Total pages in book: 124
Estimated words: 118125 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 591(@200wpm)___ 473(@250wpm)___ 394(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 118125 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 591(@200wpm)___ 473(@250wpm)___ 394(@300wpm)
“Keep me apprised, please,” Walden murmured, lifting his mug to his lips—only to pause as Rian just glared at him, looking back at Rian frostily over the top of the mug. “I’m not heartless, Mr. Falwell. Simply cautious. Previous administrators have managed to keep this school out of the tabloids for decades. I have a responsibility to carry on in their footsteps. That, too, is part of safeguarding the boys’ well-being. They don’t need to be subjected to public scrutiny and paparazzi sensationalism on top of the ignominy of being banished to this... I believe their favorite word for it is ‘backwater.’”
“...most recent one I’ve heard is ‘boring shithole town,’ but backwater works too.” Rian smiled weakly. He wasn’t really ready to forgive Lachlan yet, but...he got it, sort of.
But that didn’t stop him from worrying about Chris.
And that worry haunted him as he made his way through the silent, whispering halls, through the misty shafts of predawn light streaming through the windows, to the room set aside as a dance studio on the fourth floor.
Technically this was one of his classrooms, but he only used it for one period per day, during fifth with the whopping four boys who had enrolled in the dance elective. Rian wasn’t properly trained to teach ballet, anyway, but he had enough foundations to guide the boys through the most basic of steps and proper posture and turn of the foot; he supposed it was another luxury he’d taken for granted, that he’d had time to learn art and music and dance like he was some child of a highbrow family practicing these things not for the love of them, but because they would make him a prettier, more accomplished piece of arm candy for whatever man he would end up arranged to marry.
He supposed it wasn’t far off from the truth.
Private tutors; ballet, violin, piano, painting, sculpting; etiquette lessons; parties just to show their “accomplished” artist son off to their wealthy friends. Even if his family wasn’t as prestigious as some of the lineages who walked these halls, he supposed in some ways he’d had more freedoms than any of these boys. At least he’d been allowed to choose.
That was why he’d let Valdez out of any obligation to finish out Rian’s class.
Not because he was trying to control things.
But because he doubted Valdez had been given a choice in coming here, and Rian had been trying to give him just one thing he could decide for himself.
Not that Damon had given Rian a chance to explain that.
With a frustrated hiss, he tried to push Damon out of his mind.
He’d come here to stop thinking about him.
So he changed in the little room adjacent to the dance studio, slipping into a leotard and off-the-shoulder sweater and a pair of worn slippers whose toes had turned rough and just right for a scuffed, comfortable grip when standing on pointe, turned on a little Tchaikovsky, and just...
Let himself go.
He wasn’t very good. He knew that. Nowhere near professional level, nowhere near even any of the better students at proper ballet schools...but he didn’t have to be good to enjoy it, losing himself in practiced movements as he stepped and twisted and twirled across the glossy floor of the wide studio space, now and then catching a glimpse of himself in the wall of mirrors along one side and correcting his form, but mostly just letting his body take over and move as it pleased so he could do something that didn’t require actually focusing on his racing, hyper-cycling thoughts. Anything to work off this bristling, restless energy; anything to tire himself out with the comforting, pleasant burn of stretching and testing his body.
So that he’d actually sleep tonight, instead of thinking again and again of the heat of Damon’s lips, or how gorgeous Damon would look with his flex and flow and beautifully masculine energy captured on paper.
He wasn’t ready to stop by the time his phone called him to a halt, interrupting with its shrill ringtone that he always meant to change and never seemed to remember to fix. His breaths hitched as he stumbled to a halt, and he told himself it was just exertion, the panting sweat of exhaustion that made his chest tight as he crossed the room to his bag and fumbled his phone out from the side pocket. He wasn’t looking for that black diamond on a white circle; he wasn’t.
And he wasn’t disappointed when he saw the 585 area code for Rochester, either.
He absolutely was not.
Tell yourself another one, Falwell.
Just like he told himself he wasn’t already imagining what his mother would say. Aren’t you ready to come back yet, dearest?
Aren’t you tired of this little game?
I just worry about you, you know. You aren’t...
She would never finish that sentence.