Just Like This (Albin Academy)

by Cole McCade

Including basketball, as he shadowed the boy dribbling and used his own body to block anyone trying to intercept as the dribbler continued his determined drive down the court...only to suddenly dive to one side in an unexpected backhand pass that went shooting straight toward Chris.

  Chris twisted through the tangles of players to catch the ball smoothly right before it hit the floor. He had a chance to steal the glory, then, open for a layup that would end the game.

  And instead he doubled back at the last minute, and shot the ball to gangly, mousy Jimmy who usually disappeared among the other boys and was always last pick for the team. Jimmy caught the ball in a fumble, blinking owlishly, before Chris caught his eye with a grin and jerked his head toward the basket. With a borderline squeak, Jimmy darted forward, dribbling a few steps while Chris positioned his tall frame to guard him, flawlessly blocking every attempt to smack the ball from Jimmy’s hand while Jimmy set up for a shot.

  Just a pause. A moment when it wasn’t hard to tell Chris’s team was already groaning, setting up for a loss, while Jimmy took aim, bending his knees...and sent the ball sailing. It hit the backboard, bumped the rim, and two dozen hearts hammered all at once, filling the air with tension like anticipatory drumbeats.

  Before it went whooshing down through the net, and Chris’s team swarmed Jimmy, shouting and grinning and shoving him with careful, playful affection while he laughed, eyes wide and dazed as if he couldn’t believe he’d done that.

  Because Chris set him up for it, Damon thought.

  Because it was just like Chris to notice how often Jimmy was left out.

  Damn it.

  Last point. Game over; time to break, get them into the showers, and send them off for lunch. Damon let his whistle shrill over the court again, then jerked his head at the boys who’d benched it on the bleachers to work on homework, excused for medical reasons. The basketball players broke apart, laughing and shoving lightly at each other; Damon caught Chris’s name in a little good-natured ribbing, when anyone who ended up on the opposing team in gym class usually knew they were going to lose.

  Luke.

  The name popped into Damon’s head as he watched the boys straggle toward the locker room and disappear inside. Chris’s roommate was Luke Maddow. Fourth period gym, after lunch.

  Cornering Chris’s roommate was probably too obvious.

  But Damon could at least keep an eye on Luke, and watch for any obvious tells.

  He ducked into his office adjacent to the locker room, just so he could listen for anything like he always did—hazing, fights, he liked to give the boys their privacy to change but keep an ear out for anything he needed to break up. He had a stack of permission slips on his desk for this year’s JV enrollment, parents—or more likely harried, overworked personal assistants—giving their consent and paying gear fees, providing emergency contact information, a few other necessary technicalities. Damon passed the time flicking through and checking them for accuracy, only half listening while everyone wrapped up and started filing out before the bell rang for lunch.

  Until he caught the sound of Chris’s voice drawing closer, in tandem with that Clark kid’s, while Jimmy trailed in their wake like a little duckling, watching them with starry eyes. He couldn’t make out what they were saying, but Chris looked completely relaxed, casual, his eyes lit up with amusement at whatever Clark had said to make him laugh and gently thump his fist to the smaller boy’s shoulder.

  But Chris’s laughter vanished as Damon stood from behind his desk and flicked his fingers. “Northcote. Can you stay a minute?”

  Chris paused, exchanging looks with Clark, before Clark gave him that look every boy between the ages of ten and eighteen knew far too well:

  You’re in it now.

  Shaking their heads, Clark and Jimmy escaped quickly, cutting out into the gym, while Chris lingered for a hesitant second before plastering on a smile. “Sure, Coach,” he said, angling through the door of Damon’s office. “What’s up?”

  Damon settled to lean against his desk, folding his arms over his chest and studying Chris. He looked normal, maybe a little tired; was Damon reading too much into that hesitation, or into Chris’s easy smile? Damon had called him and several of the other players over after class for any number of reasons—ranging from talking about how they felt about upcoming games to something about their gear, and the boys were so used to it by now that they always came to him without hesitation. They rarely thought of him as a teacher; as someone who could get them in trouble. They just thought of him as Coach.

  So why was there a certain wariness behind Chris’s smile, as if suddenly he saw not Coach Louis, but Mr. Louis, and the threat of discipline and punishment dangling over his head?

  You’re imagining it.

  You and Falwell got this idea in your heads that something’s up, so now you’re looking for something that isn’t there to settle this uneasy feeling inside you.

  He wasn’t sure how to approach this, anyway. He wasn’t any fucking good at prodding for information, dissembling, that kind of thing. So he just decided to go straight up with it, and asked, “You gonna make practice this afternoon?”

  No—he sure as hell wasn’t imagining the way Chris’s eyes darted to the side, and the guilty flush in his cheeks. Chris parted his lips, but didn’t say anything; he just made an odd sound, then turned his head aside, rubbing his hand to the back of his neck.

  “Maybe...?” he hedged. “I don’t know. I’m not feeling that great. Might need to bench it.”

  “Yeah?” Damon drummed his fingers against his inner arm. “You been in to see the nurse?”

  “Not yet,” Chris answered almost too quickly. “I just, you know, started feeling a little weird during the game. Want to wait and see how I feel. Might’ve just gotten overheated, you know?”

  The thing with kids was they couldn’t fake casual if somebody fucking paid them—and Chris’s attempt at casual, with his wide, easy grin and steady fixed stare, instead made him look like someone smiling at gunpoint.

  Damon just eyed him, then sighed, looking away. “You sure you ain’t staying to work on that art project? I saw it. Falwell showed me. That wisteria tree. You’re damned good, kid.”

  Chris made a soft, choked sound; that smile turned to a frozen grimace. “Oh...you...you talked to Mr. Falwell?”

  “Talk to him all the time.” Well...since yesterday. “Faculty meetings. Lunches. That kinda thing. You got a problem with me talking to Falwell, Chris?”

  Say it.

  Just come clean with me, kid.

  But Chris only let out a forced laugh that pitched his voice up by a whole damned octave, and shook his head. “Nah. Mr. Falwell’s nice. He’s been helping me a lot with the fine details, ’cause it’s really hard with something that delicate.”

  There’d been a certain light in Rian’s eyes, when he’d talked about the things he’d made. Subtle, but there: like candleglow in a dark room, that brightness so small and yet standing out like a scream against so much empty nothing.

  That light wasn’t there, when Chris talked about the sculpture project he was supposed to be so invested in; invested enough that he’d skip practice to work on it.

  In fact, he didn’t sound interested at all.

  Damon sighed. “Once you’re done with that thing, you gonna start showing your face again? We’ve got our first home game in two weeks.”

  “Sure,” Chris said, nodding quickly. “I don’t wanna miss the game, Coach.”

  He said it the same way he talked about the wisteria sculpture.

  Perfunctory. No interest, just the words he was supposed to say.

  Something was definitely going on here.

  He stared at Chris for several hard moments. Talk to me, Chris. ’cause you miss too much more practice, and you’re off Walden’s grace period and off the team. Not my rules. And then there goes
your scholarship.

  But he couldn’t bring himself to say that.

  Chris had to know the stakes.

  Damon grinding it in was just...

  Threatening him. Muscling him. Trying to scare him, just to force Chris to fess up about what the hell had him being so weird.

  And that wasn’t Damon’s style.

  He’d just...have to make it clear his door was open—and hope Chris would take that invitation when he was ready, because Damon had the feeling right now that if he pushed too hard, Chris would run without looking where he was going. Something was wrong here. Off.

  The way Chris swallowed and licked his lips nervously.

  The way his pulse ticked against the hollow of his throat.

  The way his eyelashes trembled, and he didn’t blink, his eyes so very wide, their muddled green-brown shade stark.

  Chris was afraid.

  And Damon didn’t want him to feel like there was nowhere he could turn without someone to be afraid of.

  But damn it, what was scaring him so bad?

  “Coach...?” Chris said into the silence, his voice cracking, and Damon shook himself from his scrutiny, relaxing.

  “Sorry,” he said, shaking his head, and dredged up a smile. “Let me know when you’re done with your project. Love to see it in color. You really are good at that shit.” He tossed his head toward the door. “Go on. You don’t wanna miss lunch. Heard they broke out the lemon meringue today.”

  “Yeah?” Chris lit up as if the entire conversation had never happened, and he grinned, bouncing on the balls of his feet, sneakers squeaking lightly on the tile. “Gotta run, then.”

  “Because pie?”

  “Because pie.” The kid took a skipping step away, then raised a hand in a backward wave as he ducked out. “Later, Coach!”

  “Yeah,” Damon sighed, watching as Chris disappeared, the last sight of him the flick of the zipper tag on his backpack. “Later.”

  Once he heard the gym door bang closed, though, he sank down until the desk’s edge pushed his shirt up to bite into the small of his back. Burying his face in his hands, Damon groaned.

  Dammit.

  That had been useless as hell.

  He’d just have to try again tomorrow, and hope that Chris would trust him enough to talk. Something.

  Because something was going on. Damon had no doubt of that now, after those furtive responses; after the way Chris had avoided his eyes. Kid really couldn’t lie worth a damn. And Damon hated that Rian might be right:

  The only way to handle this was a direct confrontation.

  And hope the fallout wasn’t worse than whatever had that kid acting so damned squirrely.

  * * *

  Rian should probably be paying more attention to what his class was doing.

  By last period, he was usually almost as worn out as the kids, but managed to hold up enough to put a good face on things and stay sharp enough to maintain control over restless, noisome teenagers who just wanted to be done with the day. Not always easy, when he was basically giving them a playroom full of messy, often sharp toys to play with, and all it took was one moment of inattention to look up and find someone giving themselves a forearm tattoo with an X-Acto knife dipped in a little ground well of sumi-e ink, or a bunch of boys daring each other to stick their arms into the kiln without touching the super-heated inner walls.

  Maybe because they were barely a few weeks into the school year, though, the sophomores of last period were unusually well-behaved today; probably still adjusting to being back on a regimented schedule, and too drained to do anything but drowse over their sketchbooks and the individual semester projects they’d decided on.

  Which left Rian free to drift off, alternating between one of three things:

  Staring out the windows at the yellow-bright shimmer of leaves just beginning to turn, remembering the bright orange of leaves turning in Rochester but trying not to think about anywhere in particular at all.

  Sketching on the open pad settled next to his right hand, catching the flow of a shoulder, the ridge of an abdominal muscle, the way sweat turned glossy black hair into slick, dense ribbons that curled to points at the tips, and not thinking about anyone in particular at all.

  Or watching Chris Northcote from under his eyelashes, trying not to be obvious—although Chris himself didn’t seem aware of anything in particular at all.

  Chris sat at the little back table he’d claimed, his tall frame ill-fitted for the small chair and workspace, but he perched there as if he didn’t mind in the slightest; in fact, Rian wasn’t wholly sure Chris even knew where he was, when he just...stared at his dried sculpture, the little wire brush he’d been using to smooth a few spots for finishing and texturing touches before bisque firing and painting just...dangling from his fingertips.

  He looked so tired, Rian thought.

  Tired, and like something weighed heavily on his shoulders, slumping them forward until his back made a half-moon curve.

  Even as Rian watched, Chris drooped over to rest his elbows on his knees, his hands falling to dangle limply between them, the wire brush just barely held on in his fingertips.

  Rian worried his teeth against the inside of his lower lip. Should he say something? Not now, not when the classroom was so quiet and the other boys would notice him singling out Chris; he’d just make the boy clam up out of embarrassment. But if he could catch him after class, maybe have a heart to heart conversation, tease out whatever was bothering him...

  As if he had any talent for that.

  Maybe he should ask their newly-minted guidance counselor for some advice. That might be why Walden was being so hard on Rian and Damon about Chris; his pride was still stinging after Summer Hemlock—Summer Iseya, the change was still so new—had apparently circumvented his authority and the school’s rules to get the parents involved in a bullying situation during last year’s spring semester, and then managed to finagle his way from a role as his then-fiancé’s in-class assistant to a position as guidance counselor.

  Rian smiled faintly.

  Walden was too caught up in his rules, he thought, and wondered how the man could live like that, caging himself that way. Rian would break, would run, if he had to keep himself so locked up.

  Wasn’t that why he’d ended up here?

  Am I really doing anything better than being that spoiled little princeling, now? he thought. Isn’t this just running away from my problems?

  What problems do you even have, Rian? the nasty little voice of his self-doubt hissed into his ear; this wasn’t that syrupy loving voice, no, but the two said the same things in different ways. Your biggest problem is that you don’t have any problems...and you don’t know what to do with yourself.

  He closed his eyes, pushing that thought away.

  That was why he was here, really.

  Trying to figure out what to do with himself.

  Trying to figure out how to rely on himself, when he’d left behind his trust fund, his—everything, barely kept contact with his parents, lived only on what he worked for.

  What do you mean, you’re leaving, dearest? Why? Where will you go? A troubled look that had seen right through him as if he wasn’t even there, just translucent, insubstantial, meaningless. You don’t mean to stay with that man, do you? Which one? Oh, I don’t remember, they all do blend together, but...

  Rian, darling boy, what will you even do?

  What would he do.

  When the real question had been, What can you even do?

  Yet he still remembered the day he’d gotten his first paycheck.

  He hadn’t even set up direct deposit yet, because he’d—God, he’d been so sheltered he hadn’t realized he’d needed to, when up to that point he’d been living on the last of the cash he’d withdrawn before leaving home in Rochester and just...

&nbs
p; He didn’t even know.

  He was trying to live as if he didn’t come from anywhere; as if he’d just sprouted up here out of nowhere, with no ties to a hollow and meaningless past, to a life as shallow and empty as the life of a mayfly. Living just to be a pretty thing, mate, and die.

  Was he doing anything more now?

  He didn’t know.

  But he still remembered the pride of earning that first check, the memory of every day struggling to pretend to be a responsible adult these boys could look up to until suddenly, somehow, it wasn’t pretending anymore. He’d made the bank teller at the little Chase branch down in town look at him very warily, edging away from him, with how excited he’d been to open a new account in his own name.

  And then what, Rian?

  Is this far enough? Have you done enough?

  That time it didn’t come in the voice of that nasty little voice in his head that liked to tell him how flighty, shallow, useless he was; nor in that soft, cloying, patronizing voice that sounded like a pat on the head every time she said Really, dearest?

  That time it came in the voice of Damon Louis, smoldering brown eyes staring into him and peeling him apart and tossing out all the pointless bits of fluff that were the closest things Rian had to substance, asking him what he’d ever done with this life of merit that made him feel he had the right to charge into others’ lives and try to fix things.

  Was that all he was?

  So useless on his own that he could only find merit in himself if he tried to fix others’ problems? He—

  The sound of the last bell yanked him from his maudlin circling, and he jerked his head up, sucking in a breath. Had he really just spent the entire class period brooding, caught up in a pointed and extended anatomical study of his own damned navel?

  Apparently so.

  Because the classroom was already vacating, students pouring into the hall like someone had let the gate up on the little animals’ pens.

  And Chris was already out the door, his tall frame standing head and shoulders above the rest.

  Crap.

  So much for catching him after class for a talk.