“That still doesn’t tell us what to do about Chris,” he said. “We have to do something.”
“Do we?” Damon frowned, folding his arms over his chest. “What if we’re overreacting? Chris is fucking sixteen, Falwell. He’s gonna do what sixteen-year-olds do. Skip practice. Duck out on teachers. Lie about it.”
“We have a responsibility to be sure that’s all it is, don’t we?”
“We do,” Damon agreed. “But we also have a responsibility not to—”
He didn’t know how to fucking explain it.
How having people hovering, always assuming that if you hadn’t done something wrong already, you would just because that’s who you were...
That could fuck you up just as much for getting shit for the things you actually did.
And sometimes it didn’t matter people’s good intentions when they just flailed around thinking they needed to fix things that didn’t need to be fixed just because it made them feel like they were doing something.
“Look,” he tried again. “Right now I think the best thing we can do is keep an eye on Chris. There are ways we can do it without making him feel like he’s in trouble for something. And if it looks like he needs help, we can do something more direct.”
“Or,” Rian said dryly, “we could ask him why he’s lying to us. I really prefer to confront lies with direct questions, Mr. Louis.”
Goddammit. That Mr. Louis got him gritting his teeth again. “Maybe if we were dealing with an adult or our own kids, yeah. But we’re Chris’s teachers. We overstep our bounds, and it makes a big mess. Lawsuit type of mess. Especially with the kind of parents we’re dealing with.”
“You think I care about money when a child’s safety is involved?”
“I think you’re the kind of person who doesn’t have to care about money,” Damon spat back without thinking. “Like you don’t have to give a shit about the consequences of whatever wild shit idea gets into your head, because you’ll be fine no matter what the fallout is to anyone else.”
Rian flinched as if he’d been struck, his restless fingers pausing against the paper, the crinkling stopping to leave only the shallow sound of his breaths. He slowly curled his fingers away from the wax paper, into his palms, staring down at them with wide eyes.
“That was cruel, Mr. Louis,” he said in a strained whisper.
Damon swore, closing his eyes and dragging his hand over his face until he muffled the curses against his palm.
What the fuck was wrong with him?
He didn’t lose his temper.
Ever.
But he’d been sniping at Rian all afternoon, and ready to explode at every tiny word he said.
This wasn’t like him.
And it wasn’t who he wanted to be.
“It was,” he grit out. “I’m sorry.”
Rian didn’t say anything.
Damon opened his eyes. Rian was just as stock-still as before, staring glassily down at his curled fingers; those spangles of golden light fell over him, turning him into a strange wild creature with dappled markings, the mane of tumbling black hair rippling down to his hips turning him into a slim golden jaguar, all black fur and subtly gleaming amber spots. He wasn’t just delicate, Damon thought. He was fragile. The kind of fragility that made certain types of men want to break him.
And certain types of men want to protect him, make themselves a shield so the crushing blows of life couldn’t break him apart as if he was as thin and easy to ruin as the panes of stained glass overhead.
Damon wasn’t in a position to be either.
But he could sure as hell stop being a jackass.
“I mean it,” he said. “I’m sorry. That was a shitty thing for me to say. I don’t even know you. I don’t get to judge you like that.”
“Apparently you do know me,” Rian said—so thick, so choked, it wasn’t hard to tell he was fighting back against letting that suspicious glossiness in his eyes turn into anything more. “You’re not wrong about me, you know. Spoiled little princeling playing at being a pauper. If I wanted to stop living in a cramped cubicle of a room and letting these boys run roughshod over me like I’m the hired help, I could go back home to Mommy and Daddy and my hired help anytime I want. So maybe I’m out of touch with reality. And consequences.” He lifted his head, then, looking up at Damon with wet yet so very defiant eyes, his mouth drawn stubbornly tight. “But I’m trying. That’s something, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” Damon said, and wondered what this lurching feeling in his chest was. “It is.”
They looked at each other for several endless moments—before Rian abruptly turned away, leaving Damon staring after him helplessly while Rian took a few shaky breaths, throwing his shoulders back and making his layered tunics ripple fluidly.
“It’s fine,” Rian said, his voice oddly cool—and Damon wondered if he’d turned his back so Damon wouldn’t see that his expression didn’t match those words. “Not the first time I’ve heard it. At least you didn’t call me a control freak.”
“Who...?”
He almost thought Rian wouldn’t answer, until he let out a rasping, short laugh, so very harsh, filled with enough self-mockery to drip in oozing spades. “Every man I’ve ever dated.”
Damon couldn’t help a small, sad smile. Rian looked like barely a wisp right now, as if he’d crumple at the slightest push, and Damon had to clench his fists to hold still against the urge to...to...
He didn’t know.
Maybe just...
Try to hold Rian up.
Just a little.
Anything to make up for how he’d kicked him down.
But he held himself in place, and only murmured, “You don’t have to tell me this. Not if it hurts. You don’t owe me shit. Not even explanations.”
“Maybe not,” Rian said, barely a sigh. “But maybe, if we’re going to deal with each other until Chris’s issues are resolved, I’d like to be understood anyway.”
Ah, Damon thought.
That, he could empathize with a little too damned much.
“So I’m guessing nobody you dated ever tried to get you, huh?”
A mirthless laugh, dark hair rippling. “No.”
“Sounds like you’ve dated some shitty men.”
“Maybe.” Rian’s thin shoulders moved restlessly as he folded his arms over his chest; the flared sleeves of his outermost tunic spilled down from his sides like a luna moth’s trailing tails. He tilted his head back, looking up at the glass-paneled ceiling, and Damon caught the barest hint of his profile; the delicacy of his upturned nose, the faint hints of freckles that almost seemed to glow in the dark, the way his eyelashes spread out in such distinct, fanning arcs until each black curve stood independent of each other. “They never seem shitty,” he said softly. “They just...seem like they need help. And I always think if I love them enough, I can help them. I can fix them. But it never seems to work, and then they need more and more, and then they resent me for it not being enough...and then I start to feel suffocated.” His voice broke. “And then I run, because I’m too insubstantial to carry that kind of weight.”