Birds of a feather.
Maybe Merry and Chris would squawk together.
Not today, Rian thought.
He’d want to talk to Damon first, and maybe Damon—
He groaned, and pressed his forehead to the rim of his coffee cup.
It was really, really annoying how with almost everything today, his first thought went to Damon.
It makes sense, he told himself. This is both his problem and yours. It has been since he came looking for you. Chris is your student, too...and it’s easier to keep Damon in the loop than catch him up after the fact.
That’s all it was. Really.
He pushed the thought away as the bell rang, though, a fifteen-minute alert warning students to start cleaning up and teachers to get ready to return to class.
Rian nipped the rest of his sandwich down, tossed back the last of his coffee, and made his way back upstairs to his classroom with a renewed sense of purpose making his shoulders straight and letting him lift his chin high.
The rest of the afternoon passed uneventfully; in last period, Chris seemed back to his normal cheerful, determined self, completely focused on etching out the last fine details in the dry clay prior to the first bisque firing that would get the wisteria sculpture ready for proper painting. He didn’t even seem to notice Rian watching him.
But as soon as class ended, he was gone, barely stopping to wash his hands in the sink before he snagged his backpack and escaped out the door before anyone else.
And Rian had a feeling he wouldn’t find Chris anywhere in sight, when he went down to the football field.
Still...
He felt a sinking sense of disappointment when he was right.
Beyond the back of the school, past the little rowing pond they liked to call Whitemist Lake—or, more often, Isabella’s Lake, after the legend of the girl in the lake who granted lovelorn wishes—and through the trees was a little paved path of crushed white shells, worn and embedded smooth into the dirt by the passage of many feet. The afternoon was brisk and bright, the cool wan autumn sun reflecting off the white of the shells to turn them silvery, as Rian slipped down the path and through the last fringe of trees that tapered down toward the bottom of the hill.
From this high, the football field spread out in neat ordered rows of lines, surrounded by a chain link fence and flanked by the gleaming stacks of bleachers. The boys of the varsity and junior varsity football teams were just small figures darting quick across the field, their practice gear padding them out into dramatic shapes with bulky shoulders and small swift feet. They were running obstacle courses today, it looked like—tires set out in alternating rows that they minced through rapidly, bars they dove through to fit their bodies into narrow spaces and roll and tumble to their feet, padded dummies they slammed into to shove across the marked yard lines, the sounds of impact and their grunts of exertion carrying far on the crisp, cool, loamy-scented air.
And right there with them was a larger shape—not watching from the sidelines or calling out commands, but running drills right alongside them, his shirt stripped away to leave his scar-marked body gleaming bright and sinewy and taut with every movement of tight muscle beneath tawny skin.
Rian drifted to a halt at the foot of the hill, making his way to the fence and leaning his arms on the top bar just in front of the twisted upward-pointing prongs of metal; this early in autumn the afternoons were still warm despite the cool taste to the air, and the metal had soaked up enough heat for a pleasant burn to melt into Rian through the sleeves of his tunic. He’d wait, he thought, and not interrupt; not when they all looked so completely absorbed in what they were doing, although his chest ached to realize Chris really wasn’t there.
Especially when, watching Damon run the boys through the course over and over again...
He couldn’t imagine what could make Chris want to miss it.
Rian had expected something almost like military drills—harsh, barking, demanding the boys push themselves to the point of pain over and over again, less a sport and more a forced-march hardship that drove them to their absolute limits without mercy, without forgiveness.
Instead...
Damon encouraged them. Calling out to them when they tripped, telling them it was all right, jogging over to help a boy up and dust him off and make sure he hadn’t hurt himself. Clasped shoulders; murmured words that the boys hung on eagerly, looking at Damon as if he hung the moon and they’d follow him anywhere. There was a certain sweetness to it that Rian wasn’t expecting, as he watched the flash of white teeth when Damon laughed and shoved a water bottle at one of the JV sophomores, ruffling his hair and pushing him off toward the sidelines. The familiarity there...
It made Rian think not of a stern taskmaster driving his charges.
But of family.
Of fatherhood.
That was what Damon made him think of, with the gentle way his eyes lidded as he spoke to the boys, and a certain way of cocking his head that said I’m listening, and I hear you: a father with an entire brood of children, every last one of these boys his sons. His responsibility. His duty to care for, shelter, and guide as they made their way through the struggle of just...growing up.
And Rian wasn’t expecting the soft, almost painfully warm feeling that tightened in his chest and pulled to the point of aching deep, as he watched Damon line the boys back up—and then run the course again himself, showing them how it was done, flashing through the obstacles with lithe, powerful grace that made his athletic body flow and strain with a vibrant energy that seemed to glow through his burnished bronze skin.
Only to catch one of his sneakered feet on the inside edge of a tire and go stumbling forward, his corded arms windmilling and his hair falling across his face as he flailed to catch himself. He righted himself just short of falling, twisting agilely on one heel and raising his arm with a chuckle; the watching boys burst into laughter and good-natured jeers, shoving each other lightly. Rian couldn’t help smiling himself, pressing his fingers to his mouth.
Grinning, his full lips stretched broad with mirth, Damon pushed his sweaty, mussed hair back from his face and raised one arm. “First line, up!” he called.
Six boys separated out from the others, taking starting points at the end of the obstacle course, spaced out neatly and dropping down into crouches like runners at the starting block. They held themselves tense, nearly vibrating with youthful energy, each of them grinning with a touch of eagerness, competitive and bristling to start. Damon held his arm upright for several moments, watching them closely...before dropping his arm like it was the flag at a racetrack.
“Go!”
The six boys took off—diving from their starting points, racing forward to leap into the tire run, precise-sharp steps bouncing back and forth as they high-stepped through the openings in the tires, pushing themselves fast, darting glances at each other that made it clear they were checking to see who was in the lead, who was catching up, who was falling behind. It wasn’t hard to tell every last one of them wanted the best time. Wanted to win.