Summer had no idea what he was doing.
He hadn’t meant to kiss Professor Iseya. He’d just—he—after sitting there listening to Iseya list Summer’s faults and remind Summer that he hadn’t changed at all, something had risen up inside him. Something irritated, that whited out his thoughts and smothered his common sense until he wasn’t really choosing to do anything; just reacting to provocation. If he wanted to look at it from a psychology perspective, Iseya had pricked at Summer’s id.
Until it had bitten back.
But Freud had been a hack, and dissection of the psyche couldn’t explain why Summer was bent over Professor Iseya with his mouth pressed hot against the man’s and the taste of him on his lips.
Iseya’s mouth was a stern thing of cruel sensuality, made for whispering cold-edged, cutting words of emotionless logic with articulated precision, every curve and dip of his lips defined as if they’d been shaped by the razor of his tongue...but for just a moment, those lips went soft. Slack. A moment that shot through Summer with a wilding heat; a moment that charged him with a vibrant rush and made his entire body go so hot he felt as though he burned with every harsh draught of smoke he’d inhaled just minutes before.
He’d thought about this more times than he cared to admit, as a boy. Back when he’d been fascinated by the older man’s frosty demeanor; by the glint of eyes a silver as pale and inscrutable as the forest’s mist; by the controlled elegance in his minimalistic movements; by the quiet hint of command in his every gesture. When Summer had been a teenager, Professor Iseya had been a fantasy, out of reach, unreal.
Yet he was very much real, now.
Summer wasn’t a boy anymore.
And the man whose mouth went fiery and firm against his own was very much not the icy caricature of his dreams.
That softening, that parting of Iseya’s lips promised heat, promised more—and with a low sound Summer slanted his mouth against Iseya’s, only for firm lips to lock and hold him, the lash of a rough tongue to whip him, his fingers curling and tingling with the sudden rush of warmth as Iseya’s teeth grazed his mouth, teased him, left him shivering.
Until a hand pressed against his throat, seizing his breaths and stopping his heart.
He froze as long, firm fingers wrapped against his neck, a heated palm pressing down on his pulse just hard enough for him to feel it; just hard enough to make his next breath come shallow and tight. His knees trembled, an odd, weakening sensation seeming to cut the strength from his limbs and leave his gut liquid-hot and tight as slowly, Iseya pushed him back. That one hand held him in complete thrall, controlling his every movement and keeping him trapped in place in silent command as Iseya parted their lips from each other.
Frigid eyes as pale as cracked ice fixed on Summer, piercing him. For all the breathless heat that had lived in that stolen moment...those eyes were cold enough to smother it, frostbite in every slowly spoken word.
“I,” Iseya said softly, “would thank you not to be inappropriate, Mr. Hemlock. And if I am what frightens you...you have every reason to fear.”
For just a half-second longer, Summer’s focus remained on those lips—their redness, their fullness. On the pressure of that hand against his throat. On the confusing and aching feeling it roused inside him, taut and shaking and thrilling with something not quite fear at all.
Before it hit him just what he was doing, when he had never been so reckless or so forward in his life.
He flinched back, breaking free from Iseya’s grip. The man regarded him coolly, utterly calm and unreadable, yet for the few breaths that Summer held his eyes he couldn’t help but imagine judgment there.
Judgment...
And rejection.
Because Summer hadn’t been back in Omen for a day before he’d crossed a line, and proven he was still the same awkward, utterly hopeless boy he’d always been.
“S-sorry,” he whispered, though it barely came out on a dry croak, his throat closing. “Sorry.”
Iseya said nothing—and Summer didn’t know what else to say.
He just knew he couldn’t stay here, not when he felt as though his every shortcoming and failure, his every maladjustment and cowardice, were laid bare for that cutting silver gaze to dissect before discarding him as worthless.
And so “S-sorry,” he stumbled over, one more time.
Before he bowed his head. Clenched his fists.
And ran.
He didn’t stop until he was outside, and shut inside the safety of his rental car with at least the barrier of metal walls to hide him.
Clenching his hands against the steering wheel, Summer groaned and thunked his forehead against the leather of the upper curve—and then again and again, just for good measure.
What the hell, Summer.
What the hell, what the hell, what the hell.
His pulse was on fire, his entire body prickling as if a sunburn had crisped his skin to paper and left him feeling like he was going to split right out of it. He’d...he’d kissed Professor Iseya. Like he was still that same shy fumbling boy with a completely impossible crush, he’d kissed the man without so much as an if-you-please, and probably just fucked himself out of a job.
One more thud against the steering wheel, hard enough to make his temples throb.
Dammit.
He couldn’t go back in there. Not today. He’d left his suitcase at Iseya’s, but he’d wait until the man was in class Monday to get a janitor to let him in to retrieve it. Whether or not he’d be unpacking it in his faculty suite or looking for somewhere else to stay?
Would probably depend on if Iseya had him fired or not.
He’d deserve it if he did.
Welp.
At least if he was unemployed, he’d have more time to help his mother fix up a few things around the house.
And wouldn’t have to worry about having an anxiety attack in front of two dozen staring, snickering boys.
Summer backed the Acura out of its parking slot and did a U-turn in the now-empty courtyard, the students already back inside and in class like nothing had ever happened, despite the fresh scorch marks on the upstairs wall and window frame. The drive down the high hill felt less ominous than the approach—every foot of space between himself and that mortifying moment of impulse letting him breathe a little easier, put it behind himself, tuck it away as something to be dealt with later.
The town at the bottom of the hill was still the same—cobbled roadways and colonial style homes, only the more modern shops, street lighting, and sidewalk bus stops reminding Omen of what century it was. Summer had always managed to find a way not to come back, even on holiday and summer breaks, instead flying his mother out to Baltimore when he wanted to see her; Omen had somehow always felt like its name, this ominous trap that would ensnare him in a life, a future, a self he’d never wanted to hold on to.
But he still remembered the way home—and he couldn’t help but smile, as he pulled up outside his mother’s house. The sunny little cottage hadn’t changed, either, still overgrown with flowers everywhere. Daffodils nodded their sunny heads, while hollyhocks clustered around lavender and flowering azalea bushes; jasmine climbed the walls, dripping blooms whose fragrance nearly drowned him when he stepped out of the car, chasing away the last stinging scent of smoke in his nose. Little glass wind chimes and baubles hung in every tree and from every eave, catching the meager gray light and turning it into winking shards of color.
He’d barely made it past the wooden gate, stepping under the arch of the flowering bower overhead, before the front door opened and his mother came tumbling out. Small, round, Lily Hemlock was a compact bundle of energy swirled about by gauzy scarves, trailing her in a flutter of color as she nearly launched herself into him.
“Summer.”
He caught her with an oof, rocking back on his heels before righting himself and wrapping her up in a tight hug. “Hi, Mom.”
“I was wondering when you’d get in. You didn’t call, you just—”
“Sorry. I stopped by the school first.” He grinned wryly. “It’s burning again.”
“Oh, it’s always burning. The fire chief doesn’t even bother unless they actually call anymore.”
She pulled back, gripping his arms and looking up at him with a measuring gaze, blue eyes bright against the dark twist of her hair; when had those jet-black locks started to fade to iron gray?
When had she become so frail, the bones of her hands pressing into his skin?
But her presence was still larger than life, as she gave him a once-over and clucked her tongue primly. “Look at you. Have you been eating? You’re too thin.”
He laughed, taking her arm and nudging her toward the door. “I’m twice the size I was in high school.”
“And you were too thin in high school, too. Too thin times two is still too thin.” Suddenly she was the one tugging him, and he let himself be marshalled along without protest. “Come. Sit. I’ve just finished baking.”
Summer only smiled, as his mother practically dragged him inside. The house was as warm and open inside as it was the outside, all weathered, unvarnished wood everywhere and sprigs of herbs strung up along the walls and ceiling, the aromas of her latest concoctions making the entire house smell earthy and clean. Familiar. Safe.
And as she ushered him to a place at the kitchen table, he was finally able to breathe again.
Even if he had no appetite for the orange crème muffins she piled on a plate in front of him; he still wasn’t going to tell her that, not when she watched him like a hawk.
“Go on,” she said. “I know they’re your favorite.”
“And you made them just because I was coming home?” He chuckled and picked off a bite of one steaming muffin, plucking it between his fingers. “Today’s really not special, Mom. Within a week you’ll be sick of having me underfoot.”
“I could never.” She dropped herself down into a chair opposite him, propping her chin in her hands and watching him fondly. “And knowing you, you’ll probably still never be here what with living up at that school.”
“It’s mandatory. I’ve got to do my part as dorm monitor.” He made himself swallow a bite; even if he’d loved his mother’s orange crème muffins since he was old enough to talk, right now it tasted overly sweet, cloying, lodging in his still-tight throat. “Though I may just end up moving in with you and looking for a new job. I...uh... I kind of screwed up.”
Her eyes sharpened. “Now how did you manage that when you’ve not even started yet?”
“...nothing. I didn’t do anything.”
“So you managed to screw up by not doing anything?” Her brows lifted mildly. “That’s unlike you. Usually when you screw up, you’re at least trying.”
“Funny.”
“Darling, what did you do?”
He winced. “...IkissedProfessorIseya,” he mumbled under his breath.
“Try that one more time, dear. With air.”
“Oh God.” Summer let the muffin plunk back to the plate and dropped his face into his hands. “I kissed him. Professor Iseya. I just...kissed him.”
His mother gasped. “Fox Iseya? Oh dear.”
“...I don’t think ‘oh dear’ really covers it.”
She made an odd sound, before pressing her fingers to her mouth—but that didn’t stop her lips from twitching at the corners. “Oh—oh, darling, I still remember you doodling his initials in your notebooks. And learning how to read those—what were those letters?”
“...hiragana...”
“...yes, that. Just so you could write his name the proper way.”
“Oh my God, Mom, stop.” He pressed his burning cheeks into his palms, closed his eyes, and told his churning stomach to calm the hell down. “I was seventeen.”
“And it was adorable.” She chuckled fondly. “But whatever possessed you to kiss him today?”
“He pissed me off.”
“One, language. Two, that is highly unexpected, coming from you. My mild-mannered boy.” She patted his hand, and he cracked one eye open on her warm, indulgent smile. “Three, most people don’t kiss people when they’re angry.”
“Yeah, well, I’m weird. We’ve always known that.” He sighed, dropping his hands and folding his arms on the table. “He didn’t even give me a chance. He just told me I haven’t changed and I’m not fit to teach a class, which makes me wonder why he even agreed to work with me. Then he challenged me to like...assert my authority or something just once every day, if I want to prove myself. So... I kissed him.”
She clucked her tongue. “Well, that is certainly quite assertive.”
“I can tell you’re trying not to laugh.” Groaning, he dropped his head and thudded his brow against his forearm, burying his face in his arms. “Go on. Get it out.”
“I wouldn’t laugh at you, darling.” Her small, warm hand rested to the top of his head, weaving into his hair...and it struck him with a quiet ache just how weightless her hands were, as if her bones had turned hollow as a bird’s. “I take it, though, it didn’t go over well.”
“How did you guess?”
“Because it’s Fox. Not because of you.” His mother sighed gently and tucked his hair back with a lingering touch. “You were too young to know him before his wife died. We were actually fast friends, he and I, before he shut everyone out and isolated himself.”
Professor Iseya’s...wife? Summer lifted his head sharply, staring at his mother, his heart thumping in erratic sick-lurch rhythm. “He was married?”
“For some time when he was close to your age, yes.” She smiled, blue eyes dark, soft. “He was really the kindest, sweetest man...but when he lost Michiko, well...” She shook her head. “Loss and grief can change people.”
“When did this happen?”
“When you were...about four or five, I would say. Terrible tragedy, truly. She fell asleep behind the wheel one night on her way home from her job in Medford, and lost control of her car on the bridge over the Mystic. Her car sank right to the bottom of the river.” His mother bowed her head, lines seaming her round, soft features. “Fox was never the same after that.”
“I...oh.” Guilt plunged through Summer in a hard strike, sinking deep as a spear into his flesh. He knit his brows. “Why haven’t I ever heard about this?”
“You were quite young, dear, and it was grown-up business. And over time, the whole town learned to stop speaking about it out of respect for Fox. I don’t think the man’s ever stopped grieving.”
Or he never allowed himself to grieve in the first place, Summer thought with dawning realization.
And just like that, far too many things fell into place.
When he’d been a student at Albin, all he’d seen was Professor Iseya—aloof, untouchable, mysterious, his icy armor all the more fascinating for the secrets it promised. As a boy it had been too easy to daydream about being the one to tease past that armor to discover everything hidden inside; to be the special one the cold, somewhat frightening professor defrosted for. There’d been a touch of the forbidden, too, when Iseya had been nearly forty by the time Summer graduated, and that stern, subtly domineering demeanor had inspired a few whispered thoughts of just what he might do to Summer in private when Summer was young, vulnerable, inexperienced.
But those had been childish fantasies, entirely inappropriate and impossible, and suddenly that frigid exterior took on a wholly different meaning when seen through older eyes.
When it was the defensive shield of a man in pain, struggling to find a way to function in his everyday life, fighting his pride to keep from putting his grief on display for all the world to see.
Yet if Summer had been four or five years old when Iseya’s wife had died...then Iseya had been shut inside himself for twenty years, now.
And maybe Summer was reading too much into it, thinking a few psychology and education courses gave him any insight into the workings of a distant man’s mind...
But he wondered if Iseya even knew how to find his way out, anymore.
Or if he was trapped inside himself.
And completely alone.
Summer sighed, rubbing his fingers to his temples. “I’m an asshole.”
“Language.”
“I’m twenty-five.”
“And I’m still your mother, and this is still my house.” She reached across the table and curled her thin, papery fingers around his wrist; her skin was cooler than he remembered, and brought back that pang, that quiet unspoken fear, the entire reason he’d been willing to take a job in the town he’d once been so desperate to escape. “You didn’t know, Summer. Now you do. It’s up to you what you do with that information.”
“Yeah...yeah. I know.” He smiled and caught her hand, squeezing it in his own. “I’ve got to think for a bit, but... I think I know what I need to do, in the end.”
“What’s that, dear?”
“I,” he said, holding her hand just a little tighter, as if he could give her his warmth to hold and keep, “am going to do something brave.”
And he couldn’t think of anything that would take more courage than walking up to Fox Iseya...
And apologizing to him flat out.
Fox sat on the shore of Whitemist Lake and watched the sun rise over the spires of the school.
The mist always made sunrise at Albin Academy a strange and silvered thing, when the thick blanketing layer of fog rose almost to the treetops and captured the sun to glow strange and ethereal about the edges. The mornings tasted cool as rain, and every blade of grass around him clung on to condensation like dewdrops, soaking it into his slacks. At times like this he often felt as if the threshold between one world and the next had somehow blurred. And if he looked hard enough, stared deep into the clouds weaving tendrils through and about the trees...
He might somehow see through to the other side.
But this morning there was nothing to see but his reflection, as he looked down into the water and watched the ripples spread while, one at a time, he plucked up clover flowers from the grassy shore and tossed them in. If he followed with the legend of Isabella of the Lake, he was supposed to weave the clovers into a crown for her to wear, down in the watery deeps.
Yet this morning, his mind wasn’t on Isabella.
It was on Summer Hemlock, and yesterday afternoon’s bizarre encounter.
Whatever had possessed such a shy, timid young man to actually kiss him—him, of all people?
And why, for just a moment, had something sparked inside him when he had neither needed nor wanted such things for nearly twenty years?
You are a case study in denial, Fox.
That was what the grief counselor had told him, a decade ago.
Then again, she’d also told him he was a pain in the ass, considering most psychotherapeutic methods didn’t work on someone who knew them by heart.
He plucked up another clover flower, its stem cool and crisp against his fingers as he began tying a delicate knot—only to still at the faint sound of footsteps at his back, rustling in the grass. Probably one of the boys; they liked to make wishes in the lake, throwing flower crowns down to Isabella and asking her for better grades on their midterms or for one of the students at the public school one town over to go out with them. Fox prepared himself to shut away behind the mantle of authority and excuse himself, drawing silence around him like a cloak.
Until a soft “Hey” murmured at his back, and Summer Hemlock sank down to the grass at his side.
Fox stiffened, eyeing Summer sidelong—but as always, Summer wasn’t looking at him. He never looked at anyone, and not for the first time Fox wondered just what had ingrained that particular behavior. That fear. For Fox direct eye contact had other implications, ones few around him understood...
But Summer seemed to be carrying some weight on his shoulders, that bowed his head and kept his eyes downcast.
Summer settled with one leg drawn up, draping his arm over it and leaning back on his other hand. He still wore the same close-fit T-shirt and jeans as yesterday, albeit as rumpled as his hair, and an odd, quiet little smile played about his lips even if it hardly reflected in pensive blue eyes that looked out across the lake as if he, too, could see something in the mist.
Fox looked away, letting the clover flower fall to the grass and leaning on his hands. “Mr. Hemlock,” he greeted. “I presume, since you’ve not changed your clothing, that you returned to fetch your personal effects.”
“No,” Summer answered quietly. “I came to say I’m sorry.”
Fox arched a brow. “For...?”
“You know what.” That smile strengthened, strangely cynical and self-mocking. “But you’re going to make me say it, aren’t you?” Summer turned his head toward Fox, almost but not quite meeting his eyes. “I’m sorry for kissing you yesterday. I’m sorry for not asking first. I’m sorry for crossing your boundaries. And I’m sorry for running away.”
“I hardly expected you to be so forthright.”
“One brave thing per day, right?” Summer let out a breathless, shaky laugh. For all that he had grown into an athletic young man, there was a softness about him, a gentleness, that made every laugh, every gesture a thing of uncertain sweetness. “This was my brave thing. Apologizing to you. I’ll figure out what tomorrow’s is. And Monday’s...if I still have a job.”
Fox realized he’d been watching Summer—the way his lashes lowered to shade the oddly deep blue hue of his eyes, the nervous curl of square, strong fingers—and diverted his gaze to the lake, pressing his lips together. “Why would you not have a job?”
“Because what I did was an asshole move?”
“And I don’t have the authority to fire you. I’m tenured, not all-powerful.” With a sigh, Fox relented and added, “...but I hadn’t intended to discipline you in the first place. It was an impulsive kiss. Not the end of the world. And I should likely apologize as well, for needling at your nervous tendencies and subjecting you to anxiety-inducing scrutiny. Not that I understand why that, of all things, was the choice you made to show your courage.”
Summer let out a sudden low laugh; like his voice, it was a quiet thing that always seemed just a touch breathless, whispering deep in his throat. “I guess I wasn’t as obvious back then as I thought.”
“Obvious...?”
“I was in love with you when I was a student, Professor Iseya.”
Fox blinked. His chest tightened. “You most certainly were not.”
“I thought I was. At least, with who I thought you were. I know now that’s not actually who you are...so I guess you’re right that I wasn’t.” Another laugh, startled and hesitant. “God, this ‘being brave’ thing sucks. I can’t believe I just blurted that out to you, and you’re still sitting there with that same empty expression like I just told you it’s going to rain.”
“You’re speaking of feelings you had as a child. They have no bearing on now, or on our professional relationship as adults. Am I supposed to react any other way?”
“No...no, I guess not.” Summer’s laughter faded into a sigh, and he glanced at Fox—for just a moment really looking at him, Summer’s dark eyes half-lidded, messy hair framing his gaze in black tendrils. “But I do still find you attractive. And you made me angry. So I kissed you to make you stop saying those things about me. I still shouldn’t have done it.”
Fox opened his mouth.
Then closed it again.
Then scowled, a most disquieting feeling of uncertainty settling in the pit of his stomach, light and strange. “This has to be one of the most bizarre conversations I’ve ever had.”
“Me too.” Summer tilted his head back, looking up at the sky, lips curling. “But this is me, Professor Iseya. And I guess you need to know that if we’re going to work together. I’m a walking bundle of anxiety waiting to trip into a panic attack, but every once in a while I hit a break point and just...do what I have to do, and say what I have to say.” His shoulders shook with silent laughter. “Don’t worry. Once I leave I’ll probably hyperventilate.”
“I’d rather you didn’t. Challenging you to be brave was never meant to upset your anxiety.”
“Sometimes I want my anxiety to be upset. Sometimes I... I...” He trailed off, lips remaining parted, before he shook his head. “Nevermind. It doesn’t matter. Do you want to just put this behind us?”
Fox watched Summer from the corner of his eye; the way the rising light fell over his profile—his straight, somewhat awkward nose, the stubborn set to his jaw, the softness of his mouth. In this moment he looked older than his mid-twenties; not in his fresh, clean-shaven face, perhaps, but something about the way he carried himself, some tiredness that spoke of long hours of thought, of introspection, of weary self-awareness that he carried with him heavily.
And Fox didn’t quite know what possessed him, what it was about that soft quiet air about Summer, that made him ask, “...first... I’d like you to answer a question.”
Summer was silent for some time. And it was in that moment that Fox realized Summer might actually refuse him; he didn’t know when it became a foregone conclusion that people would simply do as he said, but...
When his only human contact was with children or other teachers who were intimidated by him, it became too easy to stop seeing others as...
Others.
As entities who existed outside the thin shallow projections by which he defined their presences, ghosts he could banish at will.
He couldn’t banish Summer at will, he thought. Couldn’t summon him at will. Couldn’t compel him to speak.
And that made him a strange new thing.
Something with thin bright edges that cut at the cloud of distance surrounding Fox at all times, slicing narrow gashes that forced him to look into the harsh, raw reality of the world outside.
How strange, he thought.
How strange indeed, that the world suddenly became more real, more crisp, the colors sharper about the edges in the slow span of breaths it took to wait for Summer to answer.
“Maybe,” Summer said after those long, waiting breaths, choosing the words carefully. “It depends on the question.”
Very well, then.
“Why are you attracted to me?” Fox asked.
And Summer laughed.
He laughed, quick and startled, a short light thing that made Fox think of mayflies startled into taking flight. Wide blue eyes darted to him, then away—very firmly away, Summer turning his head to stare across the grass, toward the stark cliff edge that led down the other side of the slope, into dense forest. His mouth pressed to his upraised shoulder, muffling his laughter into a muted sound, and the tips of his ears turned quite a shade of red against the dark backdrop of his tousled hair.
Fox blinked. “Did I say something funny?”
“No,” Summer mumbled against his shirt. “I’m just embarrassed, I... Why would you ask me that?”
“Because I want to know,” Fox said. “I would think that would be entirely self-explanatory.”
“Oh God.” With a groan, Summer closed his eyes, letting his head fall back limply on the toned arch of his neck, hanging between his shoulders, face tilted up to the sky. “I forgot how literal you are. You really haven’t changed.”
No, Fox thought, and wondered at the tight feeling like his ribs were pressing in too hard on his lungs. I suppose I have not.
“But that’s one reason why I’m attracted to you.” Summer opened his eyes, looking up at a morning sky that reflected in his eyes to give them a gray-blue sheen like glacial silt; a small smile touched his lips, warm and sweet. “Maybe I don’t know the real you, but I know some real things about you. I like the way you talk. You’re literal and while you hide a lot, you say what you mean when you do talk. If you don’t want to say something you just won’t, instead of deflecting or falling back on social niceties that are just a step away from lies. But even though you’re so straightforward...there’s all kinds of subtle nuance, too. Soft things between the lines. Sometimes even though you mean what you say...you mean something else, too.”
Fox blinked again.
And again.
And had to look away from this strange young man with his equally strange smile, clearing his throat. “Perhaps you’re only imagining what you’re reading between my lines.”
“It’s possible. Projection is a thing.” Even without looking at him...that smile was still in Summer’s voice. “But it’s not the only reason I’m attracted to you.”
“I can’t imagine more than one reason,” Fox muttered.
“I can imagine a thousand. Only I don’t have to imagine, because they’re as real as the color of your eyes and the way you wear your hair.” Summer laughed. “I don’t know how I’m not hyperventilating right now, but I guess I hit ‘fuck it’ mode and can freak out later. Why do you think I wouldn’t be attracted to you?”
“I...”
It was almost instinct for Fox to want to deflect around that, and yet somehow Summer’s quiet faith in his honesty, his straightforwardness, made him at least want to be somewhat truthful.
“I consider myself a non-entity on that front,” he said. “If romance is a playing field, I benched myself long ago. Most do not pay attention to players who are not actively on the field.”
“You’re bad at sports analogies,” Summer teased softly, and Fox scowled.
“I have little interest in the sports ball.”
“...‘the sports ball.’” That prompted a soft snicker, barely repressed. “And there’s another reason. You’re funny without meaning to be. But just because you’ve benched yourself doesn’t mean you aren’t still someone’s favorite MVP.”
“Now who is making terrible sports analogies?”
“I don’t watch the sports ball either.” Summer shrugged one shoulder ruefully. “Swimming turned out to be my thing.”
Fox arched a brow, risking a glance back at Summer. The way he’d tanned and filled out, building into compact athletic musculature with a sort of flowing, liquid grace to it rather than thick-honed bulk...he could see it. Summer cutting through the water in smooth, fluid strokes.
He should not be picturing this.
“So is that how you finally hit puberty?” he shot back. “Swimming?”
“There it is. The defensive barbs because I managed to fluster you when you’re supposed to be made of stone.” Summer was still looking up at the sky, but his lips curled sweetly, almost slyly. “Keep insulting me, Professor Iseya. It just means I get under your skin a little. Although that’s kind of regressing, don’t you think? Child psychology. I thought we universally agreed as a field to stop telling children when a little boy pulls your pigtails and kicks dirt in your face, it means he likes you.”
“I don’t like you!” Narrowing his eyes, Fox growled, tearing his gaze away and glaring at the water.
What was even happening here?
How was this shy, anxious young man sitting here with that smile on his lips, needling at Fox and leaving Fox completely uncertain of how to handle this at all?
Yet that smile never wavered, even as Summer lowered his eyes from the sky, looking at Fox with a strange and quiet frankness, a soft ache in his voice when he said, “I know.”
That...should not sting.
A sudden sharp pang, as if an arrow had been fired straight from Summer’s bleeding heart to Fox’s own.
With a soft hiss, he clenched his jaw and looked anywhere but at Summer. At the mist slowly beginning to burn away from the surface of the lake, hovering like the last remnants of ghosts that refused to let go with the dawn.
“This,” he bit off, “is the most absolutely ludicrous conversation. What makes you think I’m even attracted to men?”
“Hope,” Summer answered simply, softly, and yet everything was in that one word.
Hellfire.
Fox closed his eyes, breathing in and out slowly, if only so he could keep his tone even and calm. He wasn’t accustomed to this—to feeling out of sorts, shaken out of place, his stone foundations cracked and no longer holding him so steady.
Being around Summer was like seeing the sun after decades buried in a subterranean cave.
And the light hurt his eyes, when all he wanted was the quiet and comforting dark.
“You don’t want me, Summer,” he said firmly. “I’m quite old, used-up, and I don’t even know how to be with someone anymore.”
“I don’t think that’s true,” Summer murmured.
“Isn’t it?”
Silence, before Summer said slowly, “Maybe I’m wrong... I’m probably wrong. Or maybe you were a good enough teacher that I can figure some things out. But either way, I think you shut yourself away while you needed to...but your protective walls turned into a cage when you didn’t need them anymore, and now you can’t find your way out.”
Shut yourself away while you needed to.
The simple memory of just why he’d shut himself away cut deep, digging down to a tiny pain that lived at his heart. He’d made it tiny deliberately, so he could compact it down into a thing so small it could fit in the palm of his hand, all of that agony crushed down into nothing so that he could never touch too much of it at any one time, its surface area barely the size of a fingerprint.
And then he’d tucked it away, burying it down where he couldn’t reach it.
But those simple words threatened to expose it, even if it meant cutting him open to do so.
No.
He stood, reminding himself to breathe—to breathe, and to wrap himself in his calm. He was nearly twice Summer’s age, and quite accustomed to rebellious boys who thought they were intelligent enough to outsmart their teacher, put him on the spot, leave him floundering. Summer was just an older, larger version of that.
And Fox could not forget that he was the one in control here.
“Is that so?” he asked, looking down at Summer—the top of his head, the hard slopes his shoulders made as he leaned back on his hands. “If that’s your analysis, you aren’t fit to teach elementary school psychology.”
“They don’t teach psychology in elementary school.” Summer chuckled, those firm shoulders shaking. “Insulting me already didn’t work, Professor. Why do you think it’s going to drive me back from the walls this time?”
Fox turned his nose up. “Is that your intent, then? To breach my walls?”
“Not breach them, no.”
Summer tilted his head back again, then, but this time instead of looking at the sky...he looked up at Fox with his eyes full of that sky, the first morning clouds reflected against liquid blue.
“I’m not going to get inside unless you let me, Professor Iseya. But I can stand outside the walls and wait...and ask.”
Fox stared.
He could not be serious.
One minute Summer had arrived to apologize for that egregious and utterly ridiculous kiss, and now he...seemed to be emboldened to some kind of designs on Fox?
All because Fox had not summarily dismissed him from his position?
Absurd.
He pressed his lips together and took a few steps away from Summer, drifting along the lake’s shore, putting more distance between them. Giving himself space—to think, to sort himself out, when he wasn’t accustomed to this.
Wasn’t accustomed to someone who took one look at his walls and saw not someone cold, not someone cruel, distant, detached, inhuman...
But simply that those walls were made not of stone, but of pain.
He did not like it.
His walls had served him quite well for some time, and they did not need to be broken down.
“Do you think Rapunzel was comfortable in her castle?” he asked. “Perhaps, since it was all she knew...it never even felt like a cage.”
Summer let out a sunny little laugh. “Are we talking Grimm’s Rapunzel or Disney’s Rapunzel?”
“Does it matter?”
“Considering in one I end up losing my eyesight trying to reach you, and the other I just get hit in the face with a frying pan?” A wickedly amused sound rose from the back of Summer’s throat. “Yes.”
Fox wrinkled his nose. “Please do not project us into the roles of fictional lovers.”
A soft rustle rose, denim moving against grass, the sounds of fabric against skin. It was an oddly intimate sound, one that made Fox remember the sound of flesh on sheets, the pad of soft footsteps in the dark, a quiet room where he never wanted the light to find him and wake him from a dream of being in love.
He couldn’t breathe.
He couldn’t breathe, and he couldn’t seem to move even though everything inside him wanted to run as Summer drew closer, closer, until he was a warmth at Fox’s back, this bright thing that kept trying to chase away the cold touch of ghosts, of yurei whose icy spirit-fingers wrapped around Fox’s neck, choking off his air, but Fox didn’t want to let them go. Didn’t want to let in the breath they were strangling from him.
When if he remembered how to breathe, that one tiny swelling of his chest might just shatter him.
“What about real lovers, then?” Summer asked, husky, low, his breaths and his voice like a lick of flame on a frozen night.
Fox stared blankly straight ahead, curling one hand against his chest, against his shirt, clutching up a handful of the fabric. He couldn’t turn around. Couldn’t face that warmth.
Didn’t Summer realize?
Didn’t he realize if he burned away Fox’s wall of frost...
There was nothing beneath, and he’d just melt and evaporate and wisp away?
“Why?” he whispered. “Why do you want something like that?”
“You told me to be bold.” Soft, entreating, yet...so inadvertently seductive, too. Fox didn’t think Summer realized just how seductive his sweetness was. “I can’t think of anything bolder than asking the most terrifying man in Albin Academy to kiss me.” Summer drew closer, the crackle of grass beneath his feet, his shoulder brushing Fox’s in a sudden quiet shock-jump of sensation before it was gone as Summer stood at his side, looking out over the water as well with that strange, gently melancholy smile on his full red lips. “Once per day.”
Fox watched him from the corner of his eye, brows knitting. “That’s...a bizarre proposition.”
“Is it?” Summer slipped his hands into the pockets of his jeans, his shirt drawing tight against leanly toned musculature, wrinkles seaming against the flex of his biceps. “It’s motivation. If I’m bolder, if I prove to you I can do this job... I get rewarded with a kiss. With one caveat.”
There. One caveat.
All Fox would need to end this ridiculous game.
“And what would that be?” he asked.
“Only if you really want to.” Summer shook his head slightly, messy hair drifting across his eyes. “I couldn’t stand it if you felt like you had to. Like you were obligated, or like...” He trailed off, eyes lidding, voice quieting. “...like I didn’t really care what you want. I think... I kind of think ‘no’ is the most important word we know, and not enough people listen to it.”
“You have to know that I would say no right in this instant, Mr. Hemlock,” Fox said through his teeth. “Which makes your proposition quite pointless, as it is.”
Summer lifted his head, then, once more looking at Fox directly. Considering how he avoided eye contact so pathologically, Fox...didn’t understand why Summer seemed inclined to so often look at him so fully, so intently, when he claimed to be afraid of Fox, claimed to be so anxious he actually found Fox terrifying.
But perhaps that’s what bravery was, Fox thought.
Summer was afraid of him...
And yet still looking at him.
Trying to see him.
And telling him, in his own way...
That for some bizarre reason, he found Fox to be worth facing down that fear.
He didn’t understand.
And he didn’t understand how intently Summer looked at him, those rich blue eyes subtly dilated, turning them smoky.
“Summer,” he whispered. “Call me Summer.”
Fox’s eyes widened. His fingers clenched harder in his shirt.
Did Summer not...understand what using given names meant, to him?
Perhaps he was only half-Japanese, his mother a white American woman who gave him his gray eyes in a rare genetic fluke, but he still knew so much of so many things from his father, things passed down to him like traditions written in blood.
Given names could be used with fondness for children, for family, for close friends who might as well be family...
But in certain circumstances, someone’s name could be a love word.
Intimate and shivering, rolling off the tongue.
He turned his back on Summer, on those eyes that pleaded with him to be that intimate, to be that close, curling his shoulders in and digging his fingers against his shirt as if he could claw down to his heart and grasp it to stop its erratic and sharp beating.
“Mn.”
“You said it once before,” Summer said softly, and Fox caught his breath.
He had.
Letting it roll off his tongue, easy and fluid, but he’d tried not to taste it, tried to simply use it to capture Summer’s attention, to impress on him that he wasn’t someone Summer should ever want.
But he wondered, now.
Wondered now what he’d let slip past his lips without feeling its texture, its flavor.
He glanced over his shoulder. All he could see was Summer’s profile, the tanned slopes and lines of him catching the sun until he glowed. Amber-soft and gentle, and Fox swallowed thickly.
“...Summer,” he said again.
It tasted like sighs. Like the taste not of summer, but the spice of autumn leaves turning and falling and crackling under every step. It tasted like the color of the sky just as the sun touches the horizon at sunset.
And it felt like silk on his lips and tongue, passing over his skin in liquid, smooth caresses.
He didn’t like it.
He didn’t like how close it felt, when he still remembered the taste of Summer’s lips against his own, that same crackle-bright hint of warmth and sharpness, while Summer’s pulse throbbed and trembled underneath his palm.
“Yeah,” Summer said, a low thrum turning his voice husky. “Just like that.”
Closer he stepped. Closer still, until he was a wall of heat at Fox’s back, this vibrant living thing trying to make Fox remember he was alive, too.
“Would it be so terrible?” Summer asked softly. “To kiss me just once per day. Operant conditioning works better with a reward.”
“I...” Breathing was so hard, right now, and Fox didn’t understand this feeling. “I refuse to answer that.”
“Shouldn’t it be easy to say no, then?”
He scowled. “You are baiting me.”
“Maybe a little.” Summer smiled sweetly, just a faint curve of his lips visible in the corner of Fox’s eye. “It’s not every day I get to make the man I was in love with for my entire childhood blush.”
Fox caught a strangled sound in his throat.
He was most certainly not blushing.
His face simply felt warm because of the rising sunlight, the heat chasing the last of the mist from the pond, the trees.
“If you are attempting to pique my pride, Mr. Hemlock, it won’t work.”
“I’m not.”
Then Fox felt something he hadn’t felt in decades:
Fingers in his hair.
Just the lightest touch, catching one of the damnable tendrils that would never stay in the clip, lifting it and making him shudder and tense with the prickling feeling of the strands moving against his neck, kissing his skin, then pulling back to leave him strangely deprived of touch, as if the sensitized flesh was achingly aware that it wasn’t in contact with...skin, warmth, texture.
“I’m just riding my bravery until it runs out.” Summer stroked his thumb down the strands captured in his fingers, handling them delicately. “Think about it, Professor Iseya. I’ll be ready for class tomorrow. Tell me then.”
Then: the feather-soft sensation of his hair free-floating, falling, drifting down to lay against his neck and coil over his shoulder again.
The quiet fall of footsteps, whispering and sighing against the grass.
The wild pounding of Fox’s heart, a drumbeat calling the day into existence.
He turned.
He turned, but Summer was already gone.
And already...
Already, the world was turning gray again.
Don’t miss Just Like That by Cole McCade, available now wherever Carina Press ebooks are sold.
Copyright © 2020 by Cole McCade