Chapter Thirteen • Casual • Damien
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Ispend ten blissful days splitting my time between band rehearsals, recording, and making out with Lillith like I’m a teenaged boy again. It’s funny, that sort of initial, fiery attraction has already settled into something more comfortable with a mundane domesticity.
A lot of guys get freaked out by this happening so quickly.
But for me, with the way work and tours have forced me into mostly transient, temporary romances, it’s a welcome change.
I actually like coming “home” to her at the end of a long day.
I like standing next to her in the kitchen while she teaches me how to deglaze a pan or poach an egg or blanch a tomato to remove its skin.
I like that I’ve inherited a pair of ill-fitting silk pajama pants I slip into when she gets tired of the feeling of rough denim on her thighs. And I like melting into a cuddle puddle with her when I come back to find her sleeping already.
I don’t even mind the knowledge that her possession of man-sized silk pajama pants means that a man-sized person wore them in her home before. I definitely am not bothered by the idea of another man touching her. Shut up.
Anyway.
This is everything I’ve ever wanted.
The guys always roll their eyes when it comes to how I pursue women, but there is something markedly different about how Lillith settles into the marrow of my bones. There is an ease to time spent with her that I can’t seem to find anywhere else—an ease I’ve never experienced with a partner before.
And, well, I guess I shouldn’t think about her as a partner exactly.
We haven’t really discussed anything but what we want to do in a day.
We haven’t talked about pasts or futures or anything like that, but it’s hard for me not to think about her that way.
In such a short time, I can’t imagine leaving this little beach town and never talking to her again.
I don’t even care that we haven’t had sex yet, or that it seems like it’s taking eight million years to get her in with her GP to get those antibiotics.
Granted, I am mildly concerned, if only because I don’t want anything to happen to her kidneys or, worst case, make her epilepsy worse.
I know UTI’s can fuck with shit like that.
I’m also not a dick, so even if she never wanted to have sex with me ever, I would live with it.
But... I mean, I am a guy and she did kind of put the idea in my head. It’s given me plenty to think about on the rare nights I spend in my own bed at Roxie’s studio, and let’s just say I’ve been putting those developed drummer forearms to good use.
I just... Man. I knew Lillith was gorgeous and smart and capable, but I had no idea just how incredible she could be.
My only complaint?
It seems like she’s downright allergic to me taking her out again.
“Is this like a... seizure superstition thing?” I ask her as she works on preparing what she promises will be the best venison birria I’ve ever put in my mouth.
“No, Damien, it’s not a seizure superstition thing,” she tells me.
“Because, if it is—”
“It’s not—”
“—I’d like to point out that you already had a pretty major seizure in front of me and I handled it swimmingly. Like, I don’t want to toot my own horn here, but I definitely prevented any major complications from happening and I didn’t even stick a wallet or a spoon in your mouth.”
“You are an exceptionally well-trained former paramedic,” she says indulgently as she places the seared cut of deer meat in her pressure cooker.
“Thank you,” I say as she plucks two sprigs of fresh rosemary from a potted plant she keeps near the oven and tosses them inside with the meat. She steps aside to push around some onions she’s toasting up in a stainless steel saucepan.
“I promise I’m just tired. And busy. And that I’m honestly kind of a homebody,” she says, smiling weakly up at me.
“We don’t have to do anything crazy. We can just go back to the bookshop. Hang out with Binx and all those cool folks.”
“Damien,” she says, a warm, but scolding tone to her voice.
“Ice cream,” I say. “We can go get ice cream.”
“So you can buy the whole store out and let it melt all over my house? I don’t think so.”
“Is that what this is about? Are you embarrassed that I spent a bunch of money on you?”
“No,” she says, the word a bit clipped.
“Because we could just go hang out by the beach if you want to. Go for a walk—”
“Damien. I can’t.”
Lillith almost never loses patience. Not that I’ve seen so far. I’ve had women literally throw half-empty wine bottles at me, but somehow this stings worse.
I tuck my hands in my pocket and give her an apologetic cringe. “Yikes,” I say. “I’m being a prick. I’m sorry for pestering you. I really am just... I’m trying to understand things here.”
She worries her lower lip, staring down at the onions in the saucepan as they start to turn a faint golden color. She pushes them around again, and I get the distinctive feeling that she’s purposefully not looking at me.
“Hey,” I say, taking the wooden spoon out of her hand and setting it aside. “C’mere.”
She hesitates momentarily, but eventually obeys, folding into my arms and letting me kiss the top of her head. “I’m not upset with you. But it’s totally okay if I annoyed you into being upset with me.”
“I’m not annoyed, I’m just...” she trails off.
“Just...” I prod, hoping she’ll continue.
She presses her forehead against my chest and all I can see is the top of her hair as she squeezes me closer. “Damien, I’ve never really been like this with a guy before,” she says. “It’s new and a little scary and I just... I wonder if we’re going too fast here.”
My heart sinks, but I force myself to keep my arms just as warm and tight around her. “I see.”
“I mean—you’re—I know you joked about that whole thing with how you’ve been with other women. But I thought this whole thing would be a little more casual, you know?”
I can almost hear the wet splat of my heart falling on the floor.
Casual. Damn. Is that what she thinks this is? Is that what she feels this is? Did I misread this whole situation? I assumed that all the jokes about catching feelings and being left behind after the tour was over meant that she was thinking about me in the long term, too.
“Is... uh... Is that what you want? Casual?”
“I just have no idea what I want yet, Damien,” she says. “We’ve been hanging out for less than two weeks. I’m having so much fun, but I’m not ready for any expectations or rules or... I don’t know. Can you just... can you give me a couple more weeks? Please? Let me feel this out?”
“Should I give you some space?” I ask, bracing for an answer I know I’m not going to want to hear.
“No!” She says, wrapping her arms tighter around me like I might slip away from her right this second.
She looks up at me with her big, pewter eyes and nibbles on her lower lip in a way that quiets the fear and frustration I already feel building.
“No, Damien,” she continues, “I just. If this whole thing is just for kicks, I don’t want to have to explain it to everyone we come across, you know?
Small town shit. It’s just different here than it is in Seattle. Can you try to understand that?”
“Yeah,” I say, kissing her forehead. “I get it. I can wait a couple more weeks. Honestly, probably even a few months for you.”
“Thank you,” she says, stepping up on her tippy toes to kiss me properly.
It’s chaste enough that it leaves me wanting so much more from her, but I’m starting to get the feeling that is an experience I’m going to have to get accustomed to.
She withdraws from me and I feel her absence like a sharp whip of cold air.
I wish I could just hang all over her while she cooks.
I return to my perch, leaning against the counter again. “Well, if you don’t want to go out tonight, then what do you want to do instead?”
“Well,” she says. “I was thinking I would make you a beautiful meal of venison-quesabirria tacos. And then I thought I could do a reading for you. If you want.”
“No shit?” I ask. “Is this the equivalent of a girl asking for your birth time?”
She snorts a laugh. “No. But what is your birth time?”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Don’t you think you’re moving a little fast there? You won’t go get ice cream with me but you want to see where my wounded healer is on my chart?”
“What do you know about Chiron?” she teases. “Wait. Are you a closet astrologer?”
“Oren was obnoxiously obsessed with it when we were in high school. He was convinced he could make anyone sleep with him if he learned how to read a birth chart.”
“Did it work?” Lillith asks.
I laugh. “Hard to say if it was the birthcharts or the fact that he hit his full height in his junior year, but yeah. He started drowning in ass around that time.”
“You know what?” she says. “Good for him, honestly.”
“Yeah,” I say. “Now that guy is a slut. You should definitely slut-shame him.”
She laughs. “Noted,” she says. “So, he practiced astrology on you?” she asks as she spoons the sautéed veggies into the pressure cooker.
“Mmm, not really. We don’t know my exact birth time so he kept getting frustrated by the parts it left out.”
“You don’t have your birth certificate?”
“We have it,” I say. “But I was a safe surrender baby, so no one actually knows exactly when I was born.”
She pauses in the middle of slicing open some dry guajillo chiles and balks at me. “Wait, really?”
I nod. “Yep, foster kid since birth,” I say.
“I thought...” Her face turns pink like it always does before she reveals that she has some random fact about me logged in her mind like a stalker. “I mean... You talk about your mom sometimes in interviews...”