That startled a laugh out of Summer, quick but still enough to ease some of the tight feeling in his chest. “It’s not like you to be that indirect.”
“My father always told me I was too blunt. Perhaps I’m attempting to rectify that now.” But with a sigh, Iseya closed his eyes, lightly adjusting his glasses with his middle finger pressed against the bridge. “We should be discussing today’s lesson plan. Not being inappropriately confrontational with each other.”
“Kissing is already a pretty inappropriate conversation topic, so throwing in confrontation isn’t really that much worse.”
Iseya’s jaw twitched.
His finger slipped on his glasses.
And slid underneath one lens, nearly poking him in the eye with one gracefully squared, neatly manicured fingertip.
Iseya swore softly, squinting his eye up and pulling his glasses off, shaking them free from the loose tendrils of hair drifting into his face and glowering at the lens. “Why do you keep returning the subject to kissing?”
“Because I’m not sure what you meant,” Summer admitted. “You sent me that note, didn’t you? ‘Challenge accepted.’ This.”
He fumbled in his pocket, finding the folded slip of paper, setting it on the desk and unfolding it, smoothing his fingers over the crease. Some part of him wanted to touch Iseya so painfully bad...but when he couldn’t, he touched that note, paper that had been handled by Iseya’s fingers, as if the indirect contact could transfer.
And he looked up at Iseya once more, while Iseya stared down at the note with his eyes hard and haunted, as if it was some terrible ghost.
Summer swallowed against the lump in his throat. “But now you’re angry that I’m challenging you at all, even if it’s something for both of us. A reason for both of us to be brave. So I guess...” He took a shaky breath “I guess I’m asking if we’re doing this. If you agree. If you want to kiss me, Professor Iseya. Even if it’s just to see how Pavlovian I can be.”
Narrowing his eyes, Iseya pointed the arm of his glasses sternly at Summer. “I was not entirely serious about framing it as an interesting psych experiment, and that will not make me more agreeable,” he bit off, then sniffed, opening his desk drawer and fishing out a microfiber cloth. With brisk motions he wiped off the lens of his glasses, his richly full-lipped mouth firming to a thin line of dusky pink. “You are aware that this is highly unprofessional and may be frowned on by the school board?”
“Two adults engaging in consenting activity in private?” Summer smiled wryly. “It’s the twenty-first century, Professor Iseya. I really don’t think they’re scared the kids will catch the gay. And I don’t think you have to worry about losing a job you’re planning to quit.”
Iseya made an exasperated sound and tucked his glasses back on, hooking the arms over his ears delicately and then teasing his hair loose with a gesture so practiced and absent he didn’t seem to realize he was doing it. The strands that spilled loose fell down to disappear past the edge of the desk; Summer knew from years of watching him that those loose tendrils trailed nearly to his waist, but...
But Summer had never seen Iseya with his hair down, even once.
And he’d always wondered how long those trailing, dark locks really were.
He watched them with fascination as they fell to settle against Iseya’s chest, before a soft clucking of the professor’s tongue brought his attention back, and he dragged his gaze back up to find those gray eyes watching him with a mixture of frustration and weariness.
“What is this abrupt change that comes over you around me?” Iseya asked, his brows knitting. “You were never in any way so forward or bold before. And it’s not hard to see that you are entirely petrified of me, and yet still pushing yourself to these extremes in some bizarre attempt to connect with me.”
“I guess I changed more over the years than I thought.” Summer smiled faintly. “Or maybe I get brave when there’s something I want. I told you, there’s a point where my anxiety hits ‘fuck it’ levels.” He shrugged with a helpless laugh. “I guess I go from zero to ‘fuck’ in seconds around you. If it makes you feel any better, the second I walked away from you yesterday I hyperventilated.”
Iseya arched a brow. “Why would that make me feel better?”
“So you know your terrifying mystique and intimidating presence are still entirely effective.” Summer grinned. “Just not enough to scare me off anymore.”
“You’re serious about this, aren’t you?” Iseya shook his head slightly. “It’s not just about a kiss. You...actually want me. Is that the entire reason you took this position?”
“It isn’t even part of the reason,” Summer admitted. “I came back because...” He stopped, then exhaled slowly, admitting, “Because it was the path of least resistance. My mother needs more help at home, and the job opened up, and whatever I was looking for in Baltimore... I didn’t find it. So I came back here...and even if I don’t know what I want anywhere else...” His heart gave a hard wild thump, a leap, rising up through him like it would pour out of his mouth on every word. “...I found out that I want you.”
Iseya said nothing.
He only looked at Summer, frank and silent and unreadable, while Summer’s heart came plunging back down from its leap to wobble in the center of his chest, hovering and trembling and waiting to combust. It took everything in him to not flinch, to not lower his eyes, to meet that penetrating stare even though his breaths were coming shorter and shorter and he felt naked, with Iseya’s gaze locked on him so closely.
Naked, too exposed...
As if Iseya could see his quivering insides, and stroked his touch down them with a vulnerable and terrifying intimacy.
“What were you looking for in Baltimore?” Iseya asked softly.
Summer parted his lips, stopped, searched...
And realized he didn’t have an
