the worktables, and when Rian stole a peek as he slipped past to check a few pots other boys were firing in the kiln, he caught Chris scrolling dully through color images of wisteria. Looking for color references, Rian thought, and smiled sadly, touching Chris’s shoulder.
“Hey,” he said softly, and Chris jumped, tilting his head back before offering an exhausted smile that almost hurt for its sweetness despite the hollows in his cheeks.
“Hey, teach,” he said. “What’s up?”
“You okay?” Rian asked. “You look wiped. Going hard in practice?”
“Sure,” Chris agreed listlessly, his smile twitching, before he looked away. “Just been staying up late to study. Iseya’s midterm is gonna be awful. Thought I’d get a head start.”
“Ah,” Rian said, and lingered for a few moments, but...what could he say?
He didn’t buy that for a second.
Chris’s averted eyes said he knew it.
The questions, the pleas, hovered on the tip of Rian’s tongue, before he remembered Walden’s warning. One mistake could blow up into something bigger...and then all the boys could end up hurt, because Rian couldn’t be a bit more patient.
It hurt.
It hurt to see Chris suffering and not know what to do about it, his very position of responsibility barring him from intervening just yet.
But he swallowed against the tightness in his throat, and reached over Chris’s shoulder to tap his phone screen and one of the photos. “That one,” he said. “We’ve got glazes in those shades. Wisteria at night. It... I think it’d look nice on your sculpture.”
“Yeah?” Chris’s smile warmed. “Thanks, Mr. Falwell.”
Rian didn’t say anything.
He couldn’t, or he might crack.
Lachlan might have said he wasn’t heartless, but this...this ridiculousness about protocol felt just...just...
Cruel.
But his phone gave him another reason to escape, and he followed its vibrating buzz back to his desk. He half expected another 585 number, a voicemail or a text.
Instead it was a new text from Louis, Damon—black diamond, white circle.
Terse words.
We need to contact Chris’s parents. He looks like he’s on something.
Rian sank down in his chair, staring at his phone. That...was all Damon was going to say to him?
Of course that was all Damon would say.
That was all that mattered.
So he tapped back, He looks worse today. Said he’s just been up late studying for Iseya’s midterms. He paused, biting at the inner flesh of his lower lip, then added, What do we do?
A few moments of silence, then a curt buzz: Let me think.
Rian stared at his phone helplessly, his heart sinking. His fingers flew over the screen. Why did you kiss me? he typed out.
But let it sit.
Unsent.
Before he deleted it, typed Okay, and hit Send before he could second-guess himself.
Then turned his phone face-down on the desk and looked away, without waiting for a reply.
He didn’t want to see it.
He didn’t want to wonder.
And he didn’t want to make this about himself and his own chaotic, churning, rioting feelings.
Chris was more important.
Rian would just...
He’d deal, that’s all.
Yeah.
He’d just...deal.
Even if he had a feeling he wouldn’t be sleeping tonight.
...again.
Fine. Fuck. Whatever.
He’d deal with that, too, with enough coffee.
Whatever happened, he’d just...
Find a way to deal.
* * *
Damon was not fucking dealing with this very well at all.
He glowered at the punching bag in the small weight room attached to the school’s gym, and slammed his fist into it until a deep dent formed in the rubbery blue casing, the impact reverberating up his arm. Normally a spar with a sandbag and a few hours working himself into a lather calmed him down; it was a simple, quiet pleasure, thoughtless exertion focused only on form and technique that gave him an outlet for his frustrations, leaving him clean and light.
It wasn’t fucking working.
Not today.
Not when he was pretty fucking sure Rian was avoiding him.
Probably because Damon was avoiding him.
What the fuck else was he supposed to do? He let out a fuming, irritated sound as he crashed his taped knuckles into the bag again, sending it swinging, the chain overhead creaking. He shouldn’t have kissed Rian. He didn’t know what to do about it. What to say about it. He’d been thinking about it all fucking weekend, until his skin nearly itched with the memory of Rian’s body pressed close against his. But if Rian had just brought it up with that insatiable curiosity he had, they could’ve called each other every damned name in the book, fought it out, and then put it behind them as a fluke.
As long as neither of them said a damned word...
Damon couldn’t stop himself