Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
Devon
My last weekend before school traditionally requires an action-packed weekend of absolute stillness and peace.
And there is only one place in the world right now where I can achieve such a state.
Meredith and Kevin are at work. Tara’s still off gallivanting in Europe like she’s a royal.
My mom is hogging our house—surprise, surprise.
And I am at my leisure in Mer’s empty apartment.
It’s just me, my soul couch, and the Salvatore brothers, living life to its fullest when there’s a knock on the downstairs door.
I ignore it, a) because I’m not wearing pants beneath the Drexel Med hoodie that reaches down to my knees, b) because Damon has his shirt off on the screen and I forget for a second that someone is knocking, and c) because going down the steps in my stupid boot requires serious work so I’m not getting up unless I absolutely have to.
There’s another loud pounding and I realize that we are now in the “absolutely have to” territory.
I pause Vampire Diaries and hustle (waddle like a penguin) down the never-ending steps leading to the front entrance that empties onto Passyunk Avenue just as the third loud pound sounds on the triple latched door.
“Alright, alright! I’m coming!” I yell, reaching for the intercom button. “Yes?” This better be good considering topless Damon.
“It’s Jeff.”
I look up at the water stain in the corner of the staircase ceiling and shut my eyes.
It’s been a full week since the chance run-in at CHOP and the tequila sodden shitshow that followed, and it has become increasingly difficult to avoid this man and believe me I’ve given it my full A-plus effort.
The upcoming school year should provide a convenient excuse. I knew there was a reason I worked.
I press the intercom button again. “What do you need?”
There’s a long pause and I imagine Jeff’s dark hair glistening with sweat as the steam from the manhole on the sidewalk engulfs him in swampy clouds. Serves him right.
“Devon! Can you just open the fucking—"
I unlatch the final lock with a smile. Something about Jeff cursing gives me unnatural joy.
The joy vanishes when the door swings open and a wave of suffocating heat sweeps over me and up the staircase. Jeff steps in and closes the door behind him, shaking his head as he looks me over. He’s barely sweating in his fitted jeans and vintage tee.
“Watch your language,” I tell him, turning and heading back upstairs which requires me to step and heave—step and heave—like I’m Jacob Marley pulling a ball and chain behind me.
My mom would smack me in the back of my head for being such an unwelcoming hostess, but I just want to get back to Damon’s pecs, hoping he will wipe the image of Jeff’s broad chest in his soft gray t-shirt from my annoying thoughts.
“Says the woman who drops the f-bomb like it’s a hot potato,” Jeff says from behind me.
“I only curse in the summer. I have to get it all out of my system. Why are you here anyway?”
I hold the back of the sweatshirt under my ass to make sure he cannot see any of my—
“I’m not looking at your box o’love. And I’m here because I was invited.”
He has found a way to work box o’love into every conversation we’ve had since our sober introduction.
Unfortunately, his determination and creativity impresses me.
But he doesn’t need to know that. I press my lips together and ignore him as I lower myself onto the couch.
I fold my good leg under me and lift my boot onto the coffee table then hit play, watching Jeff’s long stride in my periphery as he moves into the kitchen and opens the fridge.
I’m used to this with Kevin—the way he makes himself at home at Meredith’s and at my mom’s—but with Jeff it feels funny.
Like we’re playing house. He makes his way back out of the kitchen with two bottles and hands one to me.
“Thanks,” I murmur, keeping my eyes glued to the screen as I take the beer.
He plops down on the cushion beside me. There’s a cushion open at the other end. Who sits in the middle when the end is open? Someone who knows exactly how far I want to be from him. That’s who.
“Ya know, I never understood why Elena goes for Damon. Stefan is obviously the better brother,” Jeff says.
I hit pause again and turn my neck slowly—exorcist style—use the full force of my teacher glare.
“If I have to do this with you, there’s some things you need to know.
” He’s smiling and I want to poke something sharp into that stupid dimple on his right cheek.
“Number one, I like my personal space so move over.” He murmurs something about the rules and scoots over like an inch, keeping his ass firmly planted on the middle cushion as he waits for me to go on.
“Number two, Labor Day weekend is a sacred teacher pastime brought over by the Vikings in the early days of yore.”
He lifts his brows.
“Yup. So don’t go fudging it up for me.”
“It’s still summer so you might as well just say f—”
I hold up my hand to signal he has not been called on.
“And number three, don’t say dumb shit about the Salvatore brothers. Stefan is boring.”
He tilts his mouth upward. I’ve named this expression “smugly amused” and it appears to be one of his go-to moves when he’s near me. “Boring?”
“Yeah, boring. And self-righteous. Sound familiar? No one wants to fantasize about a guy who is morally superior. It’s like having a sex dream about a priest—although Fleabag season two was pretty dang hot.
The Dalai Lama! It’s like having a sex dream about the Dalai Lama,” I explain.
I sound like Tara defending one of her trashy boyfriends to Mom.
But Jeff just considers what I’m saying and scratches at the stubble along his chin.
“Are you growing a beard?” I ask him. He’s usually clean shaven. Rugged Jeff is throwing me off kilter.
“Maybe,” he says, like it’s some big secret. “How many more weeks of this?” he asks, knocking on the hard plastic of my boot.
“The foot fetish guy said one more—but if someone had done a better job it would be off by now.”
He sighs. “I’ve told you at least six times that I wasn’t your surgeon so stop looking at me like that.” He turns his legs toward me and pats the worn denim on his thighs. “Let me take a look, while I’m here.”
Nopey, nope, no.
I shake my head. “No way am I letting you mess me up further than you already have.”
“I can’t believe they let you teach our youth,” he murmurs, then reaches out and unstraps my boot.
“They beg me to teach the youth,” I correct.
I try to smack his hands away, but they move so fast. He’s like a Velcro strap ninja.
“Stop it. My foot smells and I haven’t shaved.” I’m still smacking away, mostly hitting myself.
He laughs. “Just hold still and let me look. Goodness, you’re a child.”
He’s winning and I’m out of breath. I sit back and hold my hands up, surrendering as he peels off the black plastic and reads my sock out loud.
“I’m a delicate fucking flower.” He looks up at me.
“I am.” Obviously.
He makes a sound of disbelief. “Have you been doing your strengthening exercises?” he asks, shifting my ankle into his lap. His long fingers are careful. Precise. I can’t help but imagine them working their way up—
He clears his throat. “Devon?”
Too much Damon in one day. I know better than this. It’s like the time I had to take an emergency trip to the vibrator store after that episode with Buffy and Spike that–
“Devon!”
“What?”
His smile is lopsided. I’m still out of breath and I tell myself it was the ninja hand game and not his fingers on my bare skin. He speaks slowly, like I do in class when I’m explaining bivariate data. “Are you doing your physical therapy?”
Not really. But I’m not going to tell Dr. Superior that. “Yes, Jeff. Can I have my foot back now, you creep?”
He’s rolling my sock down in this slow methodical way that is making me dizzy. I stiffen.
“Can you relax your calf?” he asks, as he pulls the sock away.
“It is relaxed. My muscles are just that firm. You know. From all those exercises—Oh god.”
His palm cups the bare skin at my heel and my leg jerks at the sensation, and I kick him square in the jaw. Hard. My hand flies to my mouth.
He keeps one hand on my bad foot and pushes his chin back and forth with the other, testing the joints, staring at me like I’m more trouble than I’m worth.
I’m trying not to laugh at the fact that I just punted him in the face, but I’m grinning so hard. “I told you not to do it! But noooo, the patient has no rights. Dr. Jeff knows best.”
“Dr. Jeff? What happened to Dr. Dick?”
He lets out a breath and his eyes meet mine and I’m staring, trying to place that color green in my memory.
It reminds me of the swimming hole in Vermont that my mom took us to on one of our many adventures from before.
He seems to sense that I’ve gone somewhere in my mind and snaps in front of my face.
“You alright?” he asks. “Did you hurt yourself?”
I just kicked him and he’s asking me if I’m alright? His jaw is made of steel. Or that shit wolverine is made of. Aluminum. Aluminumum. Aluminimiuminum.
“Adamantium,” he corrects.
Shit, I was saying that out loud?
“I’m fine. Just very ticklish,” I lie.
He nods and I look away.
“Hey, Dev. Jeff is coming ov—” Meredith comes to a halt at the top of the stairs, a case of beer in one hand and a pizza balanced on the other.
Kevin bumps into her back and she nearly drops dinner.
I hadn’t even heard them come in. My heart slams against my rib cage.
Mer looks at my foot in Jeff’s lap and smiles at us.
“I hope you shaved those cave woman legs before you let him examine that,” she says.
I laugh a little too loudly and pull my foot away from my attacker.
“She didn’t,” Jeff says, and I want to smack them both as I try to put my sock back on far less gracefully than it was taken off.
Kevin cranes his neck around the pizza box to see what’s going on and his lips turn down a little at the sight of me de-booted. When I tilt my head at him he pulls them back up into the warm smile I’m used to.
“Hey, Dev. I feel like it’s been ages,” he tells me, squeezing past Jeff awkwardly as I whisper, “Should I give him the ass or the crotch?”
The answer is ass. Jeff leans back to avoid it. I giggle as Kev embraces me and earn a glare from Jeff.
Kevin releases me and follows Mer into the kitchen, leaving me and Jeff awkwardly sizing each other up.
He tries to help with the boot, and I shoot him the you’ve-done-enough look I reserve for my eighth graders when they say something cruel.
He backs off with a chuckle and lays the boot on the table, then joins my friends—ugh—our friends in the kitchen.
I guess I’m in the acceptance stage of this unfortunate situation.
I focus on calming my breathing. I should have just stayed in Jersey this weekend—where it was safe.
My mom loves Vampire Diaries. She doesn’t cheer for Stefan.
She doesn’t sit too close or purposely try to piss me off and make me feel weird—well unless she makes a sexual comment about Damon—but that’s a different weird.
I focus on the straps of my boot and promise myself to ignore the knocking next time I’m alone.