Chapter 70: I Kinda Sorta Maybe Think This Might Be A Date

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"Are you okay?" he asked, sounding sincere but also amused by the whole thing.

"No, leave me alone," I said, my hand gesturing at him behind the one covering my mouth.

He laughed, it was full and warm, reverberating in the limo and filling up the space, because soundproofing kept it all contained, leaving that laugh lingering around us.

I turned away, focused on the window, before my cheeks could give away any more evidence to whatever case he was building.

Outside, the city flowed by in waves of light. Inside, I could almost feel his laughter like something tangible beside me, and reluctantly, against my will, with every objection noted I started to enjoy it.

Not just the playful teasing, but the ease of it all. The fact that the evening felt lighter than most things had in ages, which had something to do with who was sitting beside me, and I was doing absolutely nothing productive with that realization.

A few minutes passed in comfortable silence. Then Damien shifted slightly, turning to the window on his side to point something out, an old building, something with an interesting roof and as he leaned forward, his arm brushed against mine, that fleeting contact gone as quickly as it happened.

I instinctively moved a few inches away. Unthinkingly, before I even decided to.

He raised an eyebrow when he settled back. "Oliver."

"What."

"Why are you pressed against the door?"

I glanced at the door. Yep, there I was, a bit too close to it. "I’m not."

"You adjusted away from me, move closer to me, hm?"

Heat rushed to my face, as predictably as something that had been established as routine. He looked at me instead, naturally. Then, with the deliberate timing of someone who knows the impact of their words: "You’re cute when you’re flustered."

My soul tried to escape my body. Surely he didn’t treat all his friends this way?!

That’s the only way to explain what happened to me in the next three seconds, a total, complete dissociation from the concept of being a composed, functioning human being. I was twenty-one years old, sitting in a limo on a Monday evening, and I had just been obliterated by a single sentence.

The glare I managed in response was, I’ll admit, structurally compromised because my face felt like it was on fire. "Stop saying these things."

"Which things specifically?"

Look at him acting all innocent, like he couldn’t break anyone’s heart if they fell for him just for the fun if it.

"The—" I stopped, pointed, hoping the gesture conveyed what my words couldn’t in that moment.

He smiled soft and content, directed at me like I was worth looking at, and I turned back to the window, trying to avoid letting my face become any more evidence in his case.

The ride continued the way the evening had been progressing, in an easy rhythm of playful arguments and comfortable silences, moments where I kept catching myself off guard, where I forgot to be defensive and simply existed in the back of a limo with Damien Lockwood, realizing, against all odds and all my previous stances, that I was genuinely enjoying myself.

I wasn’t going to admit that.

To anyone.

Ever.

Then the limo started to slow down.

I looked out the window and everything else faded away.

The stadium loomed against the night sky like a purpose-built spectacle, massive, illuminated from every angle, the kind of brightness that shifts your sense of scale, making you feel small in a nice way rather than diminishing.

Crowds flowed toward the main entrances, a sea of team colors, their voices creating a distant chorus even with the soundproofing, the whole scene buzzing with life that made something in my chest stir before my brain could catch up.

The limo glided past the main throng and toward a private entrance set off to the side, separated from everyone else by a low barrier and a few suited attendants with earpieces.

Of course there was a private entrance. Of course Damien wasn’t going through the regular doors with the regular people. This was perfectly consistent.

The car came to a smooth halt.

Harris opened the door.

A cool evening breeze flowed in, carrying the sounds of the crowd and the scent of the city, and possibly popcorn from somewhere off in the distance. I stepped out slowly, looking up, taking in the magnitude of it all, the lights, the noise, the sheer size of the structure against the dark sky.

Behind me, Damien stepped out and stood next to me. He looked completely at home, like he did most places... not because he was putting on an act, but just because that was how he was, naturally easy in environments he belonged to.

Meanwhile, I felt like a stray cat that had accidentally wandered into a luxury hotel, desperately trying not to look too impressed.

He glanced down at me, and I caught the expression before he could mask it, genuine amusement, warm and fond, the kind that comes from watching someone experience something for the first time and finding it delightful.

"Nervous?" he asked.

Yes.

"No." I looked at the stadium, then at the crowd, then at the private entrance with its attendants, then at Damien, who stood there like it was all just another day.

"This is absurd," I stated. Not complaining, really. Just stating a fact.

I met his gaze. He held it steady.

The crowd’s noise swirled around us, the lights were glaring, the evening was cool and crisp, and here I was, having just stepped out of a limo with Damien Lockwood in front of a stadium, about to enter through a private entrance to VIP seats for a hockey game he had bought tickets to knowing I’d agree to come because he was aware I would.

"Let’s go," he said, starting toward the entrance, and I followed, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

Despite all my arguments over the past forty-eight hours. Despite every insistence of this is not a date. Despite every time I’d said it and he’d nodded along with this tone that suggested he thought it was a bit fictional.

I couldn’t shake the feeling sitting quietly in my chest, the one I’d been dodging since we’d left Preston Hall.

This felt unmistakably like a date.

And the more inconvenient truth, underneath that one: I wasn’t even sure I minded.

Fuck...