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)
“Mmhm. And you sing to crystals and summon the devil to dance with you beneath the pale moonlight, the usual.” With a sweet smile, Summer settled to lean against the wall next to Rian, his shoulder almost touching. “I’m still getting settled into this whole thing, and technically I’m a student counselor, not a peer counselor, but...” He nudged Rian with his arm. “If you need a little friendly advice, I can try.”
Rian hesitated, then exhaled deeply. “I mean...it’s about a student anyway...”
“What’s going on?”
“Mm. One of my students has been lying to the football coach and skipping practice. He told the coach he was staying to work on a project in my class...but he runs out of my class every day to keep from being late for practice.”
“And you think he might be getting up to some trouble, is that it?”
“Yeah. But we don’t have any proof.” Rian grimaced. “So you can imagine what Assistant Principal Walden said to that.”
“I don’t have to imagine. He’d just give you one of those looks,” Summer said with a dryness that spoke of hard experience.
“If I’m lucky. Try living with him. Every time he talks to me, it’s with the sharp side of his tongue.” Rian sighed heavily, slumping down the wall. “I mean...am I really supposed to say nothing? Do nothing? What if we don’t find out what’s going on until it’s too late and he’s already in too much trouble?”
“It’s almost impossible to keep teenagers out of trouble,” Summer pointed out gently. “Sometimes you have to just let them get it out of their systems, as long as it’s not trouble that could hurt them or people around them.”
“So...look the other way?”
“Not exactly.” Summer smiled, thoughtful and sweet. “Because it could be that student does need you, and need intervention. That’s what we’re here for. We can’t quite be their parents, but we do still have a responsibility to them, no matter how stuffy Walden gets about the technicalities.” He tapped his fingertip against his lower lip. “What I’m saying is look until you know what you’re seeing.”
That hit Rian somewhere low down in the pit of his stomach.
And for a moment he thought not of Chris...
But of Damon.
Looking at him like he expected Rian to tell him Damon—with that quiet, calm suite of his that looked like such a perfect, private space where Damon could hold back the noise of the world; with that soft whispered anguish; with that loneliness he’d given Rian like he expected him to crush it—just wasn’t good enough for...for...
For what?
“And then...?” he prompted softly.
“Do what you think is right,” Summer said, with a light shrug. “I can’t tell you what that is until you know what you’re dealing with.”
If only it was that easy.
But Rian forced himself to stop thinking about it, and shook his head. “Hopefully nothing.”
“That would be best, yeah.” Summer watch Rian curiously through the mess of hair that tumbled across his eyes. “Do you want to tell me who the student is...?”
“Not yet,” Rian said. “I’ll let you know if there’s something to worry about.”
“Just remember,” Summer said. “You’re not bothering me. It’s my job. And if he doesn’t want to talk to you, you can encourage him to talk to me.”
“Maybe. You’re practically a kid yourself; they seem to open up a bit more around you.”
“Hey!” Summer protested with a laugh. “I’m only a few years younger than you.”
“Ah, but those few years make all the difference, my sweet summer child.”
“No. No puns on my name. None. I forbid them.”
Rian grinned. “Do you have the authority to forbid anything, Mr. Iseya?”
Summer went bright red, his eyes rounding; he spluttered. “I—you—ohmyGod.”
Unable to help laughing, Rian pushed lightly at Summer’s arm. “Go up to your room. I bet your husband’s wondering where you are.”
“...he’s probably so busy grading papers he doesn’t even realize what time it is.”
But from the fond way Summer said it—and the lingering looks Rian frequently caught Summer and Fox giving each other in faculty meetings—Rian deeply doubted it.
Over the last semester, Summer and Fox had bloomed so obviously that no one around them could miss the fact that they were so deeply in love it was almost painful to watch, that anyone should wear such intense emotions so openly, so nakedly, hanging them out where anyone could see them and touch them and hurt them.
But it looked...
Beautiful, too.
Like the kind of moment that arrested the eye until the heart ached to capture it in pen and ink and soft washes of carefully brushed color, only it was a thousand and a million and an eternity of such moments caught again and again and again until they made a book of fanning pages in sweet colors the shades of heart’s blood.
And the naked longing in Summer’s eyes as he turned his head toward the stairs made Rian’s breaths catch; what was it like, to want someone that deeply that the thread connecting the two of you was nearly visible?