by Mary Martel
I wanted a bond first, and I wanted ties that wouldn't easily be severed. I had them with Quinton, and I had thought I was there with Ty until he'd told me about this Annabell stuff, but now I wasn't so sure how solid our bond was. His lies and bullshit could threaten everything for all of us. But I wasn't going to think on that now, I would do it later when I was in bed and trying to sleep, and it would keep me up for hours and I wouldn't be able to stop myself.
Right now, I had something else to think about, something not as important, but it kind of felt like it at the moment, because Damien, freaking Damien of all people, dropped to his knees at my feet on the rug.
"What are you doing?" I asked in a high, surprised voice.
He looked up at me and he wasn't joking or laughing now. He was dead serious. I sucked in a breath at the look in his eyes and watched in wide-eyed fascination as he lifted my right foot and placed it atop his bent knee. He took hold of the zipper on my boot and began pulling it down slowly, inch by inch, while he looked me in the eyes.
I was beginning to think Damien and I weren't on different pages when it came to our relationship, but we were reading entirely different books, instead, and he seriously thought I needed to play catch up and get with the program.
I watched him, stupefied, as he pulled the zipper all the way down and gently removed the boot from my foot. He set it aside on the edge of the rug with care then he came back to my foot that was now on his knee and covered in a bright yellow fuzzy sock, just like my other foot was.
He looked down at my sock for a second before his eyes came back to mine and he grinned at me.
"You are a very odd girl," he said around his grin. "Did you know that?"
I frowned down at him, not liking that he'd called me odd at all. I mean, I was odd, but wasn't it rude to point it out? I certainly thought so.
"It's not bad," he said quickly as he squeezed my foot before gently removing it from atop his knee and placing it on the rug. "It was meant to be a compliment." He picked up my other booted foot and placed it where the first one had been. He repeated the process with the zipper while speaking. "You're not like any of the other girls I've been with before, and that is so far from a bad thing that it is not even funny. I always end up dating the shallowest girl around and, trust me. I know it's because I can be an asshole, and I'm stuck up and like nice things. It's all true. And I'm certainly not going to hook up with some ugly chick. My snooty, asshole ways are what gets me the shallow chicks, and it also has a lot to do with the fact I never look below the surface, so to speak, where the ladies were concerned."
If my mouth wasn't still hanging open, and I wasn’t incapable of speech, I might have told him to shut up because he seriously needed to stop talking before things went south for us, which is where they were headed. And fast.
"Damien," I muttered at a loss for words. How did I tell him to shut up without actually being rude and telling him to shut up? I wasn't equipped for this type of situation, I usually just blurted things out and hoped chaos didn't ensue and that no one hated me afterwards. I was trying to be better, and I was trying to put a lid on the word vomit, because it often times made people laugh at me and if they weren't laughing then they were usually angry, and that was never fun for me.
"Just listen," he said as he got the zipper down the end of its journey. He pulled it free of my foot and placed it on the rug beside it's mate just as gently as he had the first one. He'd been awfully careful with both boots and it made me curious as to the cost of them. Not everything he and Julian had given me had come with a price tag or a sticker on it telling me just how much they'd paid for it. Initially, I was more than happy with not knowing, but after watching him be so gentle and careful with the boots, I was thinking I should probably inquire as to the cost so I could force him to return them, because I would certainly be outraged by the cost.
"How much did those boots cost?" I blurted out before I could think better of it. Immediately after I did, I wanted to pluck the words out of the air and stuff them back into my mouth. It was rude to ask him how much money he'd spent on a pair of boots for me. It was rude to do anything outside of telling him thank you. Then again, there were quite a few other pairs of boots in the bottom of my closet and it was safe to say that if one had cost a small fortune then the rest of them had been just as pricey.
"Forget the boots," he said.
I really wanted to, but was afraid I couldn't let this one go as easily as I had the rest of the wardrobe he'd bought for me.
"Why were you so careful with them?" I asked, and he set my foot on the rug with a heavy sigh. "They must have cost a pretty penny for you to take such care with them."
Damien surprised me so much he had my mouth dropping open once again as he burst out laughing.
"Why are you laughing?" I demanded to know as he leaned forward and wrapped his arm around his stomach as his body continued shaking while he laughed his butt off at me.
"You just proved my point," he said when his laughter died off and he was left no longer shaking, both arms still wrapped around his middle.
I glared down at him. "What point?" I demanded to know.
He placed his hand on the outside of my right thigh as all of the laughter left his face.
He grabbed ahold of my other thigh and slid his hands around to the backs of them. He pulled, and I stumbled forward, only stopping when I was pressed against him with his head below my breasts and my legs pressed up tight against his body.
"What are you doing?" I asked in a high, surprised voice.
"My point," he said in a low, husky voice, "is that you are all kinds of wonderful. Most girls I've dated would want to know how much those boots cost so they could brag about it to their friends, and you want to know so you can return them and make me donate the money to a shelter for homeless people or something."
Actually, that wasn't a bad idea.
"Don't look at me like that," he told me.
"Like what?" I asked in confusion. "I'm not doing anything wrong."
He shook his head as his hands slid further up my thighs, stopping just under my butt. "You're not doing anything wrong," he said. "But, can we please stop talking about the boots and get to the fun part of the night? Not that taking part of your outfit off isn't fun for me. If you decide you'd like to remove some other pieces of clothing, please let me know, because I would be more than happy to do it for you."
Looking down at him, I decided to take his advice and let the thing with the boots to go for tonight. He'd planned this whole night out and I wasn't going to ruin it for him. First dates were important, and it was becoming clear Damien thought so, too.
"What are we watching?" I asked him quietly, and I knew I had made the correct choice when a bright, beautiful smile spread wide across his face.
"Get down here and I will tell you all about it."
He picked me up off of my feet and scooted backwards on his knees while my feet dangled in the air. I rested my hands on his shoulders and held on. He let me go when he got the center of the rug. My feet landed softly, and he let me go.
"Sit," he ordered as he pointed towards a pillow. "Get comfortable while I set it up."
I did as I was told and sat down on a large, circular pillow. It had a bohemian design on it and had these weird tassle things hanging off the edges. It didn't look like something I’d imagined Damien would have, but who knew, weirder things were possible.
He hopped up from his knees, landed on his stocking covered feet, and headed towards the projector that was on the small table. He started fiddling around with it as I got comfortable. I stretched my legs out in front of me and grabbed the corner of a folded-up blanket and dragged it towards me. Holding on tight to the corner, I flicked the blanket out once, then twice, then a third time. I spread the blanket over my legs and sat back, placing my palms behind me on the rug. After a while my arms would likely go numb and I would need to move but for now I was comfortable.
The giant screen
on the back of the fence brightened as Damien started talking.
"I figured tonight, since we're outside and, in all likelihood, you're going to get scared way easier, I decided we would go easy tonight with the movie. Nothing too scary."
My mouth twitched in amusement. It wasn't me he was worried about getting scared, it was him. He made Julian, who, it must be noted, did not like scary movies at all, watch them with him because he didn't want to do it by himself. Because scary movies were, well, scary.
"And what did you pick that's ‘going easy?’" I asked as the screen flickered and words popped up.
"When A Stranger Calls." He said.
I shook my head as I started to laugh. That wasn't going easy at all. It wasn't a movie to watch when you were home alone at night time, it would freak you right out. At least, I knew it had freaked me out. And I certainly wouldn't be babysitting, ever. No thank you.
"Are we talking the original, or the remake?" I asked him. Either were fine by me really.
"Original," he replied.
"You've seen it before, yes?"
There was silence for a beat, then, "No."
No?
Then how did he know it would be going easy? That's probably why he'd gotten it wrong in the first place. Now I kind of wanted to know what movies he would have picked out if he was going all in, sink or swim, wanting to be scared out of his brain. Whatever that movie was, I wanted to watch it. Maybe I would get a chance to ask him after we watched this one.
"Are you hungry?" he asked as he sat down beside me on his own pillow.
I wasn't. But since he'd gone through the trouble of setting the whole thing up, the least I could do was humor him and ask. If it sounded good, then I could hopefully snack on it.
"What do you have to eat?" I asked, hoping it wasn't something gross, and that it was something I would actually like when I forced myself to stuff it down.
"Mini cucumber sandwiches, hummus and crackers."
I could eat that. Probably. I had never had a cucumber sandwich before, mini or otherwise, but I liked cucumbers, so I was sure I would like it. And I loved hummus.
"Sure," I told him, wishing I hadn't eaten dinner at home earlier.
As Damien reached behind him for the cooler and dragged it towards him I watched the preview on the screen. Weirdly, there was no sound yet, and I wondered if this was going to be a problem. I had never watched a movie outside before, I was excited to do so now.
Damien unearthed paper plates and napkins from the cooler and began to dish up our food. He put the cooler back and handed me a plate. I looked down at it and was glad to be with Damien and not Quinton or Dash or honestly any of the other guys at the moment, because if I was, they would have piled the food high on my plate in hopes of fattening me up. Damien was a different breed altogether. He put two very small (when he said mini he hadn't been joking around) sandwiches on there, five crackers, two sticks of celery and a small drop of hummus. I grinned at my food as I mumbled my thanks.
He sat his plate down beside him, which looked exactly like mine, by the way, and fished around in his pocket. He came out with a thin, silver remote. He twisted around and aimed it somewhere I couldn't see, and immediately the sound from the movie could be heard loud and clear.
"Cool," I muttered as I picked up a tiny sandwich. The bread was soft and fluffy, and the crusts had been cut away like we were five-year olds and wouldn't eat it otherwise.
"It is," he replied. "I bought it the other day when I figured out what I wanted to do with you on our first date, and I spent yesterday setting it up with Jules' assistance and figured out how the damn thing worked."
I ignored that and him as I focused on the screen and took a bite of my tiny sandwich. The cucumber was thin and crisp, the dressing tasted like cream cheese, garlic, and onion, and there was a hint to mayo in it. It was delicious, and I no longer cared that I wasn't hungry because I was going to eat both of those things.
I chewed, swallowed, and asked, "Julian made this?"
"Yeah," he said. "He made a bunch of them. Do you like it?"
I nodded and took another bite.
"They're one of my favorite things to eat," he told me, and I made note of it and everything I tasted, because if it was one of his favorites, then I wanted to learn how to make it. "He's a dick, though, and doesn't even have to try; cooking comes naturally to him. Even something as simple as making a sandwich taste good and he nails it."
Geez. Did that mean he couldn't even make a sandwich taste good? I certainly hoped not, but feared it might have been the sad truth. Poor Damien, if it weren't for his living with Julian, he would probably starve to death or eat fast food all the time.
We ate the rest of the food in silence as we watched the movie playing out on the screen before us. Before I knew, it my entire plate was empty save for a lone celery stick and some hummus. As soon as I set it down in my lap Damien snatched it up and took it away from me.
"Thank you," I murmured without taking my eyes off of the screen. We weren't anywhere near the action yet, but it had been a while since I watched it and I didn't want to miss anything.
"You're welcome," he said quietly before scooting closer to me.
My eyes widened, and my body stiffened before I really had time to think about what I was doing. I forced my body to relax because I didn't want to make things awkward, which is something I had a habit of doing.
He lifted the corner of the blanket as his side brushed up against mine. He covered his legs with the blanket and twisted around. He grabbed a pillow and dropped it down behind his back. Then he went back for another one and repeated the process. He faced forward again and reached for a pillow by his feet. He picked that one up and this time he placed it behind my back before going back for another pillow and repeating the process.
When he had a decent pile of pillows behind the both of us, he sat back against them and sighed happily.
"Relax," he told me.
Relax, sure. It was easier said than done, but I had to give it a valiant try.
I copied him and laid back against the pillows he'd stacked up behind me. I squirmed around until I was comfortable, and I wrapped my arms around my middle over the blanket.
I was plenty warm, comfortable, stuffed full of good food, and watching a movie outside on a giant screen for the first time ever.
"Thanks, Damien," I whispered.
I was glad when he didn't ask me what I was thanking him for. Instead, he turned on his side and placed his arm on top of mine. He laced our fingers together as he pressed the side of his head into my shoulder. He made a happy noise in the back of his throat as he snuggled closer to me.
"You smell nice," he whispered. "Like cinnamon."
I didn't have the heart to tell him it was because I'd used Dash's shampoo and conditioner and I smelled nice because I smelled like him.
We weren't even a third of the way into the movie when his breath evened out and his body weight settled heavier on mine.
He'd fallen asleep.
I left him be, but I really didn't want to. I wanted to shake him and wake him up because I didn't want him to sleep through the scary parts of the movie. I needed him awake for those parts. Especially since we were outside!
The door opened quietly from behind us and my entire body froze. My breath caught in my throat and my entire body tingled all over with fear. I didn't move to look behind me, I couldn't. Not when I needed to pretend to be sleeping so whoever was behind us would maybe skip murdering us tonight and leave us be, hopefully moving on to the next poor unsuspecting victims. Horrible, I know, but I didn't want to die tonight, and I didn't want Damien to die either.
I stifled a scream as someone crouched down beside the rug and my body started to shake.
Oh, god. This was it. This was-
"Are you awake?" Julian whispered.
"Holy shit balls," I breathed out in a rush. "You scared me."
I pressed a hand to my chest that was beating doub
le time and looked up at him.
He frowned down at me. "I'm sorry," he whispered. "It was not my intention to frighten you. I thought he would have told you there was chance I would be joining you two tonight."
"He did, but," I lifted my hand from my chest and waved it in the direction of the screen hoping that explained everything.
He chuckled and started moving pillows around. He arranged a small pile beside mine and started removing his shoes. Once he had his shoes off he picked up a blanket from where they were folded by my feet and shook it out much like I had done with my own.
He laid down next to me and flicked the blanket out over his body. He scooted over until his body was pressed up against mine and he crossed his arms over his stomach and the blanket, mirroring how I had been laying before I'd removed my arm to press it against my chest.
I placed my hand gently on his arm and he immediately grabbed my hand and threaded his fingers through mine.
"I hate these damn movies," he muttered.
"Have you seen it before?" I asked, and I guessed he hadn't, because he didn't like scary movies, and if Damien hadn't watched it then there had been no one to force Julian to.
"No."
"Then how do you know you don't like it?" I asked, honestly wanting to know but also wanting to give him a hard time.
"I like it when people die, and it makes me want to cry because I'm sad, not because I'm scared, and I heard something creak somewhere in the house and I just know we're all going to die."
I laughed softly, making sure to stay quiet so I didn't wake up Damien.