Chapter Thirty Damion #2
“I am aware.” She coughed out a little laugh, and I wondered if she’d balk, if she’d brush me off.
I was an asshole, after all.
But instead her gaze went forward, looking at the path in front of her, turning her profile into art, a form framed in pin-oak curls. Her voice was soft and butter-smooth when she said, “ ‘When I am angry / I don’t yell, I burn.’ ”
I wanted to laugh but I was too stunned.
It was like witnessing a transformation, only the transformation didn’t exist.
I strongly suspected this had been her the whole time, only my blinders were just now being removed.
I knew she wouldn’t ask, but I wanted her to.
I wanted to give her a line, God help me.
I didn’t need anyone’s approval, but like a child, I wanted to impress her.
If I said, the two of us combined / could set it on fire, would she be impressed that I also devoured Rupi Kaur?
I shoved that ridiculous thought out of my head—what the fuck is wrong with me—and asked, “What’s your favorite book, Nebraska?”
Suddenly I needed to fill in all the blanks.
“Impossible question,” she said with a dismissive head shake.
“If we’re talking classics, I love The Awakening and Pride and Prejudice.
The Hunger Games series is my jam if we’re talking dystopian, The Wife Upstairs is such a great domestic thriller, and I have read The Duke and I at least fifty times if you’re counting romance as a genre, which you absolutely should. ”
“She contains multitudes,” I said quietly.
“Don’t sound so surprised,” she said, a smile in her voice. “Now give me yours.”
“Babbitt,” I said without thinking.
“Wait—did you just say Babbitt?” Her eyebrows went together and she looked shocked. “I’ve never heard anyone else talk about that book. Like, ever.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” she said, looking… weird about it.
Like it’d shaken free a buried memory.
Oh, and how I want to dig for it.
“Which way?” she said, still looking distracted by my answer.
Wow.
I’d been so lost in our conversation that I hadn’t realized how close we were.
“That bench over there,” I said, pointing to the bench.
My bench.
The bench I’d been going to my entire life.
My happy place.
I’d spent so many hours there, just watching the barges go up and down the Hudson while thinking about every little thing in my life, but the only other person who’d known it was my favorite spot was Remi.
So it was wild the way Julia looked at the bench with her eyebrows all scrunched together, like she was surprised to see it or had thoughts about it.
“That one?” she asked, her eyes narrowed as she pointed. “That bench right there?”
“Is that okay?” I asked, puzzled. “Or does Nebraska need something else?”
“No. It’s actually perfect.” She shook her head, then plopped unceremoniously on the bench, her smile returning. “Perfect. Now let us eat cake.”
Something about the sight of her there, smirking while holding that bakery box, felt right, God help me.
Like this was a sight I’d seen before, or wanted to see again, or… hell.
It didn’t make a damn bit of sense, but I felt like she belonged there.
I liked her on my bench.
I cleared my throat.
“Well, sit down,” she said, patting the spot beside her. “You are about to enjoy the most delicious cake of your life.”
When I sat down, the view I knew so well felt different with her there.
It looked the same, but now it smelled like rose-infused curls, sounded like her laughter, and was dusted with bow-tipped socks as she opened the box on her lap and handed me a plastic fork.
We sat there, side by side on my bench, devouring chocolate chip cake at an unhealthy pace while talking about everything and nothing.
Crisp leaves blew past us on the ground while the trees overhead waved in the autumn breeze, slowly releasing more gold and red into the world like someone was perched above us, gently shaking down falling leaves to set the scene.
“Jesus, slow down or you’re going to choke,” I teased as she wolfed down the cake.
“I can’t,” she said with a giggle. “It’s too good.”
“I’m not Heimliching you,” I warned.
“Because you’d have to stop eating the cake and you can’t bring yourself to do that, right?” she said, pointing her fork at me. “Admit it.”
“Hasn’t anyone ever told you it’s rude to point your plastic fork at a person?”
“You with those fancy Manhattan manners,” she teased.
And then a bird flew into the tree beside us.
The yellow on its chest caught my eye and I said, “Holy shit, that’s a dickcissel.”
“Your mom’s a dick weasel,” she muttered with a snort.
Cuteness overload.
“Not a dick weasel,” I said, pointing up at the branch where he’d landed. “Dickcissel. That bird right there.”
“Hasn’t anyone told you it’s rude to point your plastic fork at a bird?” Julia squinted in the direction of my finger. “You mean the one with the yellow?”
“Yep,” I said. “They migrate to Colombia and Venezuela for the winter, so this guy’s a little behind. And lost.”
“How do you know it’s not a female?” she asked. “Maybe she’s an independent lady bird who just didn’t feel like following her loser boyfriend to South America yet again.”
“Because, wiseass, males have that black V on their throat—see it?”
She nodded, staring up at it.
I swallowed down the sadness I felt every time I saw a bird Remi would’ve appreciated. I mean, dickcissels weren’t rare and we’d seen them before, but they mostly stayed in the Midwest, so he’d always called it “a treat” when we happened to come across one.
“So you’re actually a birder,” she said, and her tone made me think she wasn’t wholly surprised. “Does the wild and dangerous Damion Rutledge come to the park to bird-watch?”
I looked at her crinkled nose and teasing smile and I did it.
I confessed, “He does, actually.”
Her smile changed, settled into something less teasing and more sincere.
Her eyes roamed over my face, and it felt like everything around us dimmed, faded into the background of her light.
“He contains multitudes,” she said quietly.
No, more like she breathed it. Soft, sultry breath that did things to my head.
I looked down at that pretty face, at the soft warmth radiating from her, and I felt like I knew her, all of her.
And that she somehow knew exactly who I was.
The good and the bad.
The real me, not the Rutledge.
And I realized that whenever I was with her, there was zero expectation for me to be anything other than myself.
This was just a passing minute in the middle of a city park, a nothing moment surrounded by chocolate chip cake and dickcissels, but for the briefest of seconds I felt warm and home and like I wanted to pull her closer and beg her not to go anywhere.
Please stay.
“Jules,” I said, reaching out with both hands to push back those long curls, to allow my fingers to feel their wavy softness.
God, that hair.
How had I ever thought it was anything less than spectacular?
My heart was beating hard as I focused on the sight of those strands surrounding my fingers, those electric eyes on mine.
“Hmm?” she said, and as I looked at her face, I realized I could describe her eyes in great detail.
Holy shit, I could.
Yes, they were brown, but they were more of a glowing amber than something so basic as brown.
“Brown” could fucking never. They were alive, twinkling more often than not, and the long lashes that framed them were like a middle finger to all the girls who hated her. Mother Nature’s extra-credit points.
Suddenly I was leaning closer, my breath frozen in my lungs as I looked down at her mouth, at her pretty lips that probably tasted like chocolate chips and strawberry gloss. I wanted to kiss her more than I wanted anything in the world, but even more than that, I wanted her to want me to kiss her.
Those lashes fluttered as she blinked, blinked fast like she was considering her options as she met my gaze.
Trust me. Please.
It was impossible to breathe as the distance between us slowly disappeared, as my lips hovered just above hers.
God, yes.
“Damion,” she said, her voice nonexistent, her eyelids heavy as her gaze went to my mouth.
“Yes,” I said, unsure if I was asking or answering.
“Ah,” she blurted out, her eyes growing wide. “I have to go.”
What?
She scrambled away from me and jumped up off the bench, still blinking fast as she grabbed her backpack and hurriedly threaded her arms through the straps, looking like she’d just woken up from some deep sleep, surprised to find herself in the park with me.
“What?”
“I, um, I have to go,” she said, waving a hand to act like this wasn’t a big deal even though it obviously was. “I forgot I have a thing so…”
So…?
So… what?
My gut clenched as I tried figuring out what’d happened to make her face look like… this.
This look—whatever it was—gutted me from top to bottom.
“It’s nothing,” she said, shrugging and giving a breathy little fake laugh, even though her voice came out as sad and panicked.
Nothing? It’s EVERYTHING.
“I just forgot that I have to get home and I can’t be late. You keep the cake because I bought it as a thank-you, and I’ll talk to you later.”
“Julia—”
“I gotta go,” she said. “Thanks again!”
And she turned and literally started jogging up the path.
Running away.
From me.