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)
Most faculty and staff offices were cramped, a hazard of an extremely old building designed in different times, and by someone with a penchant for small spaces; Rian had once heard—and maybe dug up in the dusty, crumbling library archives—that the sprawling main building had originally been constructed in the eighteen hundreds by an eccentric, wealthy family with the intent of housing multiple generations, from the closest brothers to the most distant cousins. But some unspeakable and thus unspoken tragedy had emptied the halls and begun the first rumors of hauntings and curses before, decades later, the manor had been bought, restored, and repurposed as a boarding house for laborers working the river industries on the Mystic. More tales; more histories imprinted the weathered boards, before time and changes in local business left more empty halls, more ghosts.
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.”