Chapter Eighteen Julia #2
Cozy lighting made the place feel like coming home to a cottage on a rainy day.
There was a stone arch behind the bar, making it look like a hearth, and wine bottles were everywhere.
White linen, candles, and sparkling glasses were on each table, but somehow this fancy little restaurant didn’t feel pretentious.
It felt perfect.
And smelled incredible.
As soon as we walked in, an older gentleman came over and gave Damion a hug, and the two of them spoke briefly.
In Italian.
And dear God, Damion became the most attractive human on earth as he said words I couldn’t understand while smiling and laughing with this man who was clearly overjoyed to see him.
What the hell is wrong with me?
It didn’t matter that to the naked eye he appeared—at the moment—to be a nice person who was also hot and speaking Italian. It didn’t matter because I knew who he was, what he was, so why was the sight of him messing with my head?
He. Is. Damion. The. Evil. Rutledge.
Yet… I couldn’t stop watching him.
Okay, maybe “analyzing” was the right word. This guy looked authentic and happy, sincere in a way I’d never seen him before. No holding back smiles or making internal judgments, no conversation fueled by biting sarcasm. Watching him this way allowed a dangerous thought to enter my mind.
What would it feel like to have him genuinely like you?
His friend—Massimo, apparently—led us to a table by a window in the back of the restaurant, and as soon as we ordered and he walked away, I had to know. “What were you saying to him?” I asked.
“We were just catching up,” Damion said, brushing it off as if it were nothing to communicate in another language.
“In Italian,” I muttered, because it was too much.
“I had an uncle who loved Italy,” he explained. “So I spent a fair amount of time there.”
“You don’t say,” I said, still in awe of this multilingual Damion.
“I’m surprised someone like you hasn’t traveled much,” he said.
I could tell that “someone like you” meant “someone with money,” and it also felt like he was prying.
Or testing me.
His gaze was watchful behind his glasses as he waited for my response, which made me nervous.
What is he looking for?
I thought back to Bernard’s cover stories.
“I think it’s a Midwestern thing, sticking close to home. I don’t even understand your jet-setting life, to be honest. Like—you said you went surfing in Rio. How on earth does something like that happen?”
“No, I said I almost went surfing in Rio,” he corrected, and something about the look on his face made me interested.
“Forget your trunks?”
He wasn’t exactly smiling, but there was a kind of fond amusement on his face when he said, “Remembered the trunks, forgot my steadfast devotion to staying alive.”
“Explain.”
Damion seemed almost boyish and self-deprecating—the antithesis of who he usually was—when he finally did smile and said, “I couldn’t even convince my body to get near the water. I was so scared when I saw how ridiculously huge the waves were.”
Damion reached for a piece of bread from the table.
“But my uncle, who was determined to suck the marrow out of life, and the woman he was obsessed with—her name was Fernanda, and I’ll never forget her—she took his hand and they frolicked in the ocean like happy dolphins while I sat on the beach like a pouting baby loser. ”
“Your uncle sounds fun,” I said, trying to imagine what it’d be like to live a life like Damion’s, traveling to South America just to surf.
“Yeah, he was,” he said, giving me a strange look, like he was trying to measure what I meant by the comment.
“Is he the same one who liked Italy?” I asked.
“Uh, yes.” Damion’s Adam’s apple moved around a swallow, and his eyes were narrowed as he stared at me like I’d just asked too personal of a question.
Like I was doing something wrong by asking about his family.
I wasn’t sure exactly what I needed to apologize for, but I said, “I—I didn’t mean to—”
“So I have a question for you, Nebraska,” Damion suddenly interrupted, giving me whiplash with the change of subject. “Are you still carrying around your ex-boyfriend’s wallet?”
“What?” I definitely hadn’t expected that to be his question. “That’s none of your business.”
“Yeah, but you have to admit it’s a really weird thing to do,” he said. “Especially when your ex’s mustache looks fake.”
“No, it doesn’t,” I said defensively as I cut into the meatball appetizer.
“Oh, but it does, sweetie,” he said. “William’s got a feathery little mustache.”
“First of all, that’s not true. Second, I can’t believe you remember his name.”
“I can’t believe you dated his face,” Damion quipped, looking smugly amused.
“He has a nice face,” I said, because even though his face was no longer mine, it wasn’t… whatever Damion was painting it to be.
“Is that why you haul around the wallet, to sneak lovesick glimpses of his nice face?”
“Oh my God,” I said, rolling my eyes and rolling my meatball in the marinara. “No.”
“Then I don’t understand,” he said. “I’ve never known anyone who carries around their significant other’s full wallet and uses it as their own. Like, what is Mr. Mullet doing without his identification?”
I sighed. “Not that it’s any of your business or that I need to explain this to you, but he lost his wallet and had to get all new ID, okay? After he did, we found the old one and thought it’d be funny for me to use it. That’s all, no big deal, and I just haven’t had a chance to switch it out.”