Just Like This (Albin Academy)

by Cole McCade

  Meant holding on to something hard enough that he could only feel loss, if he had to let it go.

  “I think, sometimes...” He stopped, swallowing, his mouth and throat dry. “Sometimes you meet someone, and you just know. This person could be everything...or they could goddamn well wreck you. Worse than anyone else ever could, because the feeling runs that deep.” So deep that when he curled his fingers more firmly in Rian’s, he felt like he could sense Rian’s heartbeat pulsing in his fingertips, echoing Damon’s own. “But you get so scared, you know? Fucking terrified of getting wrecked like that. So before you find out if it could be good...you run like hell from the chance that it could be bad. And if there’s nowhere for you to run, you fucking push. You push and push and push them away, so they can’t get close enough to hurt you in all the ways you know they could.” He let out that breath he’d inhaled, chest binding up tight. “And the whole damned time you’re hurting them in all the ways you never wanted to be, ’cause maybe for them...you’re the person who scares them, too.”

  That remained between them, the night still save for the distant murmurs of birds in the trees, the rustle of insects through the leaves. Then Rian shifted to lean against him, solidarity and understanding in the pressure of that thin shoulder against Damon’s arm.

  “Is that what we’ve been doing?” Rian asked.

  “Yeah. I think it is.”

  “Then...what do you want to do about it?”

  “Stop hurting each other.” Damon turned his head, looking down at Rian—and his mouth went dry for an entirely different reason as he took in how pretty Rian was, resting so easily and so trustingly against him. “We keep hurting each other trying not to want each other...so why’d we get so wrapped up in trying not to want each other, huh?”

  “Stubbornness. Pride,” Rian murmured. “Or maybe like you said...fear. But I already know the ways we can hurt each other. What do I have to be afraid of anymore?”

  “It could get worse,” Damon pointed out reluctantly.

  “Or it could get better.” Rian smiled—a small, wondering thing, and yet it pulled Damon’s heart on a string. “Nobody can hurt me the way you do because nobody makes me feel the way you do, Damon. Period.” He turned to face Damon fully, resting his free hand to Damon’s chest, that pale thing like a butterfly alighting, so fragile and yet seeming to anchor Damon to earth as Rian looked at him with his head cocked, that strange smile lingering. “So let’s stop pushing each other away...and start pulling each other closer. Admit it. When we stop fighting...we’re good together.”

  “I’m not gonna lie and say we’re not.” Damon slid his free arm around Rian’s waist, pulling him close, savoring how Rian came to him so easily, swaying against him. “You and me, the way we worked with Chris...makes us feel like we’re already family.”

  “And family’s important to you...isn’t it?”

  “One of the most important things in the world.”

  “Then I know what you’re saying, when you tell me I feel like family.” Rian leaned into him, resting his brow to Damon’s, so sweetly close. “And... I just...thank you. Thank you for...for giving that to me.”

  “Do you know what I mean, though? Do you really?”

  Rian’s brows knit; he drew back together just enough for hazel eyes to flick over Damon’s face. “Am... I missing something? Did I say something wro—”

  Damon stopped that train of thought short.

  And caught Rian’s chin between his fingers, drawing him up to kiss him.

  He’d only meant to kiss Rian quickly, lightly, anything to stop that clash of misunderstandings and worries that could spiral until they started stabbing at each other again and this gentle, quiet peace fell apart. But the moment he tasted Rian’s lips, he needed more.

  No—he needed everything.

  He needed this fractious, frustrating man who melted so willingly into his arms; needed the way Rian made him laugh, challenged him, worked with him so well that Damon never wanted to think of them working against each other ever again. He needed to shelter Rian, and protect him; needed the small and yet so potent, telling ways Rian tried to protect Damon, as well, telling Damon without words that Damon mattered to him.

  And Damon needed to matter to Rian.

  Needed to matter to this pretty mercurial thing as much as Rian mattered to him.

  And he kissed Rian as if he could imprint that on him; as if he could make Rian understand the things it was so hard for Damon to say sometimes, show him with every stroke of his lips and the soft touch of feinting tongues and the mingling of sighs that Damon... Damon...

  Fuck.

  He had to say it out loud.

  He had to say it, because it was too large to hold inside him and God, he couldn’t lock this up inside as if it was something to be jealously hoarded when it only meant something for him as long as it was shared.

  His entire body pounding with the rough beat of his heart, he drew back slowly, breaking that kiss and looking down at Rian’s glazed, glittering eyes; his pink-parted lips.

  “I’m saying,” Damon breathed roughly, tracing his thumb beneath Rian’s pale, sweet mouth, “that I fucking love you, Rian.”

  Rian blinked. Gasped.

  Then burst into laughter.

  Delighted laughter, warm as an embrace, his eyes lighting up so bright, the emotion in his laugh, in his smile, so unrestrained and true.

  “You couldn’t get that out without one more ‘fuck,’ could you?” he teased, his slender arms sliding up around Damon’s neck. That laughing mouth taunted, enticed, and Damon could tell the words it formed by the shape of them before Rian even said it—but Damon needed to hear it nonetheless as Rian shyly, quietly admitted, “... I do hope it’s been obvious that I love you too.”

  “In between calling me names.” Damon couldn’t stop grinning. How could he be anything but happy, standing beneath the pale moonlight with Rian in his arms and those words traded between their lips? “I don’t know how the hell we did this, Ri...but I been wanting somewhere to belong for so goddamned long, and somehow...somehow I found that in you.”

  “I’m glad,” Rian breathed, as he tilted his head up to meet Damon, to capture him, to draw him into that warm mouth for another kiss, another promise, another affirmation that made him blaze as if he’d been struck, and his heart had never stopped burning. “Because I can’t think of anywhere I’d rather belong than with you.”

  * * *

  Rian wasn’t exactly sad to say goodbye to Lachlan Walden.

  Oh, he felt slightly guilty that his and Damon’s decision to move in together had created a flurry of room reassignments, especially when things were still a bit of a mess after the Iseyas had moved in together before the summer—and Walden had somehow, in his own lottery system, drawn the short straw with that firebug Dr. Liu, and Rian had a feeling Walden would be missing an annoyance as minor as paint pots in the sink by the time Liu had set their suite ablaze for the tenth time.

  But any guilt vanished under the pure giddy pleasure at getting to stake out a space that was both his and Damon’s after months of flitting in and out of each other’s rooms, frequently stealing underneath Walden’s nose but more often than not holing up in the cozy space of Damon’s suite.

  Months of quiet stolen moments. Of kisses between classes. Of slipping off on weekends when they didn’t have RA duty to sneak a film in town, or dinner at the pub, or just driving until they found a place to camp and sleep beneath the stars. Of learning each other; of Rian learning how to draw Damon out of his silences with support and understanding rather than with frustration until Damon started opening up of his own volition, and of Damon learning how to coax Rian out of his anxious need to fix things that didn’t need fixing by sitting him down and talking him through his thoughts until Rian remembered to include Damon in the things he got himself so worked up about.
/>   Of falling deeper and deeper and love.

  And feeling more and more like they could rely on each other, as together they watched Chris Northcote get back on his feet.

  It hadn’t been easy. Not when deep fatigue left Chris with only limited hours in the day to catch up on his schoolwork or risk falling even further behind—but things had taken an infinitely more positive turn when Chris had shaken the last of his fears of punishment after word got around about Gordon Drew getting dragged out of his own bar in handcuffs and handed over to the county sheriff.

  And when Chris’s parents had finally responded, flown into town, and hired a private tutor to work with him in the infirmary until he was ready to return to class on his own terms.

  Rian had never known he could feel so proud of another person as he did of Chris.

  Or of Damon, when Rian doubted Chris ever would have found his way out of his mess if Damon hadn’t been so persistent in caring for him, and for all the boys in the school.

  More than once, Rian caught himself drifting off just thinking of how much he admired Damon—his effortless roguish charm, his blunt honesty, his fiercely kind heart, the strength that was born less of his finely-crafted body and more of his finely-crafted sense of empathy. And Rian realized he was drifting off now, lingering in the fourth-floor hallway just past the stairwell, a box of his books—and several of Damon’s mixed in, their collections intermingling, the Reluctant Royals covers peeking past the half-closed flaps of the box—propped on the windowsill while Rian gazed out the window at the late December snowfall, watching the flakes drift down on the mostly empty campus.

  Most of the boys had gone home for Christmas. Damon and Rian had both considered it, but realized that this year...

  This year, they’d rather spend it together, nurturing this quiet pocket of warmth they’d built around themselves and taking advantage of the post-semester room shifts to move in together. They could navigate the mess of crashing their families together another year.

  And Rian hoped there would be many, many years to come.

  Many years together.

  “Falling asleep on me already?” came from over his shoulder, rumbling and soft, right before heavy arms slid around his waist, squeezing briefly...right before Damon stole the box from him, lifting it over Rian’s head and away, hefting it easily. “Not fair, Ri. We’ve still got like, fifteen boxes of your art shit to go.”

  “It’s not art shit,” Rian spluttered, trying to sound offended and failing; laughing, he turned to trail after Damon, skipping to catch up to him as he treaded down the hall toward the open door of their suite. “It’s art supplies. I was just resting for a second. It’s heavy.” He reached up to tug at the box. “Give it. I can carry it.”

  “I already got it.” Damon bent to brush his lips to Rian’s cheek, the spill of his hair washing against Rian’s jaw, before Damon straightened with a rakish grin. “Can’t have you messing up them delicate artist hands.”

  “You’re so considerate.” Chuckling, Rian followed Damon into the whirlwind of their suite—boxes everywhere, so many of Rian’s unfinished canvases from the art room and his makeshift studio...including the unfinished painting of the lightning-struck tree, waiting for him to put the final touches on it and decide what to do with it.

  He stopped, then, lingering on it...and, propped next to it, Chris’s completed semester art project, the delicately painted wisteria almost lifelike in its intricate details. Rian smiled, brushing his fingers over the fired and glazed leaves and petals, then drifted to the canvas. Almost done, he thought...and he knew exactly what he wanted to do with it.

  And it wasn’t going in any gallery.

  He didn’t need to paint for other people.

  He was happy painting for himself...and teaching others who just might find that same joy in the scratch of the pencil, the smell of fresh paint.

  Happy here.

  Right where he belonged.

  As Damon hauled the box of books into their bedroom, Rian lifted his head, watching him until he disappeared past the door frame. “Do you want me to start unpacking? You’d be faster at bringing the rest up anyway.”

  “You just want me to do all the heavy lifting.” Damon’s thunderous laughter emerged from the bedroom. “But if you need a break we can swap out, sure.”

  “Maybe we could both take a break.”

  “...when you say that, I know we’re about to end up naked,” drifted through the door, rough-edged with a needy growl.

  Rian flushed. “Behave. I’m still sore from last night.”

  Damon’s only answer was another laugh, wicked and promising he’d only behave for so long, when he only ever behaved for so long—and kisses turned into touches, touches turned into more, and then they were breathless and locked together and moving in that tandem that stopped Rian’s heart and then taught it how to beat again.

  Fingers laced, bodies twined...

  And love on every breath, in every thrust.

  He caught himself drifting again, remembering how last night Damon had kissed him, held him to the bed with his thighs spread, made him whimper and beg; Rian’s lips tingled, and he touched them with his fingertips, breathed in slowly.

  And nearly choked on his next inhalation, as Damon’s voice spilled through the bedroom door again.

  “...hey, babe?” Damon asked, just a little too innocently. “How do you feel about kids?”

  Epilogue

  The football field smelled like fresh-cut grass and adrenaline, as Damon joined the others in the stands in rising, clapping, shouting their excitement up to the bright blue sky.

  But it wasn’t a game playing out on the field below the stands.

  Instead the broad, grassy green was a sea of chairs—and robes in the school’s deep violet colors, accented with gray. Over a hundred graduating seniors rose in a billowing wave of voluminous fabric, tossing up their purple caps, the silky silver-gray tassels flying as they cried out their excitement—whooping, cheering, some of them on the verge of rioting as they thrashed around like they were in a damned mosh pit.

  And right in the middle of them, Chris Northcote grinned, pumping his fist in the air before nearly throwing himself against his roommate Luke, the two of them chest-bumping and then shouting, knocking their clenched fists together.

  He’d made it.

  And Damon wasn’t the only one watching Chris with a sense of pride swelling his chest. Several rows down he caught sight of Mr. and Mrs. Northcote, their smiles warm, their eyes wet, both of them clapping so hard they looked like they had to be hurting their hands. He couldn’t blame them; Chris had fought his way through to earn every credit, every additional merit scholarship, and now...now he was graduating with a scholarship to a university program for young creative writers. Chris had earned his parents’ applause, and more.

  While right at Damon’s side...

  His husband wasn’t clapping, no.

  For all of Rian’s grand gestures and occasional theatrics, dramatics, engaging whimsy...

  He was amazingly quiet about the deep things. The powerful things.

  And he looked down at the field with a certain stillness that said the only way he could keep his emotions inside was to hold himself in place, barely even breathing and his hazel eyes glistening damply as he watched those billowing, fluttering figures move across the field.

  Damon wanted to hold his hand, more than anything.

  The problem was... Rian’s hands were already taken. A little brown hand in each, the twins clinging to him like tiny burrs; Nina and Nanette each had one hand in Rian’s and the other thumb in their mouths. At six they probably should have stopped sucking their thumbs by now, but at the adoption center during new parent counseling the social workers had told Damon and Rian that they’d likely need a little longer to grow out of certain regressive behaviors, and
to not worry for the first few years while they settled into the idea of stability and permanence in their environments.

  Damon understood that feeling all too well.

  And he also understood their younger brother, little Anton, and how he held himself just a little bit away, but close enough that he could tangle his fingers in the angular, asymmetrical hem of Rian’s loose, off-the-shoulder ombré tunic in mist gray and pale lilac.

  Damon didn’t know why he was surprised the children were just as enchanted by Rian as he was. In the six months since they’d come home, all three had taken to following Rian around like puppies, always grasping on to his shirt or long trailing necklaces or tumbling hair or even hooking their pinkies in his, just needing to be in contact. That feeling, too, Damon understood all too well, and for a moment he reached over to grip loosely at Rian’s wrist, feeling the thin fragile skin and the warmth of his pulse on the underside.

  Rian sucked in a soft breath, seeming to fall back into himself with a jolt, and glanced at Damon with a small smile that said a thousand things without a word. Leaning toward Damon, he bumped their shoulders against each other, then lingered with his slight weight resting warm and familiar against Damon’s side.

  “I know they’re all our kids,” he murmured, his voice catching with a thick burr. “But after everything with Chris...”

  “I know,” Damon said softly, and slid his fingers down over Rian’s wrist, into his palm; until his fingertips brushed Nanette’s small fingers curled against Rian’s hand, but also...

  Until his fingertips brushed against the warm weight of the slim gold band on Rian’s finger.

  Rian had been so very still on that day, too.

  When they’d stood on the shore of Whitemist Lake at dawn, just them and the priest and Rian’s parents and Damon’s parents and the tiny circle of teachers they called friends, Fox and Summer with their hands linked and their smiles knowing and fond. Damon and Rian had barely seen them, barely seen anyone but each other, and Damon had hardly been able to whisper I do for the swelling of his heart to fill his throat as he’d slid that slender ring of shining light onto Rian’s finger and felt it grow warm with the heat of his flesh.