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)
“Yeah,” Luke answered, miserable and low, sinking down so far in the chair he was barely head and shoulders above the table. “He won’t spill. He just begged me not to rat him out.”
“You’re not ratting, you’re trying to protect him,” Rian said. “But when does he do his homework? His grades haven’t been slipping in other classes, and there are no missed assignments in his records. And when does he sleep?”
Damon grunted. “You’ve seen him. I don’t think he is sleeping.”
“No, uh...” Luke made an odd sound under his breath, dragging it out long and low. “He, uh, he does his homework before class, I guess. I usually wake up and he’s, y’know, grinding out at his desk in our room. But he, um... I can show you where he sleeps.”
Blinking, Damon paused. “...wait. Where?”
Wrinkling his nose, Luke pushed his chair back and stood, his body slumped forward as if these confessions were a heavy weight bowing him down; he shoved his hands in his pockets and shuffled toward the door. “C’mon.”
Damon exchanged a confused look with Rian, before they both pushed away from the desk—and for a moment both stopped and stared down at their interlaced hands. Damon wasn’t sure which one of them pulled away first, but Rian’s face went red as a damned sunset, and Damon probably wasn’t much better when his own felt so fucking hot. After an awkward moment, they looked away from each other, and trailed Luke out into the hall.
They didn’t have to go far. Luke led them just a few doors down to the room Dr. Liu had currently been assigned for chemistry classes—one of the corner units with the most windows, because more windows meant venting smoke out more quickly. Liu wasn’t there at the moment, but the room was unlocked, and with a furtive glance Luke pushed the door open before flicking the light on and making a beeline for the supply closet door in the far corner.
Damon frowned.
What the hell was going on here?
He got his answer when Luke pushed the door open and stepped inside, turning on the dusty, swinging overhead lamp and flooding the long, narrow room with illumination. Most of the room was taken up by shelves and shelves of beakers, test tubes, pipettes, safety goggles, bottles of chemicals, any number of other classroom supplies.
But in the back, a broad, deep bottom shelf had been emptied out.
And a nest had been built there, as if the shelf was a bottom bunk piled with pillows and a rumpled mess of blankets.
Rian drifted deeper inside, leaning around Luke to see, while Damon hovered in the doorway.
“This is where he’s been sleeping?” Rian asked, voice hushed, aghast.
“Yeah,” Luke admitted guiltily. “When he skips practice, he hides in here to get some sleep.”
“...what is with people in this school repurposing supply closets?” Damon muttered, if only to deflect from his own mounting horror, and Rian flashed him a flat look, before sighing and lightly touching Luke’s arm.
“Come with us,” he said. “You’re not in trouble, just... I need your help for a little bit longer, Luke.”
Luke paled, his rich brown skin turning ashen. “What? Why? Where are we going?”
“To do something about this,” Rian said firmly, hazel eyes dark as they locked on Damon. “And talk to Assistant Principal Walden.”
* * *
Even living with Lachlan Walden, Rian had always felt a certain fear around him—or if not fear, at least a healthy respect for his authority, his icy temper, and a certain cold quality around him that said maybe, just maybe, he had killed a man or two in his past life before taking on the role of a boys’ school assistant principal.
But that fear, respect, trepidation evaporated completely as Rian marched his little coterie right up to Walden’s office, and rapped his fist sharply against the door with Damon hovering over one shoulder and Luke nearly hiding behind the other.
Rian was done tiptoeing around Walden’s expectations.
Chris was stealing two or three hours of sleep a day on a shelf in a closet, for hell’s sake.
They should have intervened before it got to this point.
And he wasn’t taking no for an answer.
After a brief moment, Walden’s chilly voice floated through the door. “If you’d like to stop attempting to break the hinges off,” he said, “you may enter.”
Rian glanced over his shoulder at Luke. “Wait out here,” he said. “We’ll call you when we need you.”
Luke sighed. “Seriously, man? Walden? You tryna get me killed?”
“Nobody’s getting killed here,” Damon said, smiling without much humor. “Not if I have anything to say about it.” Then his hand pressed, warm and firm, against Rian’s back, his voice lowering as he bent in close, words kept between them. “It’s okay. I’ve got your back.”
Those words calmed the angry jitters under Rian’s skin more than he had ever thought possible.