Chapter Thirty-One • What it Looks Like • Lillith #2
Damien’s lips form a pout before he rolls his eyes. “Okay, fine, I can hear that you’re stage whispering. And pick out a few words. And from what I can glean, I don’t appreciate it.”
“He’s just saying you’re obsessed with me, baby,” I say at normal volume.
He straightens a little. “Did you just...call me ‘baby?’” he asks.
The question completely derails me. “D-did I?” I ask, feeling a flush rise to my cheeks. “I mean—uhm... Is that weird? Is it weird to use pet names on a fully grown man?”
He hurries over to me, gathering my face in his hands and nuzzling his nose against mine.
“No! Of course not. I love it. I just thought you were maybe one of those girls that don’t like using them. Also, Fletch is completely correct. I’m absolutely obsessed with you,” he says.
I chuckle against his lips. “Yeah, I know. And lucky for you, I’m obsessed with you too.”
“Damn right. I’m the luckiest man alive,” he says, crushing a hard kiss to my lips and deepening it just long enough to leave me breathless. I’m dazed when he lets me go and hurries into the recording studio, rocking back onto my heels with a sigh.
I sit shakily on a chair next to Fletcher’s. He’s got his chin resting on the palm of his hand as his green eyes scan over me. “You know, I was a bit worried when he got besotted with a witch,” Fletcher says.
I flinch at the admission. Fletcher is Irish, so I suppose that means he could be a devout Catholic depending on which Irish circles he grew up in.
But he looks at Damien as he sets up at his kit.
He strikes a few of his drums and his cymbals and I hear nothing.
It’s fully soundproofed. “Damien. He’s had so many girls take advantage of him.
Even before Portent started getting bigger online—Damien’s got this bleeding heart thing about him that makes him easy to use.
“When I realized the lass he was going for was a real witch, I was really concerned about what you might want to use energy like his for. But he’s only stronger since meeting you—a better musician, a better friend. And I think that says as much about you as it does about him.”
I blink at him like I’m seeing him for the first time.
I squint at him and finally see it, crackling at the edges of his aura.
The little glimmer of glamour. It’s such a good one that the moment I notice its seams, those very seams disappear.
As soon as I’ve noticed it, I’ve suddenly forgotten it’s there.
“I’ll do everything I can to protect Damien,” I tell Fletcher, my focus going back to his words. “I’ll protect him from anything, including myself.”
Fletcher nods. “I know you will, Lillith,” he says as he presses a few buttons on the console and hands me a set of huge over-the-ear headphones.
I can already hear Damien’s drums come through before slipping them on.
I wear them, but I have to do a little finagling so I don’t mess up my hair.
I wind up wearing them upside down, with the band beneath my chin.
I hold them in place so they don’t fall off.
I get a little worried when Fletcher looks at me, but he just gives a quick nod before he presses down on another button and speaks into a mic on the desk. “Ready to get started, Loverboy?”
“Yep. Baby, can you see alright?”
I smile at him and nod. “Yep. Got a front row ticket to the gun show.”
He laughs, the sound warm and full. “Alright, Fletch, cue me up.”
“Aye,” he says, clicking around on the iMac before pulling up a music file with so many tracks on it that I can’t even tell what I’m looking at. “You want a click?”
“Fletcher.” Damien makes his name a single sentence.
“Right, not sure why I asked,” Fletcher says as he presses down on a button on the keyboard. A metronome starts to tap a steady rhythm in the background. “Alright, starting the recording now.”
I watch, mesmerized, as Damien’s expression sharpens, his eyes focused as he bounces his heel with the click.
When a humming bit of feedback sounds over the speakers along with the click, he brings his sticks down on the floor toms, occupying the empty space with a punchy fill.
A pause, then another fill over the onset of the bass and guitar coming together.
As Damien plays along with the up-tempo verse, I’m standing out of my chair so I can see what he’s doing better.
I knew this already, of course, but Damien is alarmingly, arousingly competent with his instrument.
He’s the kind of player that makes the instrument look effortless, even though I’m critically aware that it’s not.
And when he catches my eye during a pause in the song, winks, and spins a stick mindlessly before playing a call and answer solo with Fletcher’s pre-recorded guitar, I think I’ll just melt into a puddle.
He’s so fucking sexy. And I get to keep him. I get to love him forever.
The song is over too soon, and I suddenly find myself unsure if I want to continue the date. It would be much more enjoyable to hang around and watch him play. Competence porn is a very real thing.
“Good work, Dame,” Fletcher says through the mic. “You play like you mean it when your lass is around.”
“Damn straight,” he says, whipping his hair out of his face and grinning with those pointed teeth at me. “That’s who I’m playing for.”
I have to actually put my hand over my heart for how it pangs.
“Come to the next session, why don’t you?” Fletcher asks me. “I mean, if you’re able to get out of the house now, it’d be nice to have someone here for Damien to show off to. It’s good motivation.”
“If everyone’s okay with it, I’d love to,” I say.
“I’m okay with it. That’s all that matters,” Damien says.
Damien gets dressed again. Luckily, his hair is only a tiny bit damp from the effort of playing, and it only emphasizes the charming waves his hair naturally falls in. His lips are just barely tinged a sheer black from my lingering lip color. Once he has his shoes back on, he takes my hand in his.
“Ready to get out of here, sweetheart?” he asks.
“Yeah,” I say, leaning into him to kiss his cheek.
His smile grows as he leads me out of the room. When we step out, we find Wren and Satoshi tangled together on the couch, making out in the late afternoon sunlight.
“Use protection,” I sing song as we pass them.
Both Wren and Satoshi lift a middle finger and I shake my head because they’re obviously perfect for each other. Damien helps me down the stairs, citing the desire to not see me eat shit, thanks to Wren sharing that bit of intel.
While I hold onto his hand and watch my stupid feet amble over the walk way, I notice a black duffel bag in his hands. I tilt my head. “What’s that for?” I ask.
“Blankets, in case we decide we want to stargaze on the beach tonight after the date,” he says.
“Ah,” I say. “Makes sense. That would be so cute!”
He helps me back into the SUV and even goes so far as to buckle me in, pausing to kiss me before coming around to the driver’s side and starting up the car.
“So, still a surprise?” I ask as he backs out of the driveway.
He smiles over at me and nods. “Yep. Still a surprise.” He fishes his phone out of his pocket and hands it to me. “DJ for us?”
I blink down at the device, seeing the photo of us from the house already set as his lockscreen. The number pad is waiting for his pin number to open the phone. “Oh, uhm, it’s locked.”
“Zero, five, zero, six, seventy-eight,” he says without any hesitation.
“That’s... almost the date we got together?”
“Seventy-eight for the number of cards in a Tarot deck,” he says. “Oren’s got me paranoid about simple passwords. I swear that shit is contagious.”
My heart warms as I pull up his Spotify.
It’s strangely intimate to get a look at his listening habits.
There are the usual things I would expect.
A whole spectrum of metal and progressive rock and punk.
But then there are the surprising things, too.
Dolly Parton and Johnny Cash. Beach Boys and The Everly Brothers.
Sabrina Carpenter and Chappel Roan. Even some musicals that I honestly forgot existed, Spring Awakening and RENT and Bare: a Pop Opera.
What really shocks me though, is when I scroll to his playlists and find one titled “Songs Lillith Sings.”
I tilt my head and select it and find a playlist of about thirty songs that I absolutely love.
“Kaleidoscope” by Chappel Roan is the very first track.
Then there’s “Kiss it Better” by Portent.
“Young and Beautiful” by Lana Del Rey, and on and on.
A chronological list of songs I’ve sung around Damien.
I never thought Damien paid that much attention to what I sang or listened to around him.
“Ah,” Damien says as he pulls up to a red light and peeks over at his screen. “I’ve been trying to figure out if there are some common threads between all the music you like best. Is that creepy? That I have a playlist of songs I’ve heard you singing?”
“No, not at all,” I say. “It’s honestly so sweet. I can’t believe you’ve been paying this much attention to me.”
“I love it when you sing,” he says. “It’s my favorite when I catch you doing it. I feel like you clam up when you notice me listening, so I try not to make a big deal about it. It’s like when Gloam is trying to sneak up on us, but she stops moving every time we actually look at her.”
I laugh and select the first song and sigh as Chappel’s voice starts playing through the speakers over the melancholic piano. I turn it down until it’s low enough to act as background to our conversation, but can still be heard clearly. “So, have you found a thread?”
“A few,” he says, looking forward as the light turns green. “Like that they’re mostly sad songs. Sort of bittersweet.”
“That’s true,” I say. “I blame Nan for that. She loved a sad song.”
“And sort of soft, haunting vocals seem to be your thing. Both for listening and for singing yourself,” he says.
“Wren calls them my ‘Sad Bitch Artists’,” I say.
He snorts a laugh. “She would, wouldn’t she?”