Chapter Fifteen Damion
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“Most of the people I’m related to are insufferable.”
—Remington
Damion
“For Christ’s sake, you can’t make me go to a dance.”
“Damion Rutledge,” my mother said in outrage, her eyes huge in her face as a waiter filled her wineglass.
She’d gone from squealing like an overexcited tween over the news that she’d been awarded the ball—we were apparently this year’s host family—to very nearly spitting my name in righteous anger.
“You’re going, and stop calling it a ‘dance,’ for God’s sake. ”
“Isn’t that what a ball is, Mother?” My teeth were clenched so tightly that my jaw was starting to ache. “A big, ridiculously expensive dance?”
I glanced over her shoulder and could see that Coco and her parents were being seated beside the fireplace. Members of the Gardenwood Athletic Club didn’t technically have reserved spots in the restaurant, but that was definitely their unofficial table.
I suspected Coco and her mother—Chantel—preferred the way the flames illuminated their perfect skin.
Natural lighting at its finest… for people from hell.
“Stop it. Stop being obtuse,” she snapped, lowering her voice but not even dimming her rage. “How is it going to look if you aren’t there?”
“Like a ball full of people minus one Damion,” I said.
I wasn’t going.
I wasn’t.
“Listen to me now,” she said, leaning in a little. “The season is a fundraiser for your school, and all your father’s business partners will be there. You will be there.”
I sighed and dragged a hand through my hair, realizing I needed to calm down.
Making her defensive was a terrible plan.
“I get it, Mom, and I want you to have this, but I’m sure we can find a way—”
“Dammit, Damion,” my dad said, slamming his phone down on the table.
Apparently our disagreement had ruined the joy of whatever he’d been doing on his phone. His jaw was tight and his eyes told me that he’d had it.
“Quit being a child about this—you’re going. Period. We’re your parents, you live under our roof, and we make the rules,” he said, grabbing his Scotch. “If we say you’re going, you’re going.”
“Aww, this is so wholesome,” I said, slowly shaking my head because his words sounded so… domestic, so familial. “Your house, your rules? Are we on a Disney show now?”
Spoiler: We were not.
We came and went, lived under the same roof, and shared meals as a threesome every evening at a table that actually seated twenty comfortably. That was it. And it’d always been okay because I’d been able to escape to Remi’s. But now that escape was gone.
The Lowells were living in my oasis.
And I truly had no idea what was going to happen now.
It kept me up at night, wondering how his decision to give away his house and money would affect me, but I trusted him enough to be confident there was still a way. I knew he’d take care of me.
Because Uncle Rem and I had had a plan, dammit.
Once you turn eighteen and graduate, kid, it becomes YOUR life.
Mine to do with as I wanted. And what I’d wanted, more than anything in the world, was to move in with Remi.
The plan had been for me to live with him for the summer before going away to college in the fall. He was going to come back from Nebraska in time to “hang with me all summer” before I took off for Colorado.
But here’s where it got tricky.
Remi was supposed to help me break the bad news to my parents. He was supposed to be there, by my side, while I told them what I was doing, and then he was going to help me make my dream happen.
Because I didn’t want that Ivy League life.
“Knock it off,” my father said, his eyes telling me he was in no mood for my attitude. His gaze wandered over to the Chattinghams, and he raised a hand in greeting before he said, “It’s wasting everybody’s time if you rebel on this, because you don’t have a choice.”
“Come on, Dad,” I said, keeping the cool mockery in my tone because I hated letting him think he got to me. “Do you really give a damn about a ball?”
“Of course not,” he said with a scowl. “But this is about a lot more than a ball and you know it.”
Oh yes, I thought. It was about me imprinting myself upon his colleagues, reminding them with my ass-kissing presence at every social function that I would be coming aboard shortly and I was another one of them.
Rutledge, God of Finance.
“Spare me,” I muttered.
“It is exhausting, Damion, the way you’re constantly going out of your way to be difficult. Just do the damn season with Coco and get on with it.”
With Coco??
I stared at my father and knew, God help me, that he wasn’t asking.
Was this why Coco had started acting… friendly when I saw her? Were our parents in on this together?
“And it doesn’t have to be a big thing,” my mother said. “You and Coco have always been friends—”
“We have never been friends,” I said in disgust, my stomach sinking because I did NOT. Want. To. Take. Coco.
“So you can just take her to the ball—skip the pre-parties if you want, have an easy night with someone you’ve known your entire life, then put the season behind you. It’s not the big thing you’re making it out to be.”
An easy night.
With Coco Chattingham.
It was like my mother couldn’t hear herself or something.
“Easy” and “Chattingham” did not mix. They were old money, owned half of Manhattan, and succeeded at literally everything they did.
Everyone knew you didn’t mess with Chantel Chattingham. She had a reputation for zero tolerance for anything—or anyone—she didn’t like. You still couldn’t say the name Fiona Harper without wondering what had actually happened to the woman who’d challenged her spot on the guild board.
And Charles had the same reputation in his world. He ruined businessmen instead of wives, entrepreneurs instead of PTA members.
“Oh, you have, too,” my dad said, looking this close to rolling his eyes, if he were the type of person to roll his eyes.
But he wasn’t.
He was above that pedestrian bullshit.
“You used to play together at the park, for God’s sake,” he said. “You’ve known her your whole life.”
“And…?”
“And the fact that Charles is on our board and you’ll be running the company someday should make it obvious to you what a great ally she would be.”
I am seventeen!
I seemed to be the only one aware that I was a teenager and didn’t give a shit about business “allies” and advisory boards. I rubbed the back of my neck and didn’t know how to respond, because I also didn’t want to fight.
“Can you even imagine the photos?” my mother said with a buzzed smile. “Her pale hair next to your dark curls—”
“The fear in my eyes next to her spinning head—”
“Your height, her petiteness,” she continued as if I hadn’t spoken.
“My dying soul, her Exorcist-style vomiting—”
“Can you stop?” my dad snapped, his nostrils flaring in anger. “Can you stop being the sardonic little shit all the time and just do the right thing for once? There doesn’t always have to be a sarcastic monologue to accompany our life, you know.”
He literally saw taking Coco to a fucking ball as me “doing the right thing.”
I swallowed and wondered what it felt like to have choices. “Will you excuse me?” I said, not waiting for permission as I stood and looked for an escape. “I need air. I’ll be right back.”
My chest burned because I knew I’d lost.
I liked to think I was smart, but the truth was that I was spineless when it came to my dad. I became the eight-year-old version of myself when he raised his voice and listed demands.
Which meant I was taking Coco Chattingham to the motherfucking ball.
I took a deep breath and exited the dining room. Hopefully a walk to the men’s room would reroute the conversation and by the time I got back, we’d have moved on to something less threatening to my well-being.
Talks of proposed lobotomies, perhaps.
Speaking of lobotomies, I’d made it three steps out of the restaurant when I heard, “Well, if it isn’t Rutledge.”
I looked to my right and there, bellied up to the bar, was Corbin Archington.
“Hey, Arch,” I said, taking his offered hand and doing the stupid bro handshake because it was easier than pissing him off. I looked at the empty stools beside him. “Drinking alone tonight?”
The Toms spent a fair amount of time socializing in the club’s lounge, mostly because the bartenders got tipped a hell of a lot to spike their sodas with brown liquor.
Everybody knew it; nobody cared.
“Nah, the boys are on their way,” he said, and I wondered what would compel a guy like him to think four necklaces and a half-buttoned shirt looked good. He spent half his life trying to showcase the tattoo he’d gotten in middle school, I swear to God.
Corbin had always reminded me of James Spader’s character in that old movie Pretty in Pink. He moved too fast, talked too slick, behaved too shitty.
“Love that for you,” I said. “Life is good when ‘the boys’ are on the way.”
“Right?” he said with a commiserating smile.
Corbin never caught on to my sarcasm, which felt disappointing in a way because I really enjoyed ruining his smarmy version of happiness, but it was probably for the best. It was less of a hassle to just ignore the idiocy that was “the boys.”
“So let me ask you something,” he said, tilting his head. “Are you really having a thing with the new chick from Oklahoma?”
I saw “the new chick” as an enemy of sorts, yet I still wanted to punch this assbag for even mentioning her. That was how much of a douche he was. He made me want to defend the person who’d probably stolen my future.
“It’s Nebraska, and nah,” I said. “Just talking to her.”
“Taking inventory of the new stock, yeah?” he said with a laugh, and I wondered why he’d even asked if he was writing his own version of my reality. “Checking out the new product?”
God, he made my blood boil. “You’re hysterical—have you always been this funny, Corbin?” I asked.
“I mean,” he said, shrugging and grinning.
“Right? So damned witty,” I said, wondering how this guy was going to Yale next year. Surely there were thousands of rejected applicants more intelligent than he, right? “Listen, I’ve got to run, but it was great catching up. Buy the boys a shot for me, okay?”
“Sure thing, Damion,” he said.
“Asshole,” I muttered under my breath as I headed for the restroom, shaking my head.
How the hell was this my life?