Chapter Four • Thread Count • Damien
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Alright, Damien, pump the fucking breaks, you idiot.
I repeat that like a mantra again and again in my head as we’re seated. Lillith shows me how to notate the order on the piece of paper provided by the restaurant. Then she excuses herself to use the bathroom, walking away in the hoodie I gave her eclipsing the length of her skirt.
I wish I had any chill whatsoever. Lillith just wants to have a nice night out with me and I’m already telling her shit like some people are worth being devastated over.
Also. Question. Why the fuck did I tell her I told all the girls I’ve taken out before that meeting them felt like meeting her did?
For one, that’s a bald-faced lie. I’m well aware that I’m prone to falling for women fast. But I’ve never felt such an inexplicable draw to someone in my life.
If I didn’t think it was utter bullshit until this very moment, I would say that my soul was recognizing hers.
Like a shift in the cosmos just occurred and I’m the only one who’s aware of it.
And for two, why would I dump that at her feet like it’s the most normal thing to say about a woman you just met?
She’s going to think I’m a complete psychopath stalker. She’s going to think I take sneaky clippings of women’s hair and make fucking collages with them.
I smear a hand down my face and groan. It would be just my luck to meet someone like Lillith and totally strike out with her.
“Are you ready to order?”
I jolt out of my self-pity to see a teenage girl standing near the table, wearing a short apron, a restaurant-branded tee and a black bandana over the back of her head. “Oh, yeah, sure!”
I hand her the sheet of paper that has our orders on it, along with our preferences for the strength of the soup flavor, the hardness we prefer for our noodles, and whether or not we want ginger and green onion.
She confirms the choices, and I commit Lilith’s order to memory.
(Black Garlic Tonkotsu, no ginger, extra green onion, and a soft-boiled egg on the side.) The girl takes the papers and walks to a kiosk to input the orders.
I have a moment of gratitude that I don’t have to wait tables or deliver pizza anymore. Or ride in the back of an ambulance. Not that I’d ever look down on those professions, but, man, it feels good to finally make some money with the thing I love to do.
“You look deep in thought,” Lillith says as she sits down next to me instead of across from me, where she’d been sitting before.
“Ah. Sorry,” I say, grasping the back of her chair and pulling it closer to me.
“Was just remembering my old day jobs and how I kind of sucked at most of them.” Something warm spreads inside my body when I feel the soft flesh of her thigh press against my leg.
I can’t get enough of being as close as possible to this woman.
“The waitress came and grabbed our orders.”
“Nice,” she says. “So, we never said if we were going to The Nocturne after this.”
“Oh, shit,” I say. “You’re right. I mean, yeah. Let’s go. I love reading.”
“Really?”
“No,” I admit. “But I do like bookstores for some reason. Make it make sense.”
“To be fair, I also love music stores and I can’t play anything,” she says.
“Everyone can play something,” I say. “You just don’t know what, yet.”
“I promise you I can’t.”
We go back and forth about it for a little bit before our food comes to the table and we call a truce. I do make a mental note to keep an eye out for what Lillith might enjoy playing, though.
It’s my personal belief that everyone has a natural draw to some kind of instrument.
When I was kid, I was constantly making beats on my desk, or my legs, or on the dinner table—much to my foster mom’s dismay.
Oren has books and books and books of his own depressed poetry.
Fletcher does great with anything involving strings.
Knitting, yoyos, kites and, of course, instruments.
The food is... fuck, it’s good. I devour mine and then, under Lillith’s tutelage, ask for kaedama.
Which is basically just asking for an extra portion of noodles.
Once we’re done eating, I pay the bill and tip generously.
I’m starting to pull up my app to get another rideshare to the bookshop when Lillith’s nails snag on my sleeve.
When I look over at her, she’s the most adorable thing I’ve ever seen in my life. She’s nibbling on her lower lip, and looking up at me through her long falsies.
“What is it?” I ask, a chuckle coloring the words.
“Can we get a sweet treat first?” she asks. “They don’t have that many pastries at the bookstore.”
I press my lips together to keep from smiling too much and making her feel embarrassed. “Of course we’re getting you a sweet treat. What kind of man do you think I am? Did I hear right? We want pastries?”
She nods eagerly and the sweetest smile brightens her face. If I don’t get to marry this girl, I’m going to throw things.
“Come on. There’s a place that sells really good cake over here,” she says, taking my hand like she didn’t even have to think about it.
I let her lead me into a bakery packed with people.
The whole place is decked out in creams and pinks, with pretty cursive typefaces everywhere.
Lillith looks adorably out of place as we stand in line and wait for our turn.
She’s a raven feather in a sea of cream ribbon and lace.
Iridescent and mysterious in a gentle way I find hard to describe.
“Lots of late night eateries around here,” I say.
“Yeah,” she says. “It’s all the vampires in the city, you know?”
“Vampires? Is that right?”
“Biggest population of them outside of Transylvania!” she says.
I let out a low whistle. “Wait a minute...when you said a sweet treat, you didn’t mean me, did you?”
“Guess you’ll have to wait and find out,” she sing-songs as we finally make it up to the counter.
“Honestly, you could drain my life force any time and I’d probably say ‘thanks, babe,’” I tell her. Then I order one of every pastry for her.
“Damien!!” she balks as I pay for them.
“What?” I ask, as if I’m oblivious to the... oh... two hundred dollars I just spent on cake.
“I’m not going to be able to eat all of those.”
“What do you mean you? I ordered these for me. I already got dinner, you want me to get your dessert too?”
Her mouth drops open with such a shocked, offended expression that I worry some idiot may have ACTUALLY done something like that to her before. “Holy shit, I’m kidding! We’re sharing them.”
“I still won’t be able to eat half,” she says.
“Four dudes and an enby can definitely crush whatever you don’t eat,” I say, accepting my card back from the cashier. “Don’t stress about it.”
We step off to the side to let the next person order while two workers tag team loading up all the glossy pastries and fluffy cakes into branded boxes. “Damien, let me pay for half,” she says.
“Absolutely not. I have no idea what your wallet looks like and I don’t want to know,” I say. “We got an advance for our next batch of records, it was a not-insignificant amount of money, and I want to spoil you.”
“Still...” She shifts between her boots uncomfortably.
“Lillith,” I say, smoothing a hand over the small of her back and pulling her against me. “You know what’s obnoxious about getting a bunch of money right when your band is starting to make it?”
“What?” she asks.
“Well, it usually comes with sponsorships. I’m sponsored by Zildjan for my cymbals, Remo for my drum heads, SJC for my drums and DW for my hardware.
Now that I have all the money I could ever need to buy gear, I literally don’t have to anymore.
Let me spend some money on you. And before you get upset about it, yes I will be buying you any book you want from the bookstore,” I inform her.
“Suddenly I don’t want to go there,” she says.
“You’re a liar. Luckily, you’re also a total smokeshow, so I’m going to let it slide.”
She snorts a laugh just as the workers behind the counter hand me a large bag with two stacked boxes inside.
I order another ride before she can insist on skipping the bookshop.
While we wait for the ride to show up, we open up the pastries and figure out which one Lillith wants to have now, and which ones she wants to take home for later.
She chooses an Earl Grey tiramisu and starts eating it as I redistribute the pastries between the two boxes.
“You don’t have to do that right now,” she says after she swallows a bite of her sweet treat.
“I didn’t know if the bookshop would be weird about outside food,” I say as I ponder a round pastry that needs to go into a rectangular space.
“Maybe, but, like—I mean, you could do it at my house,” she says.
My gaze snaps to hers. “Oh?”
She blinks at me, like she doesn’t realize she just told me she intends on taking me home.
She must not have realized, though, because her pale face flushes a deep shade of pink.
She shakes her head, looking down at her pastry as she peels more of the parchment paper away from it and takes a nervous bite.
She chews it as I continue staring at her.
A little bit of vanilla mascarpone remains smeared on her lower lip.
The longer she zeros in on her pastry, the more amused I get.
She’s so fucking cute. She swallows her bite, still pink in the face and finally says, “I mean. You don’t have to come over.
I thought you might like to see the shop and my apartment is just like—well it’s upstairs, you know? ”
“Right,” I say knowingly as I close the box. “You want to show me the shop.”
“Yeah,” she says as I step closer to her. She takes another bite of the pastry. She’s eating it so fast that I’m not sure she’s actually enjoying it. Still, that little smear of mascarpone clings to her lower lip. It must be so light and fluffy that she can’t feel it.
I lift her chin, perching it on my folded index finger. “Lillith, if you want me to spend the night, I’m more than happy to do that. You know, just in case you do want to show me your apartment. Or your comforter. Or the thread count of your sheets.”
She blinks up at me with her huge, slate-colored eyes as she swallows. Her tongue flashes out to wet her lips, almost cleaning off the sweet cream on her lower lip that I decided was mine some time over the last few seconds.
“Do you want me to spend the night?” I ask her, hushed.
“M-my sheets do have a very interesting thread count,” she almost whispers.
“Okay,” I huff.
“Okay,” she whimpers.
I grin as I lean down and draw her lower lip into my mouth.