2. Arlo
I’m about to burst at the goddamn seams and take the world with me. How is everyone so fucking blind?
Wake up!
Look around!
I need fucking help!
No one notices.
Not the driver on the way over, not the useless secretary, not the stupid attendance clerk, or the shit-for-brains headmaster has noticed the all-out panic barely shuddered behind my resolute chin.
It’s okay. It’s okay. It’s okay.
I lie to myself. I’ve been doing it for a while now. Only today, if I can hold on to my shit, it just might be okay. Not okay okay, but better. A little better. I told myself that last month when we looked at another boarding school down the way. I told myself that two weeks ago when we drove to another.
He didn’t even let me out of the car there.
He. My hell. My uncle. My end. Geoff Parry.
On that trip, the headmaster took one look at my busted eye and frantically darting gaze, looked point-blank at my uncle, and asked how I’d come by that black eye. The bastard hadn’t bothered to answer. He simply crammed himself back into the narrow seat and ordered the driver to bring us home.
Home. Ha! More like a prison torture camp .
I follow these morons as the head dumbass prattles on about the school’s academic achievements as if my tormentor cares. No, the only thing he cares about, more than exerting his power over me, is making certain he gets the money. My money. I’ve told him time and again that he can have it all. I don’t want a dime. Not even two nickels to rub together.
I just want my freedom.
He’s promised to give it to me in the form of my death and no other way.
This boarding school. Any boarding school isn’t freedom. It’s a new prison. Where I doubt the guards will be much more sympathetic. But maybe, just maybe, they won’t be as big, and I can handle them.
We arrive at the main office. I fully expect my tormentor to drop this guy, grab me by the arm, and drag me back to the car. When he follows the headmaster in, I cannot believe it. I move in a fog with only Geoff in my line of sight.
He orders me to sit. So I do so as inconspicuously as I can. My fucking side is on fire. I’m pretty sure he cracked a rib. The fuckhead stalks into the headmaster’s office and closes the door like it’s his own.
That dog exited the chat the first chance he got. It’s the only smart one around here.
I ease back into the seat just a little. It’s hard and unforgiving, but less so than my fucking uncle. I set my bag at my feet.
The useless secretary is on the phone. I think about stealing it and calling someone, but there is no one to call. That’s the whole reason I’m here to begin with.
A sorrow that I haven’t felt in a long time grabs my broken heart and threatens to rip it out of my chest. I avert my eyes back to the door.
He’s running out of time. My parents’ will was shit for protecting me or their money. I don’t blame them. At least, I try not to. They hadn’t planned to leave me completely alone. One clause might save me, though. I have to be enrolled in grade school, then college. A small portion of their fortune has been set aside, earmarked in a trust for my education and my education alone.
“Are you okay?”
The voice is quiet. So quiet that I think I’m finally going insane. I let my gaze slip from the door to assess my surroundings.
My breath stops cold. My heart just fucking stops.
I think it’s okay. Finally, an angel has come to take me away from all this bullshit. Finally, I’ll be with my family. Finally, I’ll be away from this hell.
As much as I want to look at him, to map his features so I’ll have some friendly and caring visage in recent memory to cling to, I can’t. Too much is at stake. I steady my gaze on the door.
“No, you’re not.” The guy with the face of an angel answers his question.
My eyes go wide and shoot back to him.
He’s not an angel. He’s the devil who's come to taunt me. I’m so close to getting away from Geoff, and he’s going to ruin it by opening his big, pouty mouth.
“I won’t say anything.”
I blink at this guy and just stare. He’s around my age and about my height. He’s a lot thicker than me, though. Not hefty but muscled. I’m skin and fucking bones right now. Though the suit my uncle put me in today masks the worst of it.
This guy looks well-fed and like he works out. He’s about the size I was…before my world fucking crumbled under my feet. He’s a lot prettier, though. With long lashes and full lips that probably make girls jealous.
More than anything, his eyes scare me.
They’re deep and dark and see everything.
Sure, I want someone to notice, to raise the alarm, to save me, but not this kid. I need someone with authority. Someone with a gun. Hell, a whole army of weapons.
My chest goes tight, making it hard to breathe. They don’t have guns here. Not even the cops carry. This guy can’t stop my uncle. He can only make my situation worse.
“I won’t say anything,” he whispers again.
A lump forms in my throat. I nod and look away, blinking several times. The door somehow seems safer than looking into his eyes.
The secretary hangs up the phone. It makes an obnoxious sound that snaps our gazes to her. She looks at me. Her smile is pitiful, and her eyes pour with condescension. It has nothing to do with the abuse I’ve suffered at the hands of my uncle. She can’t see it, though it’s staring her in the face. She can’t see past the obvious. The lies my uncle told her and the headmaster.
“Sweetie, he can’t talk,” she tells the guy beside me. The expression she gives him is nothing close to the realm of pity. It’s flushed and enchanted. “What can I do for you?”
The guy’s knowing gaze slides from the secretary to me for a beat. There’s no trace of pity. There is more curiosity than I appreciate.
He looks at the secretary and does something with his lips that makes the woman gasp. It’s soft and only audible to the three of us.
My stupid fucking cock jumps. Heat rushes through my belly, rises up through my chest, and stains my cheeks. I’m sure of it.
Shame steals my breath.
“What do you want to do for me?” he asks casually, as though it’s not a wholly inappropriate thing to say.
“You’re going to get me in trouble.” She slaps the air between them.
“Cheers to that.” He grins, and she bites her pink lipstick lower lip.
I’m on the way to a full-blown erection. This guy is…he’s gorgeous, obviously, but there’s a deviant charisma to him that I’ve never experienced before. The secretary feels it. She looks ready to pull him in a back room and make his wildest dreams come true.
Apparently, I feel it too. Though it’s not directed at me.
Thank goodness.
I grab my side. Pain radiates through me, overruling any other reaction. My stomach pitches for a second, but I breathe through my nose, and the wave eases.
“I was sent to the headmaster’s office,” the guy states as though it’s no big deal.
“Were you acting up in class?” She shakes her pen at him like it’s going to do something besides get both our cocks up.
“I’m very naughty, Miss Booth.” The heft of his shoulder bobs in the dark navy blazer, lifting the school crest on the breast pocket. Just one side. Very nonchalant. As though the mere force of his presence isn’t doing strange things to my body.
I shift in my seat to feel my broken side once more, instead of the heat rushing through me again. This guy is a fucking…I don’t know what. A duality of spirits on my shoulders.
The angel. The devil.
“Yes, you are,” Miss Booth agrees.
The phone rings, and the secretary and I both jolt. The guy beside me does not.
“Willoughby Ridge Boarding School,” she chirps. Her forehead wrinkles. “Professor? Well, yes, I’ve been on the phone. It’s my job to answer the phone. Yes, he is.”
The secretary’s blue eyes find the guy beside me. The corners of his mouth turn up like he knows exactly what’s going on. I’m glad he does because I sure as hell don’t. I look at the door again. Thankfully, it’s still closed.
“No, not yet,” the lady says. “Headmaster Bridgeport is with a parent right now.”
I can’t fight the tremor that seizes me. It burns my side, twists my stomach until sweat coats my brow, and dims the edges of my vision. In the tunnel, all I feel is rage.
Parent?
Parent my ass.
“Are you sure?” Miss Booth bites her lower lip. “Right then. Sure, I will. Yes, I have it.” She hangs up and eyes the guy, who most definitely saw my reaction to her words. “Mr. Kido?”
“You may call me Hota.” He winks.
“Hota.” She licks her lips and swallows his name like a snack.
“Yes?” He gives her a smile.
“Your professor said you should not see the headmaster. You’re not in trouble.” She sets down her pen and sinks her hands between the cross of her legs. “He said it was just a misunderstanding.”
Hota tosses an arm over the back of the chair. The tips of his fingers come close to my shoulder. Too close. My insides twitch once more. “I understand perfectly.”
I’m sure he does.
The secretary can’t be more than twenty. She has no business working at a school where she’s the only source of straight male fantasy. Then again, I think she likes the attention. Her lashes bat, and she leans forward like she’s going to say something to the guy beside me.
The door handle to the headmaster’s office rattles. I’m already pretty fucking upright, but I straighten more. The secretary does too.
This little field trip has been an interesting experience. It will have to sustain me for the next few weeks. I know he’ll have found a problem with this place. He’s found a problem with them all.
He’s running out of time to get me enrolled, though.
I can’t listen to the tiny positive voice that has not yet been beaten out of me.
Hota straightens too, only more slowly than the rest of us. His eyes are on the door without looking in that direction. He’s slick, this guy. With the ladies, well, the only one I’ve seen in months. With making sense of the obscure. With everything, it seems.
The headmaster bursts out of the office with a jolly smile. “Well, Mr. Judge, welcome to Willoughby Ridge.”
Somehow, I school my features. I don’t jump from my seat and throw my fists in the air. Somehow, I manage not to say, “Oh my fucking lord! Thank you, sir.” Somehow, I give an almost smile and a sedate nod.
“Right then.” The headmaster claps. “Mr. Kido, perfect timing.” He points at the guy beside me. “You can show our newest student to his room. It will be your suite.” He swings his finger between me and the guy. “You two will share a bathroom, which might seem bad.” His gaze lands on me. He has no idea about bad. “But it’s better than the youngsters. Communal bathrooms.” His nose wrinkles.
“No problem, sir.” Hota stands and hoists his backpack onto his shoulder.
My uncle gets to the office door, looking like a bridge troll with his big shoulders and unsightly glare aimed at me over the headmaster’s shoulder.
The young guy steps imperceptibly to his left, placing himself between my uncle and me. He winks as though he shifted on purpose and motions toward the exit. “It’s this way.”
“Wait.” Geoff’s command rattles my bones.
I grip the arms of the wooden chair and hold myself completely still.
“I want to see your room,” he says, though I still can’t see him thanks to this guy, Hota.
Suddenly, everything inside me is in peril. If he…Here…
Moisture gathers in my stupid, traitorous eyes.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Parry, but parents and guardians are not allowed in the dorms ever and are only allowed on campus on specified visitation days.” The headmaster points at the only pair of boobs in the room. “My secretary will be happy to show you the layout of the room and some pictures, but I’m sure you’ve seen them on our website.”
“What kind of rule is that?” my uncle snaps.
“An insurance kind, I’m afraid.” Headmaster Bridgeport shrugs as though he’s not at all afraid. He really should be. “All boarding schools abide by the same rules. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be in business.”
I’ve never been so happy to have so few possessions. They’re all in my bag. All I need is the dismissal from my uncle.
The headmaster claps once more. “Okay, boys, get going and settle in. Hota will show you to the seamstress for your uniforms, then to the dining hall for supper. Make sure he gets to his classes tomorrow as well.”
“Yes, sir.” Hota nods, studying me.
I wait for my uncle to bar me from leaving. It seems like the whole room does. It’s a collective breath-hold.
Hota doesn't hold his, though. No, he leans over, picks up my bag, and nudges my knee with it, jerking his chin toward the door.
Without looking at my uncle, I stand and turn toward a future that has to be brighter than the past few months.
“Mr. Judge.” The secretary’s voice freezes that positive notion as well as the marrow of my bones. “Your key.” I hear the jingle before my neck can thaw enough to look in her direction. In my uncle’s direction.
“Got it.” Hota snatches the key from her grasp and gives her a smirk. “Thank you for your help, Miss Booth.” Then he turns and ushers me out the door.