the classroom was almost painfully quiet after the last bell, once everyone had filed out and there was only Summer and Fox, and Summer gathering up the stacks of assignments he’d been given to grade against Fox’s rubric by tomorrow.
They’d only looked at each other for long moments, and Fox...
For the first time in a very long time, found that he didn’t know what to say.
Most of the time he simply didn’t want to talk.
But he’d never quite found himself at a loss in just this way, before.
Summer had spoken, instead, offering a shy smile, watching him through the messy fringe of his hair, shadowing blue eyes until they glowed like descending twilight.
“See you in the morning?” he offered. “To...to check and make sure I graded things right.”
“Ah,” Fox said, and inclined his head. “Of course.”
For some reason, that had made Summer light up, brilliant and sweet, his smile widening.
Before he nodded, and ducked out of the room like he was actually eager to wade through nearly a hundred papers on why Jung was, quite frankly, a woo-peddling asshole.
Then immediately ducked back in, biting his lower lip, faltering in that way he had that said he was nerving himself up to something; Fox could almost see it ticking over behind his eyes, that rising swell of bravery before he blurted, “Can I have your phone number?”
Fox leaned back in his desk chair, crossing his ankle over his knee and studying Summer, tapping a pen against his thigh. “Why?”
“Um. So I don’t have to go to your room if I have a question?” Summer ventured, then ducked his head...but his mouth was twitching at the corners, struggling so clearly not to turn upward, while he watched Fox from beneath his lashes, the shadow of his brows, the fringe of his hair.
“Email suffices perfectly well,” Fox pointed out.
“It could,” Summer said, trailing off...
And Fox thudded his head back ag
ainst his chair, closing his eyes for a moment.
Summer might as well be wagging his tail.
Grinding his teeth, slitting his eyes open, he held out his hand. “Phone.”
Tumbling back into the room, Summer plunked the stack of papers in a skewed heap atop Fox’s desk, then fumbled into his pocket, producing a slim Samsung that he almost dropped before he managed to swipe the screen, tap in his code, then thrust the phone at Fox with that annoyingly shy, boyishly sweet smile.
Fox eyed him over the rims of his glasses.
Where did he find the energy?
But, with a sigh, he pulled up Summer’s address book and tapped his number in, saving it under Iseya, Fox before passing the phone back; their fingers brushed as Summer curled his hand around the Samsung, and for a moment they held, Summer staring at him with his lips parted, while Fox wondered distantly, idly, how anyone’s fingertips could be so warm.
Then, clearing his throat, Summer pulled back, straightening and tapping quickly over the screen before giving a decisive little nod. “I sent you a text so you’ll have mine.”
Fox frowned, pressing his palm over the pocket of his slacks, searching—the shape of his iPhone wasn’t there.
Hellfire.
Where had he left the thing?
And why hadn’t he heard it vibrate?
He checked his other pocket, then leaned forward, patted his back pockets. Nothing. Muttering to himself, he pulled the central drawer of his desk open; nothing but legal pads and pencils neatly slotted in their cases, and a fresh gradebook waiting for the current one to run out of pages. He leaned over to check the side drawer, dragging it open and peering past the stacks of file folders; had he left it in his suite?
Summer watched him curiously. “You can’t find your phone?”
“It is an accessory, not a necessity,” Fox bit off, then clamped his lips shut if only because yes, he heard himself quite clearly, and knew exactly how old he sounded.
Too old for Summer to be watching him with that sort of quiet fondness, as if...as if...
He found even Fox’s irritability endearing.
He didn’t have to be so obvious about it.
“So...that means I don’t have to wonder who’s texting you at three in the morning and asking if you’re up,” Summer said, just a little too innocently.
“Anyone texting me at three in the morning would know very well that I am not up, and if they wake me they may forfeit their lives,” Fox growled, before finally unearthing his phone from beneath last semester’s third period gradebook. “Ah.”
He tapped the screen.
Nothing happened.
Pressed the power button.
Nothing.
Summer lightly drummed his fingertips against his own phone with a humming sound. “I think you have to charge it more than once a month, Professor Iseya,” he lilted, and Fox glowered at him, dropping his phone on the desk and leaving it there, silent and dead.
“Silence, impudent whelp,” he hissed.
And Summer just snickered, before clapping a hand over his mouth.
Hmph.
Disobedient and yet obedient at the same time.
Irritating, and just as much of a contradiction as Summer himself.
Thinning his lips, Fox folded his arms over his chest, staring at Summer flatly.
Years ago, Summer would have recoiled, shrinking into himself and scuttling away.
But now the incorrigible, irrepressible thing just smiled wider, a choked half-laugh muffled behind his hand and in the back of his throat.
“Are you quite finished?” Fox said flatly. “I’ll see your text once I’ve charged my phone. That should be quite enough. And if you text me at three in the morning, I should hope it is actually important.”
“Wanting to talk to you isn’t important enough?” Summer asked, a husky little hitch in the words, and Fox let out an exasperated sound, thrusting his hand out and pointing firmly at the door.
“Get out.”
Summer just burst out laughing, a raspy-sweet sound with a touch of shivering depth to it.
Before he gathered up the papers once more, stacking his phone atop them and turning to stroll out, somehow once again managing to do exactly what he was told while still being entirely intolerable about it.
“Have a good night, Professor,” sailed back over his shoulder, before he hooked the door with his foot and pulled it to in his wake.
Fox just glared after him, sinking down deeper into his chair with a grumble.
What an odd, odd young man.
It was quite annoying, how Fox couldn’t ignore him.
And quite annoying how, the following morning, Summer was practically vibrating during office hours, restless and clumsy and dropping his pen, his near-empty cup of coffee, the textbook he was referencing to double-check Fox’s lesson plan for the day. Always the constant glances from under his lashes, the blushing, the way he caught his lower lip in just one canine tooth so that it drew in on one side and only turned more lush, plush, reddened and enticing on the other.
Fox absolutely refused to look.
Just as he absolutely refused to look at the way, when he concentrated, Summer would catch the tip of his pen between his lips and chew at it delicately, his mouth working over it in soft caresses and the pen indenting his mouth in yielding, pillowy curves, the pressure and friction turning it redder and redder.
Fox wasn’t watching.
He was grading an essay, damn it all to hell. He wasn’t—
“Stop that,” he hissed, and snapped a hand across the desk to pull the pen from between Summer’s fingers, his lips, his teeth. “You’ll damage your teeth.”
Summer froze, fingers still poised in the shape of the pen, wide eyes flicking from the textbook to Fox. His button-down shirt was pale blue today, the perfect color against suntanned skin, and he was far too casual with the sleeves cuffed to his elbows to bare toned forearms, his collarbones stark ridges past the open V of the neck.
Honestly, had no one spoken to him about the dress code?
“Um,” Summer said, eyes still a little too wide. “Sorry?”
“Simply don’t do it again.” Fox set the pen down very firmly between the open pages of the textbook. “It’s quite distracting.”
Summer winced, averting his eyes. “Sorry,” he repeated. “I—”
He was cut off by a knock on the door. Summer glanced over his shoulder, while Fox lifted his head; through the frosted glass window inset in the door, he could just make out the shape of a student, marked by the typical navy blue of the uniform blazer.
“Enter,” he said, schooling his face to impassivity.
The door creaked open tentatively. “Professor Iseya...?” a cracking voice asked—either nervousness or puberty, he could never tell.
The boy who peeked around the door was tall, gangly, still growing into his limbs, still growing out of his pimples, his shock of reddish-brown hair always a mess; Fox recognized him as Craig Rockwell, from block two class period. He held his Principles of Modern Psychology textbook clutched tight against his chest, several pieces of bent and creased note paper crammed in between the pages.
Craig started to open his mouth—then stopped, staring at Summer. “Oh, um...if you’re busy, I’ll come back later.”
“Have you forgotten already that Mr. Hemlock is my assistant, and here to assist you as well?” Fox bit off. Honestly, if he couldn’t even pay attention to that... He arched a brow, toying his pen between his fingers. “What can I do for you, Mr. Rockwell?”
Craig cringed, going visibly pale, straightening his shoulders as if he’d been called to attention. “Um!” He cleared his throat, looking somewhere over Fox’s head. “I...um, there’s a part in the homework, in the chapter on developmental child psychology...um, they talk about toddle
rs, but like, there’s variable age ranges? On Google? I’m not sure what the right age range is and that seems like it kinda matters to answer the question?”
Fox started to open his mouth—but Summer got there first, perking and twisting in his chair. “That’s actually—”
He froze. So did Craig.
And both slid their eyes toward Fox, watching him with a sort of wary trepidation, before Summer broke into a sheepish smile, ducking his head.
Interesting.
Summer had utterly frozen in front of an entire class full of students, but faced with only one...
He’d immediately jumped to respond, confident enough in his answer to not even check with Fox first.
Fox lidded his eyes, watching them over the pen propped between his fingers, before flicking his fingers.
“Continue, Mr. Hemlock. Mr. Rockwell, please have a seat and allow Mr. Hemlock to assist you.”
That bright smile lit Summer up again, and he flashed a grateful glance at Fox before beckoning to Craig. Craig looked more uncertain, gaze flicking between Fox and Summer, before he settled down gingerly in the second chair, propped his book open on the arm of it, and leaned toward Summer, underlining a passage with his fingertip.
“Here,” he said slowly. “This is the part that confused me.”
“Oh!” Summer perked. “Wow, we’re still using the same textbook? I remember this. Look, if you flip back here it talks about age ranges as defined by psychiatric assessment standards versus like, child milestone development standards in pediatrics, so you’ll find the range...”
He was already flipping back through the pages, while Craig leaned in curiously, eyes wide, following along.
Fox simply leaned back in his chair, lacing his fingers together against his stomach.
Interesting indeed.
Summer’s effusiveness seemed to put Craig at ease in a way that Fox had never truly mastered; he wasn’t one for ease, not really. He had to draw clear lines between himself and the students, and he simply...
Wasn’t one for demonstrative emotions.
You weren’t always like this, Fox.
His therapist’s voice in his head again.