Chapter 14.
14.
Juror Attendant (n., phrase)
a person who assists in supporting the sequestration of a jury but doesn’t work directly for the court; may include transportation, accommodations, meals, and other necessary support services during the trial period
our potential downfall
D amon grabs the two beer cans from the table, shuts off the light, and ushers me into the bedroom. I push in our chairs and follow, a can of my own in each hand.
As we hear the door to the suite—this suite—open, he pulls the closet handle and presses me in with his side, then shuts the door with his foot. My thighs push into the safe on the back wall, and Damon slides two robes to the far end of the hanging bar so we are smushed side by side in the dark, with only scant slats of barely remaining daylight finding their way in through the louvered doors. Pressure gathers in my chest, and I find it hard to breathe. He sips his beer, standing casually as though he’s taking in a baseball game on a Saturday afternoon.
“How are you so chill?” I whisper as he swallows.
He shrugs. I expect him to be on edge, but the heightened stakes seem to have calmed him. “I can literally hear your heart pounding,” he whispers back. We both look down at the visible heave of my chest.
There is shuffling around the suite, footsteps and the occasional bump or swoosh. I shrink back as far as I can when, through the slats, I see a fair-haired maid step into the bedroom, flip on the light switch, and stand directly in front of the closet doors.
If she grips one of the handles, I may pass out.
She stands there a moment, inches from us, evaluating the bedroom. I glance at Damon, though I don’t move my head for fear of her sensing the movement. He is perfectly still, his posture rivaling that of Margot. The cans virtually disappear beneath his grip, and his fists’ size makes me think of Wreck-It Ralph . He looks over at me, and that intense blue-green stare in the dark closet makes me feel something akin to attraction. Staring at someone in the dark, arm pressed against arm at the height of an adrenaline rush, will do that to you.
Heat threatening to overtake me, I focus forward to watch through the slats as the maid tidies the bed. She bends down, tugs sharply at one corner of the bedspread, then smooths the top with open palms. She places her hands on her hips, evaluating. Satisfied, she reaches into her light brown uniform pocket and pulls out a pack of cigarettes and a gold lighter. She taps one from the carton, lights the cigarette, steps to the balcony door across the room and opens it. She shrinks into one of the Adirondack chairs and disappears completely behind the wall, except for the toe of her stark white sneaker pressed against the rail. Shortly after, the smoke from her cigarette billows across the sliding glass.
Damon and I turn our heads to face each other.
“Looks like we found her break spot,” Damon muses, his whisper heavy against my ear. He takes another sip of his beer.
“What if she stays for hours?”
Damon looks down at me. “Then I guess we’ll be here for hours, too.” Even in the dark, his gaze pierces right through me.
Ironically, it’s not the first time Damon and I have been in a closet together. Damon learned quickly when we were young about my father’s continual cheating, his lazy effort to hide it. He’d know I had a particularly bad day when I’d go quiet, not asking him to watch movies or ride bikes down to the gas station for gum or twenty-five-cent Atomic Fireballs. He came to know where to find me.
He’d join me on my closet floor, wrap his arm around my shoulders, and press the side of his face into the top of my head. He used to be so tender, so... worried about me. Always worried about me. Like a toddler given an egg with a firm instinct to protect it.
He silently taps the tip of his can to the one in my hand closest to him. I watch as he takes a sip and then looks at me expectantly. I exhale. Might as well lean in at this point. I take a long swig that finishes my first can and raise an eyebrow at him. He nods at me in approval. I nudge him with an elbow to the side, and he exhales a breathy but otherwise silent huff that carries some semblance of amusement. After what he just shared about Kara, it’s incredibly satisfying to see something besides sadness from him, however brief.
We stand pressed into each other for what feels like an eternity. His arm pushes against mine, gliding gently up and down with his breath. My heartbeats come in rapid-fire as his weight and warmth dominate the small space. Dominate me. It’s claustrophobic in a rousing way, as though this closed, dark space holds no rules or boundaries. The air grows thick and warm, wet against my skin, as we watch through the slats as the maid eventually stands from the chair, flicks her cigarette butt over the railing, and slides the door open again. Once inside, she observes her reflection in the mirror opposite the bed, smoothing her hair at the part and then squirting two pumps of breath spray onto her outstretched tongue.
My pulse accelerates to a screaming pace as she steps closer to us. She looks over the room once more, seemingly to ensure she hasn’t disrupted anything, and then, eventually, flips the light switch and steps out of the bedroom.
I lean forward, angle myself to watch through the slats as she runs her fingertips along the dining table as she walks. Midway she stops and sweeps up a small item her fingers have run into. She holds up the piece of tin to evaluate it. Damon and I both look down at the can in my left hand, tab missing. Shit. The maid turns on her heel, returns to her previous spot in front of the closet doors.
I think I’m ready for that passing-out situation now. The lightheadedness hits, and I would grip Damon’s arm for steadiness if I weren’t holding two beer cans. Noticing my state, he presses his arm deeper against mine to steady me, pinning me tightly between him and the wall.
The maid listens a moment longer, her face sharp. She walks back to the balcony’s sliding door and looks out, left then right. She steps back in and reassesses the room. She looks to the closet, and I instinctively close my eyes—if I can’t see her, perhaps she can’t see me. She takes the few steps toward the closet door, and it’s just the thin wood between us.
It’s rather impressive how many thoughts make their way through my brain in a split second. I think of the mistrial this will inevitably end in, our names and photos leaked to the press. I think of Judge Gillespy scolding us, then placing us in contempt and throwing us both in jail. I even have a brief but visceral hallucination of Damon and me in the same cell in some prison fantasy gone awry. My heart leaps with each pump, and I feel its force across every inch of my wobbly body.
I open my eyes to find the maid staring right at me. Technically, she’s staring at the door, but it feels like we’re making eye contact. She cocks her head, perhaps listening more intently for another sound. She won’t get it, though. I’m holding my breath.
Finally, after what feels like far longer than I should be capable of not breathing without dying, the maid, satisfied or perhaps no longer interested, turns and exits the bedroom again. The door to the suite slams shut in the distance, and I slowly release my breath.
We stay just as we are, waiting, listening, determining when it is safe to exit the closet. Damon’s side is pressed firmly against mine, his arm now wrapped around the back of my neck. The cold of his beer can against the sleeve of my sweatshirt further jolts me alive. I feel his heart, too, as my shoulder fuses to his chest. Despite his calm demeanor, his heart is also thumping. It somehow soothes me, knowing he’s not as unaffected as he seems. The compact space has taken on the scent of saddles and beer, and I find the combination decidedly intoxicating.
I close my eyes and inhale his scent, more erotic than nostalgic in this moment. I suddenly want to ravage him. It’s a stark reminder of how little physical touch I receive in my daily life. One press of skin and I’m decidedly horny.
This is... Damon, I remind myself. My once best friend. My last real, meaningful kiss. The only person who knows so many both innocuous and monumental things about me.
The top slit of the closet door slashes him with a slice of dim light directly across his eye line, the full blue green of those eyes coursing into me. “You okay?” he whispers—a gentle, almost inviting declaration.
“Yes,” I tell him, drawn into the halo of light across his eyes. As if on command, his heartbeat quickens against me.
He gently pulls his arm from around my shoulders, still looking down at me as he does. He lingers a moment, our eyes connected, and again I’m holding my breath. The electricity between us is nothing short of high voltage, zapping through me like a live wire. I wonder what’s causing him pause. Before I can ask, he gingerly pushes the closet door open with his elbow. He silently inspects the room before I take a step out. At the rush of air, I find myself more grounded.
Damon is back in an instant, beer cans placed elsewhere. At his urging, I step out of the closet. The room is almost completely dark, the only light from the alley below.
“You sure you’re okay?” he asks again, this time not in a whisper. Instead, it’s a low, groaning sort of growl.
“Yes,” I muster. “Just got a little lightheaded there for a minute.”
Even so, he grips my elbow as if to steady me. Our eyes meet, his face sharp and raw. I want to wrap my arms around him again, tell him I’m sorry about Kara. So incredibly sorry. That I loved her, too. I want to tell him I wish we had been more mature back then, that we could have— should have—been better than our parents’ worst decisions. That we shouldn’t have let them ruin us .
Staring into his dimmed eyes now, I don’t know that I can say any of these things without breaking. He continues to look into me, like he is the only one who could ever make sense of everything inside me. He was.
What I think of then, in a gush of memory that floods my brain and body in a massive, all-encompassing swell, is our first kiss. The only kiss we ever shared in all our time together. It was midway through our sophomore year, just a few weeks before the end. Those days were built of the fun and freedom I’ve often pointed back to as the best of my life. Moments of such uncomplicated happiness they made my skin tingle with satisfaction.
I’d gotten my hair cut that morning, opting for bangs and a bob as a reengineering, a rebellion against the “kid” version of myself that held consistently long, stringy locks halfway down my back. I regretted it the instant the stylist swiveled the chair to face the full mirror. I wanted 1989 -era brunette Taylor Swift. What I got instead was horrifyingly similar to the cuts I’d once given my Barbie dolls. I avoided Damon all day, though when I didn’t return his texts, he showed up at my door.
“You’re beautiful,” he affirmed when I opened the door, before I could voice a complaint. “You’re always beautiful.”
I couldn’t stop the slight shake of my head or the tears that threatened to fall, embarrassed by how much I was allowing it to affect me. He pulled me into his chest, wrapped his burlier-than-ever-before arms around me, and rocked slowly back and forth as we embraced. Even then, I couldn’t fathom how he, at sixteen, knew the exact right words to say.
“Your bangs are tickling my chin,” he teased before I could feel too sorry for myself. I shoved him. He chuckled, then pulled me back in. “You’re beautiful,” he said again, his features severe, and instantly, there was something different between us. As if everything—all our years and days and time—had taught us into this moment. His jaw muscle twitched. His eyes grew heavy. There was a flutter, though whether emanating from my chest or stomach, I wasn’t quite sure. This person before me, Damon Bradburn , looked both brand-spanking-new and solidly familiar at the same time. Almost zombielike, overtaken by a lack of thought and need to act, I lifted my hand and cupped his jaw. He reflexively squeezed the muscle beneath my touch, and I felt the unmistakable ripple of excitement between my legs.
He moved like liquid, spilling toward me until his lips met mine. As soon as our mouths touched, I felt, more than anything, the rightness of it. Kissing him felt right. To this day, I couldn’t tell you how long that kiss was. It could have been only seconds. It could have stretched on for several minutes. But in that kiss, I felt everything and nothing but it. I do know it ended abruptly, at the thrumming of my garage door opening, the rev of my father’s Buick before it backed out.
Ten years later, here in the dark of the presidential suite, I know with certainty... I need another.
I lean in and kiss him.
Kara. Margot. Him.
Sequestration. The stakes of the trial.
Him.
I’m certain the kiss is a result of all these things rolled into a doughy mess. Regardless, I can’t seem to help it. In this moment he is calling to me like a fucking foghorn.
He tastes hoppy and sweet, bitterness from the beer largely gone. He’s a brand-new flavor, one I’ve never experienced but instantly like. It’s only our second kiss, but it is very much a first kiss.
Damon pulls back first. The look on his face is a little shocked. I agree, I want to say. I am also shocked. The realization hits me then. Who knows how much longer we will be stuck together, sitting for eight hours a day in court, side by side in the jury box, and at this shitty hotel, and I have just kissed him unexpectedly, giving it all a weird complication.
He is still gripping my arms firmly as we are positioned just inches apart.
“I’m sorry, I don’t know why I—” Before I can finish what would have been a truly awkward apology, he leans in and kisses me.
He kisses me .