Chapter Fourteen Julia
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“Gardenwood is a neighborhood I love with all my heart. The architecture, the history, the restaurants, the markets—I could wax poetic over the place all day long. The people, however, scare the living shit out of me.”
—Remington
Julia
Whyyyyy does he make me so nuts?
Damion was staring at me in that unnerving way of his, like there were no less than a thousand wicked thoughts going through his mind. He seemed like an actual character from The Woods (the TV show), or perhaps a guy from a vampirical dark romance novel.
Basically, he seemed like he knew everything I didn’t.
Something about his heavy-lidded eyes, or maybe it was his sharp jawline or those dark, slashing eyebrows—made it seem like he’d done everything and surely had a frame of reference for all of it.
Sex, drugs, booze, fashion, sports—he was just that guy, the guy who oozed a dark knowledge of any and all things.
Donovan’s words added to my intimidation when I felt like I knew absolutely nothing about any of it.
Most people think of him as a rebel.
Like, if those people thought of him as a rebel, then I was definitely out of my element.
I hadn’t been sheltered in Springfield—I’d been to a few parties there, and knew a lot of people who drank on the weekends—but it felt different here.
The students at Gardenwood Academy all seemed experienced.
There was a confidence in the way they moved through the world, an arrogance that suggested they’d done about a million things I’d never even thought to try. This was true about Damion.
Especially true.
Just being around him, even sitting across from Damion in a quiet coffee shop, held an air of danger.
Quit being a stupid baby, Jules.
“I don’t need bread,” I said, clearing my throat, trying my hardest to sound unfazed when he always seemed to have me fazed, “to concentrate on the math—the math, thank you very much.”
“Glad to hear it,” he said with a slow-sliding grin, maybe the first genuine grin I’d ever seen on his face. Then he lowered his voice and mockingly repeated, as if it was hilarious to him, “The math, thank you very much.”
Oh my God, could he be more arrogant?
I looked at his smile and wanted to slug him, but also—wow.
That smile.
Thank God I knew he was a jerk and I was immune, because the full-throttle power of his smile definitely gave the “dizzying” vibes that Donovan and Jasmine had been talking about.
Dear Lord.
And what is he wearing??
I hadn’t noticed when I sat down, mostly because I was late and also slightly distracted by the baguette, but he was wearing a Knives Out fisherman sweater that looked absurdly, ridiculously, monstrously good with the glasses on his face and the waves in his thick hair.
It was offensive how handsome he was.
“I need a coffee before we start,” I said, nearly knocking over my chair as I stood. “Do you want one?”
His smile simmered into more of a smirk, like he could read my thoughts.
Jackass.
Which made me look down at my Apple Watch to avoid his eye contact entirely.
I heard him say, “An Americano would be great.”
“No problem.”
I went to the counter and ordered our drinks, trying to get my brain and my emotions to agree on calming the hell down.
Who cares if he’s attractive? I thought as the barista prepared our order.
A very attractive asshole is still an asshole.
When I glanced in his direction, he was scrolling on his phone, looking bored (his default expression) as he leaned back in his chair, and I reminded myself that I only needed him for his brain.
Ignore his… Damion-ness.
Easier said than done, I thought a few minutes later, because when I held out his drink, he gave me a dickish half smile and said, “Thanks, Jules.”
“Of course, Dame,” I replied through gritted teeth as I sat down.
“A pet name already? Sunshine, you flatter me,” he said.
I just sighed, because I wasn’t equipped to handle him.
“But listen, my student,” he said, his eyes nearly twinkling as he made my life hell.
“Please don’t call me that.”
“How do we feel about ‘pupil’?”
“Makes me throw up a little in my mouth,” I said, to which he responded with a shrug.
Thankfully, once I pulled out the testing study packet Headmaster Green had given me, Damion straightened up from his I’m-a-bored-duke chair lean. He scooted his chair closer to the table, adjusted his glasses, read over the first page, then cleared his throat.
“Okay, so how do you feel about this unit?” he asked, gesturing toward the paper. “What is your comfort level with these particular problems? On a pain scale of one to ten…?”
I didn’t want to, but I admitted, “These are a solid seven for me.”
“Okay,” he said, nodding. His eyes were serious, entirely absent of his cool mockery, when he said, “We can fix that. What’s your first step on this problem?”
He pointed a finger at the equation.
“Um…”
“Just show me how you’ll attack it, Nebraska, and once I know that, we can start reshaping.”
“Okay,” I said, gnawing on my lip, nervous to show him more of my lackluster mathematical skills.
Also a little taken aback by the sincerity.
I started working the problem, and just like during our first session, he kind of became a different person when he was teaching.
It was like his brain locked in on the information and he forgot who he was.
The privileged smart-ass disappeared and was replaced by someone intelligent, intentional, and patient.
He wasn’t necessarily warm or nice, but it didn’t feel like he was coming at me for once.
Which was nice.
“Hold up,” he said quietly. “Look at the second half of the problem. Are you sure you want to do that?”
“Oh,” I said, trying to remember what he’d showed me on the last problem. “So I should first go here?”
I pointed to the equation in parentheses.
“Bingo,” he said, leaning a little closer. “And don’t forget about that.”
His big finger tapped the other side of the problem, but I got a little tripped up by how good he smelled.
It made me look away from the paper and at his muscular neck, just above the collar of that wool sweater, which was probably where the smell was coming from.
Of course, that made my gaze move up to his face, God, where hazel eyes were watching me from behind expensive frames.
“I, um, I won’t,” I said, my voice coming out a little weird.
Stop sounding breathless, you idiot!
“Good girl,” he said, but I kept my eyes on the paper as my ears got warm, definitely unable to look at him after those two words left his lips.
I still felt frustrated as I worked through the lesson, because I hated how hard it was for me to get it, but he explained things so well that after forty-five more minutes I was starting to feel like connections were being made.
With me and the math, that is.
“It’s just like the last one,” he explained as he looked at my equation, leaning closer over the paper and pointing at the problem. “You have to find the root of the number first, remember?”
“Duh,” I said as I realized my mistake, as I erased my work so I could start over. “Why do I forget that every time?”
“You’ll get it,” he said, brushing eraser dust off the paper.
“Will I?” I muttered under my breath as I clicked more lead out of the mechanical pencil and rewrote the problem.
“Of course you will,” he said, which made my eyes go to his face.
“You will. You have to believe that, Nebraska,” he said in a tone that was almost friendly. “This isn’t something impossible, right? It’s math, it’s data, it’s unyielding facts. We just have to keep coming at it from different angles until we find your path to understanding.”
“My path to understanding,” I repeated, blown away by his un-Damion-ness.
I had no idea what else to say.
Because he kind of made me believe.
He made it sound so simple, like there was no question I was going to eventually get it.
Was it actually possible?
“Finish the problem,” he said with his eyebrows raised behind those glasses. “Don’t get distracted when you’re starting to catch it.”
“I’m not.”
“Sure you aren’t,” he said, and his little smirk was… holy shit, it was nice.
I stared into his face and was terrified by how attractive I found him at that moment because he looked like he was being nice, what the hell.
Noooooo!
“Ah, I’ll be right back,” I blurted as I cranked back my chair and stood, needing to run to the restroom—anywhere—to get my mind right.
But cold liquid splashed over me as I took a step back from the table and bumped (slammed) into a woman who was walking by. I turned around as both of the coffees she’d been carrying crumpled and splurted against me, lids popping off, coffee splashing everywhere.
“Oh my God!” I managed as my shirt was instantly saturated with forty ounces of iced coffee. “I’m so sorry!”
I stammered the apology and bent down, trying to pick up the cups and grab a napkin while wiping the dripping liquid off of my hair and body, dear God.
“Here, Julia,” Damion said calmly.
Without even pausing, he stood and reached a hand over his shoulder, removed his thick wool sweater, and held it out to me, leaving him standing there in a white T-shirt. “Go put this on and I’ll clean up.”
“What?” I said dumbly as I stood there in a soaked shirt.
As Damion held out his sweater to me.
“Here,” he said, giving it a shake while also giving the woman whose coffee I was wearing a smile.
“Um, okay…?” I said, taking the sweater from his hand as a fat drop of liquid dripped out of my hair.
The wool was warm in my fingers, and something about that felt wildly intimate. I pushed back my hair with my free hand and asked, “Are you sure?”
“Go already,” he said, looking unfazed and also somehow really good in just a T-shirt and khakis.
Although, of course he did.
I took his sweater into the bathroom and changed, mortified by my klutziness.
It was totally on-brand for me to do something like this, but did it have to happen in front of him, of all people?
But as I slid into the pre-warmed sweater, which smelled like the essence of Ralph Lauren or Calvin Klein, someone rich and well-groomed, my stomach knotted up again.