“Yeah.” Summer smiled wistfully. “I’m...sorry I made you angry. Guess I didn’t earn that kiss after all.”
“We shall call that one free.” And Iseya actually chuckled—a soft-vibrating sound of sand and sugar and dark chocolate, a thing that seemed to stroke over Summer’s skin, shaking him gently with the movement of Iseya’s shoulders. “Are you really so very desperate for a kiss from me that you will step head-first into an anxiety attack?”
“Does that really piss you off so much that you’ll actually let me make you angry?”
“It confuses me,” Iseya said, a note of frustration in his voice. “I don’t understand what makes you so persistent.”
“Then you don’t understand what I like about you.”
How could Summer stand here in Iseya’s arms, listening to the lulling rhythm of his heartbeat, and say these things so simply, so easily, as if they were intimate secrets between them...
But he couldn’t even introduce himself to a class of teenage boys?
It didn’t make sense.
But somehow, around Iseya...
Everything made sense.
Everything felt right, and calm...as if Iseya’s steady calm was an aura that soothed the entire world around him, settling the ripples of the pond of life into calm stillness.
And Summer wanted to hold on to it for just a little while longer, before Iseya iced over again and pushed him away.
But Iseya only sighed, his chest rising and falling heavily underneath Summer’s cheek. “Very well, you bizarrely impudent monster,” he said flatly. “I will agree to your...utterly nonsensical terms and conditions.”
Summer couldn’t help a laugh—until it sank in what Iseya meant, and that laugh choked off in his throat as he lifted his head sharply, staring up into mercury-silver eyes.
Mercury-silver eyes that glimmered with something other than cold contempt or irritated disdain, though Summer couldn’t quite tell what it might be.
Not warmth, maybe, not yet.
But perhaps...
Curiosity.
“You...mean it?” he asked breathlessly, his entire body alight with soft-touch prickles, tingles, little spark-feelings all over every inch of his skin, spark-feelings that turned into a burn where his body pressed against Iseya’s, where Iseya’s hands rested against his back. “One kiss for one brave thing each day?”
“On one condition,” Iseya said sternly, and pressed a finger to Summer’s lips, stopping his question before it could start. That fingertip was subtly roughened, as if weathered by years of paper cuts and turning pages in soft slow reverence and the pressure of pens and pencils against it, its texture subtle and sensuous against Summer’s mouth.
Summer swallowed thickly, waiting.
Waiting, and hoping that condition wouldn’t dash his hope before it could flutter more than a few inches from his tightening chest.
“Pace yourself,” Iseya said, eyes narrowing, mouth setting in that commanding line Summer was so familiar with—and that made his entire body turn melting-hot with that desire to obey. “You have a year to learn to lead a class. You don’t have to give yourself an anxiety attack diving in on the first day. One moderate task that you feel is within your limits each day, but that is more than you would do unprompted. And I choose when and where we kiss. Are we understood?”
Summer’s eyes widened.
Was...was Iseya using Summer’s own desperate, needy wanting to get him to moderate and manage his anxiety?
He almost laughed.
Almost laughed, this bright thing inside him just growing brighter, because in its own way...
In its own way, it was terribly, wonderfully sweet.
And he didn’t understand how Iseya could do things like this, and then wonder why Summer liked him.
“Understood,” he promised—and kissed the fingertip pressed against his mouth, only to earn an absolutely disgusted look as Iseya drew his hand back sharply. Summer wrinkled his nose playfully. “That didn’t count.”
“It most certainly counted, and you’re lucky I’m feeling lenient or I’d make you forfeit tomorrow’s kiss for it.” Iseya huffed, turning his face away, glaring down the hall—before reluctantly sliding gray eyes toward Summer from the corner of angled lids, watching him through the fringe of long, straight lashes that swept downward rather than curling. “You will tire of this game soon, Summer. You will tire of me. And then we can resume a relationship as professional colleagues, perhaps friends. Nothing more.”
“I don’t think that will happen.” It ached, that Iseya saw so little in himself, and Summer’s smile felt like a bittersweet thing of melancholy and warmth, as he tilted his head. “But if it does... I’d be happy to be your friend.”
“Oh, do stop. You’re like a puppy in human form.” Iseya made a flustered, irritable sound, pressed a hand firmly against Summer’s chest, and pushed him away. “And you are quite clearly fine now, so let’s go back in before they destroy the classroom. I’ll introduce you properly, and put the fear of you into those whelps.”
“I... I don’t really think that’s possible.”
Summer smiled, though, stepping back, straightening his clothing, breathing in deep. He could do this, he thought.
He could do this.
This job might not be what he wanted to do. It might just be another step in these holding patterns he always fell into, until he felt like an impostor walking into that room like he belonged there. But he’d committed to this—so if he was going to do it, he’d try his best to do it right.
And as long as Iseya had his back...
He’d be fine.
And he’d have tomorrow’s kiss to look forward to, to always carry him through.
Chapter Six
Fox was beginning to think he’d been a little too on the nose, calling Summer a puppy.
Because it was starting to feel like he’d adopted one.
The first day of class had been somewhat uneventful, at least.
He’d tamed the class back into obedience, introduced Summer, and then let Summer take a back seat to work on grading papers and observing his teaching methods while Fox led the three afternoon sessions, repeating each time—and impressing very clearly on his unruly pupils that even if they might not fear Summer...
They wouldn’t escape Fox’s wrath if they kept trying to fuck with him.
It wasn’t that he was
