Chapter Seven Damion
CHAPTER SEVEN
“Home is where the leftover Patsy’s pizza is.”
—Remington
Damion
“Does that make sense?” I asked, watching her as she looked down at the equation.
There was something about the way her long lashes fluttered when her eyes dipped down to the paper that I found distracting, but the motion had nothing on the utter mindfuck that was her teeth nibbling on her lower lip and the way her hair was messily twisted into a knot on top of her head.
Those random traits were bugging the shit out of me. They were inexplicably annoying, and when you paired them with her ridiculous shirt—which had a picture of a Caterpillar bulldozer on it with the words “Dozer Day” on the front—the girl was too ridiculous for words.
“It actually does,” she said with a crease between her brows, like she couldn’t believe that it did make sense.
That I had been the one to make it make sense.
Yeah, I’m as shocked as you are, Nebraska.
Not shocked that I was getting through to her—I was a good tutor—but shocked that I was helping her at all. I’d swung by just to mess with her, to torture her a little more, yet suddenly I was her teacher.
But I hadn’t been able to stop myself.
Because of the house.
Being that close, seeing the walls behind her as she stood in the foyer; it hadn’t been enough.
I’d needed to get inside.
And shit, I’d been in serious jeopardy of crying like a little baby boy when I followed her in, because they hadn’t changed anything yet.
The furniture, the artwork, the over-the-top dining room wallpaper—aside from random boxes sitting around, the house looked the same as it had the last time I’d been there.
And it smelled the same, which was making it hard to focus on anything other than how much I missed Remi. When she’d led me into the kitchen, I was grateful for the math all laid out on the island because it provided a distraction from how emo being in the house was making me.
“That’s because I’m the best tutor,” I said.
“Okay, you actually do seem really good at the tutoring,” she agreed, still sounding shocked.
“I am good, but maybe they’re just shit at teaching math in Nebraska, did you ever think of that?”
“No,” she said, her left hand grabbing her right arm and giving it a stretch. “I’m sure this is impossible for someone like you to believe, but Nebraska is actually not that different from New York in some ways.”
“The hell you say,” I said, watching as she switched to stretch the other arm.
“Seriously,” she argued. “We’ve got good schools, running water, EV charging stations, and great cell service.”
She sounded like a billboard for shop local.
“Wow,” I said, looking down at my watch. “Progressive farmers—how fascinating.”
“Not everyone’s a farmer, for the record, but just forget it,” she said as she reached up and tugged the hair tie out of her hair with one hand, holding the mass of curls in place with the other.
She quickly wound her hair into another massive knot while looking at me with judgment in her eyes. “You wouldn’t understand.”
“No, enlighten me. You said you didn’t live on a farm, but I find that hard to believe, because what else is there to do out there?
I mean, whatever it is, your parents obviously do it well enough,” I said, gesturing to the interior of the house.
“Is your dad the dude who owns every gas station in the state or something?”
I was curious to see what she had to say about her family’s new money.
“Technically, my parents ran the grocery store in our town, not the gas station, but probably like your dad, he’s got, uh, a lot of different business things going on. He doesn’t talk to me about his investment portfolio, y’know?”
His investment portfolio.
You mean the money he took from my uncle, honey?
I could tell she was uncomfortable with my question, which made sense. People who weren’t wealthy, truly wealthy, were awkward as shit about discussing finances, like they weren’t sure how to bridge the gap between humility and simple facts.
The truly affluent, which included every household in Gardenwood, didn’t give a rat’s ass. It might be gauche to ask about money, but if someone dared to ask the question, Old Money would always lift their chin and drop the numbers, because it was good to be king.
“And we didn’t live on a farm,” she said defensively, offended by the stereotype. “No combines, no tractors, just a normal house with indoor plumbing and Wi-Fi.”
“Any animals?” I asked, imagining her feeding cows and horses while remembering the photo of her with all those dogs.
Were they her puppies?
“No,” she said, making a face like I was ridiculous. “I mean, we had chickens, dogs, and cats, but those aren’t farm animals.”
“Chickens don’t count as farm animals?”
“I mean, people in the city have chickens,” she said with a shrug. “I read that you can have chickens in Manhattan, so…”
“No shit?” I knew that, but I also didn’t know anyone with chickens. “You can have chickens here?”
I had no idea why I was pretending I was unaware.
“Only hens, but yes.”
“Are you sure?” I said, looking at her like she was nuts.
Why does this girl make me want to mess with her twenty-four seven?
“Yes,” she snapped.
“So tell me about the grocery store.”
“I don’t want to,” she said with a shrug. “No, thanks.”
“Why not?” I said with a laugh, surprised by her answer.
“Because I just don’t feel like you genuinely want to know,” she said, her suspicious gaze taking a trip over my face.
“I do, though,” I said. “I genuinely want to know what it’s like to run a little bitty grocery store in the middle of nowhere. How big is your Nebraskahoma hometown? Are there any businesses there at all, aside from your general store?”
“First of all, about fifteen hundred people, and second of all, it’s not a ‘general store’ because the year isn’t 1892,” she said with an eye roll.
“And yes—downtown Springfield has some great shops. There’s a bridal boutique, a Thai restaurant, Black Sheep Coffee House, a very cool retro store called ReMain, and, if you must know, the Blind Pig has the very best bar food. ”
“I’m sorry, the town bar is called the Blind Pig?”
“Mock it if you like, but I’d kill for one of the Pig’s steak Phillies right now. I doubt anywhere in New York has bar food quite as good.”
“You sound ridiculous,” I said. “The East Coast is where cheesesteak sandwiches were invented.”
“Doesn’t change my stance one bit,” she quipped, tilting her head in challenge. “Do you want a pop, by the way? We’ve got Diet Pepsi and Dr Pepper.”
She got up and went over to the refrigerator, the refrigerator that used to be stocked with all my favorite things.
It felt like my breath was stuck in my lungs as she pulled open the door, as my brain desperately wanted to see a row of tiny chocolate milks and a door shelf full of Mountain Dew Baja Blast. Shelves of mismatched takeout containers, because Remi liked eating “other people’s creations. ”
Disappointment shot through me as I saw a half-empty fridge full of things foreign to that appliance: gallons of milk and cartons of eggs and a random pizza box that wasn’t from Patsy’s.
Four baguettes.
Who in God’s name would put a baguette in the refrigerator?
“No, thanks,” I said, clearing my throat as she grabbed a can of soda and came back to the island. “So tell me about the non-general, not-1892 store. What’s that like?”
It was bizarre, the way I felt about her little slice of Nebraska.
On the one hand, I couldn’t care less about some Midwestern nothing town. A landlocked farm town with a population of fifteen hundred?
Falling asleep just thinking about it.
But on the other hand, something about the place had drawn in Remi. My nomadic, world-traveling uncle had chosen to settle down there—when he could’ve gone anywhere—so my curiosity about Springfield was hella piqued in that regard.
“I mean, the market’s pretty small,” she said, settling back onto her stool. “Seven aisles, not counting produce and frozen.”
“Did you work there? Are you like Laura Ingalls?”
“The Ingalls family didn’t have a store,” she corrected in a tone that seriously questioned my intelligence. “The Olesons were the ones with the mercantile.”
“That’s right,” I said. “Nellie and Willie and the folks—I remember now.”
“I can’t believe a city kid like you watched that show,” she said, surprise on her face. “Little House on the Prairie seems far too… out-of-date for someone who’s been wearing a different pair of designer glasses every time I’ve seen him.”
“Obsessed with my eyewear, are we?” I said, surprised she’d noticed such a tiny detail when she’d been so busy with things like bashing my nose and dropping her books.
“Hardly. It’s more of a ‘what a high-maintenance dude’ observation,” she said with an eyebrow raise.
“And I didn’t watch the show; I read the books,” I clarified, ignoring her comment.
“Probably when you were a baby, because you’re the smartest tutor in all of Gardenwood Academy, right?”
“You’re quite the smart-ass, aren’t you?” I said, a little amused by the punchy wit that reared its head when you pushed her. Someone with a bit more edge hovered underneath all those curls.
I kind of liked poking until that chick showed up.
She just shrugged and gave me a look that was half challenging and half nervous, like she was worried she was going to piss me off and lose her tutor.
“So are you ever going to tell me about the market? Maybe this is your way of distracting me because your tiny grocery store was actually a mob front and you don’t want me to know.”
“The Springfield Mafia would never let the Lowell family in—are you kidding me with that? It’s as if you’ve never been anywhere outside the city.”
“I’ve been everywhere,” I clarified. “Just not the Midwest.”
“Paris?” she asked.
“Yep,” I said.
“Italy?”
“Multiple times.”
“Poland?”
“Krakow’s a stunner in the fall.”
“Brazil?”
“Rio and S?o Paulo. Almost surfed at Copacabana once.”
“Almost?”