Chapter 25
Brielle
Valentine: Coconut curry chicken
Me: Do you want me to order you some???
Valentine: No. That’s what I’m making for dinner tonight. It’s always the first question you ask when you get there, so I thought I would inform you now.
Me: Are you inviting me over for dinner again?
Valentine: Yes.
Me: What if I don’t want coconut chicken curry?
Valentine: Then you can eat before you get there. But you’ll be upset you missed out.
Me: So, it’s not about the dinner. You just want me to come over.
Valentine: See you at 7:00
The rain seeps through my cute but impractical jacket, the fabric of my shirt clinging to my body.
Gray skies threaten to open up above my head as I power walk back to my apartment to change.
Spring in New England can either be beautiful, with warmer temperatures and longer days.
Or it can be one endless, gloomy cloud, rain day after rain day until you forget what sunshine on your skin feels like.
This year is the latter.
I duck my head, turning into the shortcut through the alley, when I hear someone yell something behind me.
It isn’t the first time I’ve come across someone looking to get a rise out of me in this dark corridor, although it’s pretty infrequent.
Most days, this alley is entirely empty, and on the occasion that I do find myself in the company of someone else, we often ignore each other and be on our merry way.
I pick up my pace incrementally, conscious of looking too eager to run but also wanting to get out of here as fast as possible.
The wind tunnels through, pushing me from behind and propelling me forward, when a hand grabs hold of my arm.
I scream, spinning around quickly and tugging my arm to free it from his grasp. I can feel my heart beating wildly in my throat.
“What the hell? You scared the crap out of me,” I yell. Damian is towering over me, rain dripping from the ends of his hair.
“I was calling you.”
“Well, I wasn’t listening. When someone starts shouting at you in a dark alley, you don’t stay and make friends, Damian. You get the hell out of there.”
“Which is why you shouldn’t be walking alone down dark alleys. Get in the car.” His voice drips with command, low and throaty. The intense look in his eyes should feel menacing, but it doesn’t.
I turn heel and start toward where Damian parked his car on the side of the road. Not because he commanded it—even if it did send a shiver of awareness through me—but because it’s the practical thing to do.
“It’s perfectly safe when no one is shouting at me,” I mutter under my breath.
Damian opens my door for me. The sound of my wet clothes hitting the leather seats makes a cringy plopping noise.
He slides into the driver’s seat with more elegance than should be allowed.
Meanwhile, I’m sitting beside him looking like a drowned sewer rat.
My hair is stuck to my face, my clothes plastered to my body.
We drive back to my apartment with the radio turned down, listening to the sounds of the rain. Damian finds a spot not far from the door and pulls over.
“Thanks for the ride.”
He tips his chin toward my apartment building. “I’ll wait for you here while you get changed.”
“Oh, okay.” I reach for the door handle, then turn back to him. I’m not embarrassed by my apartment, but I’d have to be blind not to compare it to Damian’s penthouse. Still, I ask, “Do you want to come up?”
A small smirk tugs at his mouth. “Yes.”
He comes around to my door, opening it. The rain picked up on the short drive over here, the large droplets landing in splats on my head. Damian pulls his suit jacket off and holds it above our heads for protection as we jog from the car to the front door.
“Well, look who decided to grace us with her presence today,” Holly shouts from her bedroom when I let us into the apartment.
“Hey, Hols. I—”
She cuts me off before I can say anything else. “Is it just my daily ten minutes of Bri-time, or are you finally going to pull your weight and make a dinner around here?”
“I can’t tonight—”
“Of course not. You have to go see Damian.” She says his name in a mocking schoolgirl tone.
“Hols,” I yell, warning her just as she comes out of her bedroom in a silk pale blue pajama set that offsets her dark skin tone perfectly.
“Well, hello.” She stops short, looking Damian up and down shamelessly.
“I don’t think you two have been formally introduced. Holly, this is Damian. Damian, this is my best friend and roommate, Holly.”
“Oh, I know who you are, boss,” Holly says.
Damian shifts uncomfortably beside me, reaching out to shake Holly’s hand. “Nice to meet you… officially.”
“You, too.”
“Okay. I’m going to get out of these soggy clothes. I’ll be right back,” I say, making my way to my bedroom.
“Now, what’s this about dinner?” Damian asks Holly.
I rush back to the living room. “Oh, we can’t tonight. You’ve already got the coconut chicken curry planned.”
“I can make the chicken for you tomorrow. I deserve a night off of cooking, don’t you think?” He smiles.
Sure. But that doesn’t mean he wants what I’m going to make.
Damian’s dinners are delicious, five-star meals with protein and vegetables and flavor.
Cooking has never been a skill set that I developed.
I can make enough to survive, but that’s about it.
When I eat Damian’s food, it’s an entire experience for my taste buds.
“We’re supposed to trade off making dinners, at least occasionally, but since she hasn’t been home in weeks, she’s gotten out of it,” Holly tells him.
“I didn’t realize I was keeping her from her obligation. Consider that corrected as of tonight.”
“Don’t you want to go home to change? Your clothes are still wet from the rain.” I try to convince Damian to let me get out of this.
“I’m fine. They’ll dry.” He raises his brow at me, knowing exactly what I was trying to do.
My mood plummets. I hate cooking. I hate cleaning. I hate having to plan out a meal and get all the ingredients. The whole thing puts a sour taste in my mouth.
I sulk back to my room to change, coming back a few minutes later in a pair of leggings and tank top. Damian and Holly chat while I get started on dinner. I fill a saucepan with water and set it on the stove, gathering the rest of the ingredients I need while I wait for it to boil.
Damian folds his suit jacket onto the corner of the counter and rolls his sleeves up as he comes up behind me.
“What’s that?”
“Cheese,” I tell him, opening the packet of powered, dehydrated orange stuff.
His face is horrified as he watches me dump it into the drained noodles with butter and milk.
“There isn’t a place on Earth where anyone would refer to that as cheese,” he deadpans.
I laugh. “Have you never had boxed mac and cheese before?”
“God no. And I imagine I haven’t been missing out.”
“I don’t know about that. Everyone should at least try boxed mac and cheese. It’s a delicacy.”
“And what are you doing now?” He sounds genuinely concerned. “Are those hot dogs?”
I chop the hot dog into smaller rounds, adding it to the pot of mac and cheese. “Yes.”
“Good Lord, why?”
“To add meat to it.”
He stares at me, dumbfounded, his gaze flicking to the dinner I made before bouncing back to me.
“Don’t worry,” Holly calls from the couch. “She’s only allowed to cook once a week. Just enough for me to know that she’ll survive out there in the world without me.”
“I don’t know about that,” he tells Holly, his face pinched with disgust.
“I can cook. This will be good. Wait and see,” I tell them both.
“That wasn’t dinner. That was a travesty,” Damian says. We are sitting on opposite sides of the couch, while Holly snuggles up in the accent chair. Damian pats his thighs, so I stretch my legs across his lap, lounging out. He rubs the balls of my feet and presses his fingers deep into my soles.
I close my eyes, enjoying the feel of his hands on me. “Admit it. You liked it. You ate your whole plate of food.”
He scoffs. “Of course I did. You made it.”
My cheeks swell as I try to pinch my lips together to stop from grinning. He keeps himself so closed off from other people, and that’s the real travesty. Because if they could see what I see, people would flock to him like the rising sun.
It makes me feel special that it’s me that he chooses to share himself with.
Holly’s phone rings with an incoming FaceTime.
“Hey, boo. What are you doing?” Jordan says.
“Hi, baby. I’m just listening to Bri and her boyfriend be sickeningly sweet. What are you up to?”
“They’ve been seeing each other for a while. Must be getting serious,” he says.
I feel Damian freeze momentarily before he continues to massage my feet, but I know that freaked him out.
He doesn’t do relationships. He’s made that well-known.
I don’t want him to think that I’ve been telling Holly or Jordan that we’re together.
Especially since, other than that one night in Colorado, we haven’t been together.
“He’s not my boyfriend. We’re friends,” I shout so that I can make sure Jordan hears me, too.
They both ignore me, moving the conversation on to Jordan’s day. Holly gets up and goes to her bedroom so she can take the call in private.
“Sorry about that,” I tell Damian.
“About what?” He looks at me, confusion in his furrowed brow.
“Nothing. Never mind.” I smile.
Damian continues to massage my foot. He presses his thumb into the arch firmly, pushing from my heel to my toes. Once he’s done with one foot, he puts it down and picks up my other foot to do it all again.
I pull my foot from his grip, shifting so I can cuddle up next to him. He opens his arm, inviting me in.
“Did you really hate my dinner?” I ask, tilting my head up to look at him.
His impossibly long lashes frame his dark eyes.
Full lips. Hard jaw. Thick brows. Just a little bit of stubble coating the lower part of his face.
He looks at me, and in an instant, the air around us charges. The urge to kiss him washes over me.