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)
To Rian, and how he’d bundled himself up like a sleepy kitten, folding his tall frame into a high-backed leather chair with his knees hugged to his chest and his oversized clothing falling all over him, his hair a bed-rumpled mess and his eyes clouded and half-closed.
The ache that punched Damon in the gut took him right back to that rain-streaked afternoon in Rian’s studio; that kiss, fingers in his hair, gasping needy sounds. But he didn’t realize just how intently he was staring at Rian until Rian turned his head with a drowsy noise, pillowing his cheek to his kneecaps—only to go completely still, heavy-lidded eyes opening fully, sharpening, as they crossed paths with Damon’s.
Color climbed high in Rian’s cheeks as they stared at each other for several stricken moments. Damon looked away first, forcing his gaze aside and fixing out the window. His blood felt like slow poison, and he reminded himself yet again to breathe.
Fuck, this wasn’t supposed to be this hard.
Clenching his jaw, Damon kept his focus out the window—and was hardly aware of when Walden started talking. It didn’t matter. He almost never had anything to say in these meetings, anyway, and most of them weren’t relevant to him until he had to get down into the nitty gritty of coordinating away game schedules around teachers’ tests and makeup projects. Someone would yell at him if they needed something.
Someone was yelling at him, he realized.
Well...not really yelling. He didn’t think he’d ever heard Lachlan Walden raise his voice.
But Walden was sure as hell talking very firmly as he said, “Misters Louis and Falwell, if the two of you could stop your personal feud long enough to pay attention, please?”
Damon jerked, snapping his head up with his entire chest giving a painful thump. Without meaning to, he immediately looked right at Rian—and Rian was looking right back at him with the same wide-eyed, guilty stare.
Before he smiled—small, thin, goddammit, that shallow smile Damon hated so much when there was not a single fucking thing of Rian in it.
Just a careful self-protective façade, without a bit of that fire that made him such a pain in the ass to deal with.
Damon scowled, looking away from that empty smile and focusing on Walden. “We’re fine,” he grunted. “What did you want?”
“Mr. Falwell?” Walden lilted with lethal cordiality.
“Seriously, it’s fine,” Rian said softly. “I’m listening.”
“Then perhaps you could tell me if you intend to hold dance and music curricula next semester,” Walden asked flintily. “You have two students in your music theory course, and four in dance. Hardly a full complement, and your salary will not be affected if you choose to only pursue art curricula for the time being.”
“No.” Rian shook his head, his voice firming. “If even one student wants to take the classes, I’ll teach them. It’s not something I mind doing.”
From the corner of his eye, Damon caught himself lingering, watching. Watching the steady way Rian looked at Walden; the calm acceptance of work he didn’t have to do, just because he wanted to do it.
That shouldn’t make Damon feel fucking...fucking proud of Rian.
It wasn’t even his goddamned place.
Silently grumbling to himself, he made himself look away—but as he turned his head aside, he caught the Iseyas watching him. Those two fucking nauseating lovebirds; he never thought he’d see Fox fucking Iseya of all people defrosting enough to dote on someone the way he doted on Summer, but the two of them were so inseparable they were practically one entity.
And that entity was currently watching him knowingly, one pair of gray eyes, one pair of blue looking him over as if they knew something he didn’t.
What the fuck ever.
Damon slouched down in his chair, folding his arms over his chest with a suppressed growl.
Let them stare at him.
There was nothing to see.
Just...focus on doing his job, and on figuring out what to do to help Chris.
And then he wouldn’t give a good god damn if Rian Falwell smiled at him like they’d never spoken a word to each other at all.
Chapter Nine
An entire school week without talking to Damon Louis shouldn’t be this miserable.
Five days of silent phones. Five days of pointedly pretending not to notice each other when they happened to pass in the halls or cafeterias. Five days of increasing frustration, while Rian tried not to think about—about—anything. About that kiss, about days of arguing that couldn’t possibly have been denial of a wild and hungry instant attraction, but God...
What else could it be?
Rian felt like he was trying to look at something by refusing to stare directly at it, with the way his brain kept skittering around the idea that he could actually want Damon.
He’d read once about how, often, spacecraft launched out beyond Earth’s orbit started not on a direct trajectory, but moving toward some large gravitational object where they could actually fall into orbit around that object and then use the momentum and energy gained to slingshot off in their intended direction, which was apparently a much more effective method of directional navigation than any other.