Chapter Twenty-Two Damion
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“The woman was autumn. I swear to God she was autumn personified.”
—Remington
Damion
I slowed but didn’t stop, because I didn’t want to talk to her.
To explain what I didn’t understand myself.
Why in the hell did I just defend her?
Jumping upside down into a conversation, simply because she’d looked sad and awkward and embarrassed…?
That wasn’t for me.
She—and her family—deserved to be awkwardly embarrassed.
God, I needed to check myself.
I was becoming too decent.
“What’s up, Nebraska?” I said as she caught up to me, as she dodged Scotch-guzzling bodies while we headed in the direction of the staircase.
“Why did you do that?” she asked, muttering, “Excuse me,” to the waiter she nearly mowed over.
“Do what?”
Yes, my plan is just to play dumb and admit nothing.
“Stick up for me, I guess,” she said. “You lied to help me save face.”
“Did I?” I said, still not looking at her, still walking.
“You know you did. Damion,” she said, and then she grabbed my arm, stopping me.
“What?”
I sighed and looked down at her, at those big brown eyes that were watching me with a thousand questions in them, like she needed to know if I’d been being kind to her.
Like she wanted to discover I wasn’t the dick she’d always thought I was.
Sorry, sunshine.
“So, like, why…?” she pressed.
“You know I love having you in my debt, right? We can add this to your tab of my still-to-be-chosen favors,” I said, thinking—objectively speaking, of course—that she looked good in red lipstick and bare shoulders.
She was autumn.
“That’s all that was?” she asked, long-lashed eyes sweeping over my face in search of the answer she wanted.
Good luck, I thought, because I have no fucking clue what that was.
I’d been in my own head during that entire conversation, honestly, because her awkward answer to Chantel had shocked the hell out of me.
She was a senior and still didn’t know what she was doing next year?
Like, how was that possible?
The jealousy I’d felt over that had almost knocked me over.
Because I was so jealous, as fucking nuts as that sounded, that she appeared to have no idea what she was doing after graduation. What would that feel like, not having your entire life planned out for you?
No lifelong assumption of a Dartmouth education, no expectation that you’d be joining the family business, no steely presumption that you’d ultimately be at the helm of that mind-numbingly boring financial conglomerate until a heart attack finally took mercy upon your money-worshipping existence and let you off the hook.
God, I couldn’t imagine that kind of freedom.
I mean, I had imagined it, with Remi, and I was determined to make it happen, but I was jealous that for Julia it required no subterfuge.
The future was hers to decide.
“I’m in it for your favors,” I said, snagging a flute of champagne from a passing tray, “and to mess with my asshole father. That’s it, honey.”
“Don’t call me that,” she said, looking at the glass in my hand. “And I wanted to thank you, you know, in case you were actually being a nice human.”
“Nice?” I reached out my free hand and tugged on one of those long curls, then let my finger hold on for another moment. “Now why would I want to be something like that?”
“Because sometimes people do that,” she said, smacking my hand. “I should’ve known you wouldn’t.”
“Oh, don’t be disappointed in me, Nebraska,” I said, leaning just a little closer because it was noisy and I needed to hear her and not at all because I wanted to smell the perfume on her neck to figure out the scent. “I just couldn’t bear that.”
“Sure you couldn’t.”
“Listen, I’d love to chat about human kindness,” I replied, not wanting to talk about being nice when her smell was going straight to my head, “but I’m ready for a good time. Have you seen Beckett anywhere?”
Her eyebrows furrowed and she watched me for a long second before answering, “Yeah, um, he’s upstairs in the office at the end of the hall, somewhere between the booze-guzzling Toms on the desk and the couple getting down on the couch.”
It was clear from her tone that she wasn’t a fan of the “kids’ table,” and there was a challenge in her eyes, like she was hoping I’d be surprised by the side party going on upstairs.
What? Kids from Gardenwood are misbehaving upstairs?
Impossible.
But the truth was that the kids’ table had been a thing since middle school; feigning shock wasn’t possible. Or helpful in this instance.
It was better that she thought I was a reprobate.
“Then that is where I shall be as well,” I said with a lascivious grin. “Later, Lowell.”
And I walked away before her perfume had the chance to pull me back in and make me forget who she was.