Until, around the early twentieth century, the estate had been bought one last time and remodeled into a boarding school for boys; some whispered the first founder, Marietta Albin, had established the school as a place to exile her own delinquent sons to shape them up into proper responsible adults, and it had grown from there.
Into what it was today: a secret haven for the rich and spoiled.
Where Lachlan Walden seemed to be having a touch of trouble fitting in, because he seemed even more harried and stressed than usual when he glanced up over his rimless glasses, the glint of frost-blue eyes just as sharp as the precision-cut edges of his lenses. Walden’s navy blue suit was perfectly pressed, his platinum blond hair swept back with such neatness it bordered on militant and was most certainly TRESemmé. But a subtle jumping tic in his clenched jaw gave him away—paired with an echoing twitch of one eye, giving him a skeptical look as he studied them both.
Before letting out an exasperated sound and gesturing to the two simple hardbacked chairs opposite his plain wooden desk. “Sit. Talk. Which student?”
Rian slid into the room quickly—and told himself it wasn’t to get away from the oppressive heat of Damon filling the space so close to his body. “You’re that certain we’re here about a student?”
“There is absolutely zero reason for both of you to be in my office if it isn’t about a mutual student.” Lachlan folded his hands together atop the open file folder on his desk. “I said sit. And close the door behind you.”
Rian expected Damon to snarl at the assistant principal the same way he snarled at Rian.
But instead, while Rian claimed the chair farthest from the door and crossed his legs, folding his hands... Damon just stepped quietly inside, pulling the door closed before levering himself down in the other chair. He sat with his legs spread wide, a casual slouch of masculine arrogance, and propped his elbows on his thighs, looking at Lachlan steadily over his laced knuckles.
His hands were so large, Rian thought absently. Perhaps proportionate to his body, but it was still jarring to realize how thick and square his fingers were, blunt, the nails clipped short, the creases in the knuckles deep; Rian found his own fingers itching for a sketchpad and a pencil, and curled them tighter in his lap against the urge to steal a pen from the holder on Lachlan’s desk.
He had a feeling that might get him fired.
Or possibly murdered.
“Staring at me again,” Damon drawled, almost under his breath, then launched on before Rian could let out more than a strangled, embarrassed noise, his pulse skipping. “We’re here about Chris Northcote.”
“Ah. Our sophomore football virtuoso, is he not?” Walden swiveled his office chair toward the laptop perched to one side of his desk; he tapped over the keyboard with swift precision, his spine perfectly straight. “No detentions. No behavioral demerits. Grades in order. No violations of the residential code. What is the problem with young Mr. Northcote, then?”
Damon didn’t say anything, and Rian realized he was waiting for Rian to fill in.
So Rian took a deep breath—why did he feel like he was in trouble, called into the principal’s office for playground brawls?—and said, “He’s been missing football practice. Which is strange enough in itself, but when last bell sounds he tells me he has to run or he’ll be late for practice; practice he never attends. And when questioned about it, he told Mr. Louis he’s been staying late to work on art projects. Except he hasn’t. I’m in the art room well into the evening. Chris is never present.”
Walden’s typing stopped. He flicked them both a look over the top of the laptop. “Has he missed any assignments? Performed poorly in any classes?”
Rian faltered, then shook his head. “He’s doing fine in art.”
“Fine in gym,” Damon said after a moment—slow, reluctant. “He’ll probably be fine on the team if he starts showing up before we really get past pregame season and into the first matchups.”
“So...” Lachlan drew the word out with icy impatience, as if highlighting every second of his time wasted. “You’re here because a student decided he didn’t want to participate in optional extracurricular activities, and wasn’t honest about it. It’s not affecting his grades, or his eligibility for AP college credits in his advanced classes. In other words, your pride is wounded that your prize student isn’t as interested in being your pet project as you are in having him.”
Rian spluttered. “That’s not it at all!”
“Don’t be a jackass, Walden,” Damon grunted—and Rian tried to suppress his faint flush of pleasure. At least they were on the same page with this. “You know he’s here on scholarship. He fucks up in football, that’s his funding yanked.”
“That’s a problem for him, his parents, and the finance department,” Walden retorted. “Gentlemen, are you aware of what sort of school this is?”
“Last I checked, it was the hallowed halls of privileged horseshit,” Damon growled.
“And if you don’t like it,” Lachlan Walden replied without missing a beat, “you are free to find a job anywhere else.”
He swiveled away from the laptop to face them once more, steepling his fingers into points, staring at them with the unblinking gaze of a serpent over their tips.
“At Albin Academy, we are not like other schools,” he bit off—every word a drop of ice, frozen precision with razor edges. “The parents of the boys we teach have very exacting demands of us. Don’t damage their precious sons...and don’t let their precious sons damage their reputations. There is a reason hardly anyone has heard of this school, and we prefer to keep it that way in the interests of respecting parents’ privacy. That means if—” he folded his fingers back, leaving only one sharp index finger extended, but it sure as hell felt like a middle finger, “—you have a problem with one of the students, particularly one that could impact his eligibility to attend, you find me evidence that an infraction has been committed so that we can bring it to his parents. Please keep in mind that most of our parents send their children here to forget they exist. And they don’t take kindly to us reminding them without good reason.”
Rian stared at him. He didn’t know if the vile taste in the back of his throat was horror or disgust; he just knew he didn’t like it. “That’s terrible. It’s heartless.”
“On the contrary.” Lachlan lowered his hands to fold them atop the file folder once more. “It’s the kindest we can be, at times. Would you want to be reminded that you’re lost and forgotten? Would you want your caretakers contacting your parents about your problems at school, only to be reminded by their indifference that they simply do not care?”
Rian didn’t know why that hit so hard.