Just Like This (Albin Academy #2) - Cole McCade Page 0,104
even digging out Chris’s under-bed storage crates. He found books—a few magazines with explicit covers that Chris was definitely not supposed to have at school, and that Damon wished he could unsee—and clothing, Chris’s football uniform stuffed under the mattress like he was ashamed of it, something that looked like old letters from a girl that were dated from when Chris would’ve been in middle school, numbers in the right hand corner in a looping, feminine, youthfully clumsy hand.
Tablet, laptop, an inexplicable box of assorted markers from multiple different brands, notebooks full of doodles, an entire drawer full of broken phone charger cables...
But nothing that would point to something useful.
“Hey,” he called as he straightened from peering under the bed one more time, settling on one knee. “Anything?”
Rian had completely disappeared inside the closet except for one ankle and sandaled foot poking out, wiggling as if he was balanced on one leg and using the other leg as a counter-lever and trying not to fall. His voice emerged from the back of the closet, muffled and as distant as if he was buried in piles of pillows.
“I don’t think so,” he said. “Let me see if—I—oop!”
Only a faint rumble of warning.
Before the entire pile of mess in the closet popped like a bubble and came avalanching out, sending Rian tumbling with it.
Damon dove to catch him, but it was too late; a sprawling tangle of tennis rackets and spare blankets and what the fuck, a garden hose, what the fuck was with teenage boys and God only knew what else spilled across the floor with Rian rolling atop it like he was being washed ashore, clutching a SteelBook collector’s cover for some edition of World of Warcraft to his chest.
“Oh, man,” Luke groaned, as silence fell and Rian just lay there staring at the ceiling, his hair a tangled mess coiled in spirals around him. “Y’all better fucking clean that up.”
Damon let out a rough snort, struggling not to laugh, and offered Rian his hand. “C’mon.”
Rian shook himself a little, blinking owlishly at Damon, then smiled ruefully, set the game case down, and slipped his hand into Damon’s, smooth and warm against his palm. Damon drew back gently, lifting him up and waiting until Rian got onto his feet without stumbling, picking carefully among the mess eddying around his ankles.
For a moment they lingered, hands clasped, and Rian smiled at him shyly. “...thanks.”
“Yeah,” Damon said, mouth dry. “No problem.”
...right. Fuck. In a student’s room. With Luke watching.
Swallowing, he pulled his hand away and glanced at the goddamned trash pile pouring out of the closet. “So all of this is just...?”
“A hot mess,” Rian said ruefully. “But not useful at all.”
“Damn it.” Damon sank down on the edge of Chris’s bed, resting his head in his hands and propping his elbows on his thighs. “I hate this. Going in fucking circles with nothing helpful.”
Rian settled next to him, not quite touching. “I do too. But I—” He stopped, then, tilting his head oddly, brows knitting, nostrils flaring. “Do you smell that?”
Damon lifted his head, breathing in. “Smell wha—oh.”
He caught it, then—the faintest whiff, but something that definitely smelled like booze. A mix of beer and whiskey and that sour smell that seemed to cling to every goddamned seedy bar he’d ever been in, somewhere between urine and the hard seltzer sweats. He narrowed his eyes, turning his head from side to side, trying to figure out where that faint smell was coming from...but Rian got there first.
“Over here,” he said, practically clambering over Damon’s lap and toward the head of the bed, one sandal sole smacking against Damon’s inner thigh a little too high up and dangerously close enough to somewhere delicate that Damon cringed even when Rian’s foot slipped away.
“Watch out for it if you ever wanna use it again,” he growled under his breath.
Rian froze on his hands and knees, one hand upraised against the headboard of Chris’s bed, and tossed a wide-eyed, flustered, blushing look over his shoulder. “Um.”
Luke cocked his head. “What are y’all talking about?”
“Nothing,” Damon said emphatically, and scowled at Rian. “What’s back there?”
“R-right.” Rian cleared his throat, then pulled himself up on his knees to peer behind the broad hardwood slab of the headboard. “It’s definitely coming from behind here. Let me see...”
Squinting one eye up, he squirmed one skinny arm down in the space between the headboard and the wall, stretching, straining—until he let out a little ah-ha!, his face lighting up.