Chapter Eleven
“Fucking hell,” Xander said, pushing his sunglasses up and staring at the townhouse through the windshield of Damon’s car. “This is yours?”
“Well, it’s not mine,” Damon pointed out, more than a little subconsciously. How had he forgotten how Xander initially had reacted to the fact that he was a Hess? Was it so wrong he wanted to show Xander some of the nicer perks of being part of the family? “Technically, it’s my father’s.”
Xander’s gaze swiveled over to him only for a split second. Then it was right back to the white stucco edifice with its lake blue shutters. “You’re going to inherit it one day, though.”
So he changed the subject.
“If you think the outside is gorgeous, wait until you see the inside,” Damon said, turning off his Jeep and opening the driver’s door. “I usually hate houses designed by interior decorators, but the one my dad hired really did a good job. It doesn’t feel look a showpiece, more like a real home.”
The sad part was that Damon had partially grown up in this house and while it might have looked like a real home, it had never really felt like one.
But that was another thing he didn’t need to tell Xander. Damon knew from personal experience that the poor-little-rich-boy act got old for everyone after awhile, if it didn’t start out that way.
“What’s the kitchen like?” Xander asked, and this time his voice was eager, not hidden behind shock or dismissal. “Wait, no. Don’t tell me. I want to be surprised.”
Damon pulled their bags from the trunk and shut the hatch. “Well, let’s go inside,” he teased. “I don’t want to keep you waiting.”
Following him up the stairs, Damon repeated the entry code his father’s assistant had sent over and Xander carefully typed it in.
“What happens if I enter this wrong?” Xander asked in a hushed, almost reverent tone. “Will there be cops? Firemen? Will they arrest me?”
“If the cops are hot, they can definitely put me in handcuffs,” Damon joked as Xander swung the door open. No alarms went off. “But the truth is, yeah, my father pays for a security system for this place, but I just asked him for the code so I know it’s good.”
The entry was a narrow, arched passageway they passed through, emerging into an open rotunda, complete with a circular staircase, edged with a gleaming curved wood banister.
“Hooooly shit,” Xander exhaled. He seemed transfixed by the handblown glass chandelier at the top of the rotunda. Then he turned back toward Damon, his eyes narrowing. “You just asked him for the code? I thought you sort of grew up here.”
Damon sort of had, which had been part of his explanation when Xander had asked questions about it on their drive from Napa.
“As you might have guessed,” Damon finally admitted wryly, “we haven’t been close in some time. Well, more like ever, but yes, I did used to spend a lot of time here. My dad is a workaholic and the city was where he did a lot of his work. He came, so I came too.”
“Where was your mom?” Xander asked.
“Traveling back then, doing marketing and publicity for the winery. She didn’t want to hire it out because she thought she could do it better herself.
Then, dead from a stroke.” Damon knew people believed that if you sped through bad news like it was rote and routine, then it made the terrible shit less terrible.
Damon didn’t believe that worked at all.
“God, I’m sorry,” Xander said, voice low. “I . . . I realized we didn’t know much about each other. Our families, that is.”
“And now you just realized why I don’t talk about them?” Damon laughed without humor. “Sorry.”
“Why don’t you give me the full tour?” Xander asked, turning on a determined and brightly sunny smile. Damon appreciated the effort, but he wanted to tell him that if it had ever been that easy to leave his family and their demons behind, he wouldn’t have ended up so dependent on the bottle.
“This way is the living room,” Damon said, reaching out and taking Xander’s hand.
The touch of his skin wasn’t quite enough to dismiss his bad mood, but it helped.
The sweet wry look Xander shot him helped too.
That Damon had epic plans to fully corrupt every single room of this damn townhouse really helped.
Maybe they could start in the living room.
“Wow,” Xander said, turning toward the big picture window that looked out on the San Francisco marina. “This view just doesn’t quit.”
“When this townhouse came up for sale, my father bought it sight unseen,” Damon said.
He’d told himself he wouldn’t mention any other Hesses for the rest of the trip, but being back in this place made it impossible.
The memories—good and bad and every other shade in between—were hiding in the corners like ghosts.
“He told the realtor to make the offer based on the address alone. When she asked him if he wanted to see the pictures, he told her that if he didn’t like it, he’d tear it down and build something else. ”
Xander squeezed his hand. “It must have sucked growing up with someone who thought he could buy anything.”
When he’d thought of, and told, that story, Damon hadn’t been thinking of that bad habit of Nathan’s. He’d only been thinking it was one of the few stories he could think of that he found vaguely amusing.
But that had always been Nathan Hess’ problem. He’d worked hard and believed that every interaction was transactional. And Damon had never had anything his father had valued enough to trade with.
“Yeah,” Damon said shortly, regretting that he’d told the story.
He’d always believed Xander was an intuitive person who was better at reading people than you’d expect someone who’d locked themselves away in a kitchen for a career could.
From the first moment, staring at each other in the pouring rain, Damon had felt like Xander knew him.
Now it felt like he saw right through him, and Damon wasn’t sure if he liked it or if it scared the ever-living shit out of him. There were dark corners and cobwebs he didn’t want anyone—especially someone he could love—to see.
There was a Casset hanging above the fireplace, the only color shining bright on a simple white wall. Xander let go of his hand and went closer, eyes taking in every brushstroke. He didn’t ask if it was real—and Damon was grateful because then he didn’t have to answer.
They went through the dining room, with a spiky modern chandelier that Damon didn’t recognize. It looked like a trendy piece of destructive art. Perfect for murder in the middle of a dinner party.
Damon imagined what his father would look like with the spikes buried in his chest, and then abruptly swept the image away. He didn’t want his father dead; he wanted his father to have never existed at all.
The kitchen, which was a major part of why they’d come to the townhouse and not some random hotel in San Francisco, elicited a large enough gasp from Xander that Damon believed coming here was worth it.
The space was cavernous, bordering on nearly obscene, with acres of shining wood floors and rows of lake blue cabinets that perfectly matched the shutters outside.
The blue was beautiful outside, but it was startling inside a kitchen, and even more startling was the fact that all the high-end professional appliances had been custom ordered in the exact same shade of blue.
Nathan had once told Damon that the color was the same tone as his mother’s eyes, but he’d always believed that was more of his father’s bullshit. Now he looked and he wasn’t quite sure.
“I know we’re going out to dinner a lot,” Xander said, fingers a death grip on Damon’s hand, “but I’ve got to cook in here. Please. Just one night.”
“Anything you want to do,” Damon said. “It’s all up to you.”
Xander reluctantly let Damon guide him out of the kitchen and upstairs. There were a series of bedrooms, each more luxe than the last, but culminating in the master with its textured blue walls and chinoserie hand-painted ceiling.
“This color,” Xander stated hesitantly, turning around the massive room, “it’s used a lot in this house.”
“The blue?” Damon repeated stupidly.
Xander’s frank look was a clear direction to cut the bullshit. But Damon wanted the bullshit; it was a lot easier to stomach than the truth.
“It was my mom’s favorite color,” Damon said softly. Which was one hundred percent true, no Nathan Hess bullshit needed to embellish it.
“It also looks a little like your eyes,” Xander replied.
It was impossible to miss the flash of guilt on Xander’s face, and no matter how painful some of this felt—dredging up so many old wounds that Damon kept hoping had healed finally—he’d come here for a reason.
He’d wanted to share the best of his family with him, and he wanted to try to tell him some of what he’d come from.
The good and the bad and the horrendous.
Xander was the kind of guy who wouldn’t take some of him. He’d want it all, when he figured out that’s where the two of them were headed, and Damon would have to give him as much as he demanded.
Some of it wasn’t going to feel good or cathartic. Some of it was just going to suck.
“Don’t feel bad,” Damon said, reaching out and pulling Xander flush against him. Xander’s head tucked under his chin, and a hand stroked up and down his back.
“I don’t feel bad,” Xander said in a muffled voice. “I want to fucking kill them for not giving a shit about you.”
Damon managed to laugh through the lump in his throat. “Thank you.”
“Is it . . . would it be okay if we stayed in here?” Xander asked with hesitancy.