Chapter Thirty-One • What it Looks Like • Lillith
?
“Ipromise I was going to tell you, Lillipad,” Wren says as I stare up at her from my perch on... yep. A yoga ball. Damien went upstairs to change and Satoshi chickened out and fled with Oren into the music studio, citing the need to work on something.
“When?” I ask.
“Like, tonight,” she says, flipping her long hair over her shoulder.
“No, Wren. When did you start fucking Satoshi?” I ask.
Wren cringes. “Uhm... What would you consider fucking?”
“Oh my fucking gods,” I gasp. “Wren! YOU WERE KEEPING SECRETS FROM ME, YOU HYPOCRITE.”
“I WASN’T KEEPING SECRETS. YOU WERE DISTRACTED. ON AN EXISTENTIAL LEVEL. It felt selfish to gush about all the amazing sex I was having while you were catatonic in your bed.”
“He was about to FLICK YOUR BEAN LIKE IT WAS A BASS STRING.”
“OKAY?! AND YOU WERE CATATONIC IN BED.”
We reach an impasse, both of us quieting down. Wren stands in front of me half naked, I’m sitting on my yoga ball with my arms crossed. Another few long moments pass and Wren chews on her lower lip, before she replaces it with her thumbnail.
She drops her hand and heaves out a put-upon breath. “You look smokin’ hot, Lilipad,” she says begrudgingly.
“Thank you,” I say just as begrudgingly. “So do you.”
“It’s Satoshi’s shirt,” she says.
“I figured.”
“I think I’m going to steal it.”
“You should,” I say.
“He’s afraid of you, by the way.”
“He should be.”
“Why? You don’t like him?” Her voice hikes up, worried.
“No! Because if he hurts you, I’m going to kill him!”
“Well, if your boyfriend hurts you I’m gonna kill him!”
“Fine!” I say.
“Fine!” she says. “Can we stop fighting now?”
I heave out a soft breath and drop my arms from where they’re crossed. “Yeah, it’s hard to fight with you.”
“Totally,” she says, pulling me up and into her arms. “I can’t believe you’re wearing the ‘fuck me’ heels. You ate shit last time.”
“The what heels?” Damien asks.
We both turn to look at my boyfriend, who has returned with new clothes on. Satoshi is standing next to him, looking vaguely green. I don’t spend much time looking at Wren’s... whatever he is. Damien is the only thing I can see.
Damien apparently cleans up really well. Granted, he could have taken me out in what he was wearing at my place and he still would have looked really stylish and sexy. Honestly, I only expected him to change into a plain black shirt and maybe grab a jacket, but he’s actually dressed up.
He’s wearing a tight, black turtle neck with a delicate pair of matte black chains on top.
Over that, he’s got a distressed denim jacket in a charcoal grey.
He’s still wearing black jeans, but these are pristine.
Inky and crisp with no tearing in sight.
His shoes are shiny leather wingtips, all black.
He’s even wearing some pretty drop earrings behind his gauges.
He looks so... wow. Just... Wow. He smirks like he knows I think so, tucking a hand into his jean pocket so the hem of his jacket drapes over his forearm like he’s some Calvin Klein model with hand tattoos.
“Damn, girl,” Wren says, low enough that only I can hear it.
“I know, right?” I whisper.
She releases me, letting me shuffle up to him. I wrap my arms around his middle and he takes his hand out of his pocket to let it rest on the small of my back. “You look so good, Damien,” I say.
His sharpened canines send a thrill through me as he grins down at me, his other hand catching the side of my face as he draws his callused thumb over my cheekbone. “Yeah?” he says. “You like it when I clean up, hmm?”
He leans down to kiss me before I can answer, bowing over me as he pulls my hips into his. I can’t help but grin into the kiss when he breaks it to capture my lower lip between his teeth.
“Let me get a picture of you two,” Wren says behind us.
I look over at her just in time for the shutter sound to go off on her phone.
“One more. Actually pose for it. Lilipad, put your hand on his chest—yeah, perfect—and Damien—Okay, go off, mister eye-fucking-the-camera.” The shutter sound goes off again.
The photos come to my phone seconds later and they’re just... eugh. They’re perfect.
“Send those to me,” Damien says as soon as he sees them.
“Yet another new lock screen,” Oren sighs as he comes from the studio and leans on the door.
Damien shoots him a look. “Just because you’re a sad, lonely, single man doesn’t mean that I have to be.”
Oren snorts as Damien pulls up his phone and messes with his settings.
He ends up choosing the first picture—the one Wren took candid.
It’s cute, honestly. It looks like a sultry fragrance ad.
Damien is looking into the camera with his two-toned eyes.
He’s bent over me as I look back, too. My lips parted, eyes wide.
I see it in the photo first and then I look up at him.
“Damien, you have black lipstick on your—”
“Leave it,” he says. “I told you I like having evidence.”
Still, as he says it, he uses his thumb to clean up the line of my lipstick on my lower lip.
His eyes crinkle with warmth as he beams down at me.
He looks at me the way that I always dreamed of being looked at when I was a lonesome witch in high school.
Like I’m the center of his galaxy—like I’m something he’d be devastated to lose.
“Dame, before you guys head out, can you re-record a few bars from Swarm?” Oren asks. “Fletch said there are some issues with peaking because of a mic that got shifted.”
Damien glares at his best friend. “Bro,” he says. “It can fucking wait until tomorrow.”
“It actually can’t,” Fletcher says as he appears in from the stairwell.
He meets eyes with me and smiles apologetically.
“Hey, Lillith. I’m really truly sorry to disrupt your nice night with your boyfriend.
But Roxie said the label needs a single to slice up and start marketing.
Can we borrow him for about half an hour? ”
“No,” Damien replies flatly. “I’m not sweating before taking her out, dickhead.”
“Is this... new Portent music?” I ask.
I feel Damien’s hand twitch on my lower back, and he looks down at me like he’s seeing me for the first time.
“Did you forget you found your girlfriend waiting outside the venue six hours before doors opened for our show, dumbass?” Satoshi asks.
“Do you want to watch me play, baby?” Damien asks me, ignoring his bassist’s question.
I press my lips together, feeling timid all the sudden. “I... I mean. It’s okay if you don’t want to get sweaty before we go. I totally get that. But it was actually kind of hard to see you play the night of the show. You’re kind of behind everyone. But—I know it’s work for you, so—”
“No, no!” He nods almost eagerly. “I mean. Like, yeah, of course. I’ll play anything you want.”
“Maybe Lillith should be our manager,” Oren says with a yawn.
“No kidding,” Fletcher says with a chuckle. “Come on, Lillith. I’ll get you set up with some studio cans.”
When I look up at Damien with a confused expression, hey gives me a charmed laugh. “Slang for studio-grade headphones, sweetheart. That way you can hear me play with the rest of the already-recorded music.”
“Oh, okay. Cool,” I smile at Fletcher with a nod. “Sorry, I’m kind of stupid when it comes to this stuff.”
“It’s not stupidity; you’re not a recording musician,” Fletcher says, his Irish brogue somehow making his quiet kindness even more endearing.
“Come on, Damien’s probably gonna have to do some stupid good luck ritual or some shit.
I’ll show you some stuff we’ve been recording while he does that, if you like. ”
“Oh my god, absolutely,” I say.
“I feel kind of stupid for not thinking about showing you the new stuff,” Damien says sheepishly as he starts peeling off his jacket. “Sorry, babe.”
“Don’t be. I didn’t want to pry. I figured it was super secret.”
“It is, technically,” Oren chimes in with a wink. “Be a good girl and don’t leak our album, alright?”
“God, let me get this over with before you fall in love with one of my bandmates,” Damien gripes. “Bringing you here was dangerous.”
“Come on,” Fletcher says again, motioning for the door with his mop of copper curls.
I leave Damien’s side to follow Fletcher into the recording studio. It’s a pleasant looking little room, bisected by a wall with a glass window that looks over a space filled with a bunch of instruments and mics and strategically placed foam pads that I assume do... something.
Fletcher introduces me to the soundboard.
The sliders and knobs all look dizzying to me, but Fletcher messes with them all like he lives there as he powers up an iMac on a platform nearby.
He explains that he’s doing a lot of the engineering on the album—that it’s how he actually joined the band originally.
In the beginning, it was just Oren and Damien, and a bassist that would drop in for studio sessions.
Oren played guitar originally, but it was hard for him to do both at once so Fletcher stepped in to help.
“We hit it off pretty quick. Oren and I found out we had a lot in common, so after they recorded their demos, Oren invited me to join the band,” he says.
“Really?” I ask. “I assumed you guys had always been a band, like since the very beginning.”
“It was just Oren and me at first,” Damien says as he comes into the room. He’s shirtless and shoeless, wearing nothing but his black socks and his jeans.
Fletcher sputters a laugh. “You’re looking awfully naked,” Fletcher says. “No shoes?”
“Wingtips are too slippery for this,” he says as he rolls his shoulders. “And I’m serious, I don’t want to sweat all over my clothes before I take Lillith out.”
“He’s adorably obsessed with you,” Fletcher tells me, the low volume of his voice emphasizing his accent. “Dame’s always been quick to fall for girls, but I’ve never seen him devote himself quite so zealously as he has with you.”
“I can hear your stage whisper, Fletch,” Damien says.
“Yeah? What did I say then, Loverboy?” Fletcher says.