Chapter Sixteen Julia
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“I love a woman with a plan.”
—Remington
Julia
What is happening?
I was trying to focus on the equation, but Clank had just jumped up onto Damion’s lap.
And Damion wasn’t pushing her off. He was petting her.
“No, you missed a step,” Damion said, rubbing a hand over Clank’s back as he watched my calculations from behind those glasses.
“What?” I stopped writing and looked down at the paper.
“Here,” he said, reaching over the cat’s head to point his pencil at my work. “Right there.”
Clank had clearly lost her mind. Her ability to read a room and be an asshole to an asshole must have taken a vacation, because she was arching into his touch like they were best friends.
She was purring.
So loudly.
“Oh yeah,” I said, unwilling to acknowledge the cat in the room because I didn’t want to interrupt whatever this moment was. “Forgot.”
“Does that make sense?” he asked, and what the hell? If I didn’t know him, I’d think he was a cat guy. The nonchalant way he was petting Clank was super cat-lady-core.
But that wasn’t possible.
This was Damion Rutledge, for God’s sake.
“It does,” I said, starting over, reworking the problem, amazed that it was making sense.
He was a very good teacher.
Honestly, I was shocked by how smoothly the tutoring thing was going. Aside from the one session at the coffee shop, we worked on math at my house. He seemed to prefer that. Damion stopped by after school, and we settled right into studying and were fully locked-in for an hour.
I mean, he usually had one or two sarcastic observations to make upon his arrival, of course, but once we started working, he became my teacher.
The whole thing was surprisingly professional.
As soon as I finished the problem, the alarm on my phone started chirping.
“What’s that for?” he asked, still running his big hand up and down Clank’s back.
I set down my pencil and turned off the alarm. “I’ve got a hard stop time today.”
Don’t ask me why.
“Why?” He watched as I stood and reached for my backpack.
“I… have, um, plans,” I said, not really wanting to share what I was doing.
“No, you don’t,” he said definitively, his eyebrows furrowing like I’d said something ridiculous.
“Yes, I do.”
“Seriously,” he said, his eyes on my face like he was waiting for the real answer. “Why?”
“Oh my God—I can’t have plans?” I asked, annoyed.
Damion gave me a deadpan stare, a look that told me he definitely didn’t think I could have plans. Rude.
“Fine,” I said, rolling my eyes. “If you must know, I’m going to Times Square.”
“Dear God, why?” he asked in disgust, calmly placing Clank on the floor before standing. “I’d rather be drawn and quartered.”
“Really relevant reference there, Rutledge, and because I’ve never been,” I said, pulling my backpack over my shoulders. “I know it’s touristy and cliché and you’re far too sophisticated to ever make an appearance up there, but I’ve never seen it and I want to.”
“Down,” he said.
“What?”
“Down there,” he corrected. “You are uptown, and Times Square is—”
“Whatever, same difference, you know what I mean,” I said.
That made his eyebrows screw together and his eyes narrow. “Are you going with your brother?” he asked, looking down at his watch.
It wasn’t the Rolex today, though—it was an Apple Watch. He’d probably decided to go casual with the jewelry since he was wearing the sweater version of his uniform instead of the blazer and tie.
He has a very broad chest, I thought to myself. Not that I cared, but I figured he must work out a lot because it was incredibly… solid underneath that V-neck sweater.
My brain remembered from the basketball courts.
The boy was positively pectoral.
He probably swims laps at the athletic club or plays some rich-guy sport I know nothing about, like cricket.
Polo, maybe.
Of course, that made me picture him on a horse, and wow, Damion Rutledge—in my head—looked really natural sitting on top of a horse.
“No—he’s grabbing dinner with friends,” I said, annoyed over that, because how was it possible that Liam had already found people who liked him enough to want his company on a Friday night, but I’d barely found anyone who didn’t want to snarkily scoff at me when I merely passed them in the hallway at school?
I had Jasmine and Donovan, thank God, but Liam already seemed to have an entire army of friends.
I inhaled through my nose, feeling like a loser as I admitted, “So it’s just me.”
He didn’t say anything. Just the typical Damion analytical stare.
“What? I like doing things by myself. Don’t judge.”
“I’m not,” he said. “I prefer being by myself, so I get it.”
“Yeah, I can see that about you,” I agreed as he pulled his leather crossbody bag over his shoulder.
I needed to get going, because I’d selected today, and this specific time of day, for my first subway ride to Times Square, for multiple reasons. I wanted to head there when it was still light out, see all the bright lights just when it was getting dark, and then get home before it was too late.
And before my parents got home.
They were having dinner at the athletic club tonight, and I knew they’d have reservations about me taking the subway and traversing the city by myself when we hadn’t really left our neighborhood since we’d arrived.
Damion and I walked out of the house together and said goodbye, and I started walking toward the subway station. My eyes were on my phone’s map app as I headed down the street.
I’d made it a block when I heard him.
“Julia!”
I stopped and turned around, only to see Damion walking toward me with an annoyed expression on his face, like a parent who was irritated that their child forgot their scarf and gloves at school.
“What?” I said when he reached me.
His eyes moved over my face, like he was gathering thoughts as his dark gaze roamed, and then they met mine. “Where are you going?”
“To the subway station,” I said. “I told you that.”
He sighed. “Do you want me to take you?”
My mouth dropped open and I didn’t know what to say. Did he mean—
“Don’t overthink this, Nebraska, because we both know I’m not a nice guy,” he said, sounding like he was unhappy with himself. “But the thought of you wandering through the crowds with your wide eyes and Nebraska face is just too alarming for words.”
“My Nebraska face?”
“You know what I mean,” he said.
“I do not, actually.”
“Let’s just say you don’t hide your thoughts well,” he clarified. “Every person with bad intentions in that nightmarish square is going to take one look at you and know you’re a tourist.”
“I’m not a tourist,” I replied, offended by his description. “I live here.”
“You know what I mean,” he said again, this time with a big sigh. “And how well do you know the subway lines?”
I shrugged and tried being cool. “Well enough.”
“Really?”
I shrugged again. “It doesn’t look hard to navigate. Little kids do it all the time.”
“New Yorkers,” he clarified. “They’re a different breed of toddlers, take it from me. I was one. Listen, I’m not going to force myself on you here, but if you want an escort, just to guide you there and show you a few things, I’ve got a couple free hours.”
“I thought you said you aren’t a nice guy.”
“Oh, I’m definitely not,” he said, taking his turn looking offended. “I just don’t want to live with the survivor guilt after you get mowed down by a double-decker bus because you’re smiling up at the dancing lights, oblivious to your surroundings.”
“For the record,” I said, “the first time we met I kicked your ass, so I think I can handle myself.”
“For the record,” he replied with a smirk, “the first time we met you lost your wallet and almost got hit by a car.”
“Leave it to you to make it sound negative.”
“Leave it to me to make it honest.” He put his hands in his pockets and said, “Listen, I can call for a car so we don’t have to take—”
“I’m taking the subway,” I interrupted, because I’d been dying to try it since the second we pulled into town. My parents seemed to be afraid of it, always insisting we walk or have Bernard get a car, but I wanted to become that New Yorker.
I wanted to know where to grab a train, how to take a train, and which train went where—take the “one train” to Midtown.
If we were going to live here, I needed to experience all of it.
“Fine,” he said. “But you’re going the wrong way.”
“No, I’m not. There’s a station over there,” I said, pointing. “And—”
“And it’s faster to go this way and catch the express train.” He took the phone out of my hand, clicked the button that turned off the screen, then slid it into the pocket of my blazer. “Put the phone away and I will teach you.”
I swallowed as I felt his fingers graze the inside of my pocket.
“Wait. Damion the Tutor is taking me downtown?” I said, although as soon as I said it, I got a weird feeling in my stomach.
Because Damion the Tutor.
Oh God.
That guy might be more dangerous than Damion the Evil.