Chapter 106: Roommate Ruins My Escape Plan
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I squeezed my eyes shut. "..."
Maybe if I closed them...if I didn’t acknowledge his presence, he’ll go away.
I know hat was a dumb thing to think, but I feared I had no other options left, okay?!
Damien’s voice echoed in the cramped room, low and teasing, that familiar amusement twisting my stomach in knots. "You’re making this a habit."
His arms crossed over his chest, one ankle casually crossed over the other like he was posing for a magazine he wasn’t invited to. The smirk on his face told me he was enjoying this way more than he had any right to.
"Come on, say something," he teased. "Cat got your tongue?"
"I...uh" My mind went completely blank. "I was—"
Come on, Oliver. Think!
My eyes frantically scanned the storeroom until they landed on a rag and a cardboard box on the shelf next to me. Perfect, a lifeline!
I snatched it up so quickly that I nearly dropped it on my foot.
I started wiping at an invisible spot, my hands moving way too fast to seem casual.
"I’m just... organizing and cleaning stock!" I blurted out, my voice all high and squeaky. "You know, inventory and all. Very important café stuff, super busy. Can’t chat right now!"
Damien glanced at the unopened box. Then at me. Then back at the box with the slow, deliberate focus of a man building up to something.
"You picked it up upside down."
I looked down. Sure enough, the arrows that read THIS SIDE UP were pointing straight at the floor, as if they were personally disappointed in me.
Without saying a word, I slowly flipped the box around.
"There."
Damien bit his cheek, clearly trying not to laugh.
"I fixed it."
"You absolutely did."
I narrowed my eyes at him. "Don’t laugh."
"I’m trying really hard not to."
His shoulders shook first, a small tell, before the laugh came, low and warm enough that my ears flushed with heat.
"Oh, you’ve got nerve."
"I’ve been told." He said it with that easy pride that made it sound like a compliment.
I shoved the box back onto the shelf with way more force than the situation warranted. "I’m busy. Go home."
I felt my face heat up for the millionth time that day, the memory of last night crashing over me once more in all its vivid, unwelcome detail. The way his hand had felt on me...steady and sure.
The low, seductive tone of his voice whispering dirty compliments in my ear. How I had completely lost it under his touch. I scrubbed harder at that imaginary spot...
Perhaps Maya was right about my stress cleaning habit.
The silence that followed wasn’t exactly comfortable. It was thick and heavy, full of everything neither of us had dared to say yet, almost magnetic in its tension.
Finally, Damien mad one more step toward me. Then another, slow and entirely too confident.
I instinctively took a step back, which would’ve been effective if it hadn’t brought my spine right up against a shelving unit.
Great. Nowhere to go.
Of course, Damien noticed, apparently, tracking my exact position and escape routes was one of his hobbies.
Damien chuckled softly, the sound warm and way too close. I could feel him stepping nearer, the faint scent of his soap mixed with something distinctly him filling the air around us.
"So," he said, tilting his head like he was casually discussing the weather. "Are we going to keep pretending last night didn’t happen?"
I focused intently on a spot on the shelf just behind his shoulder. "I...I don’t know what you’re talking about."
"Oh?"
"I slept, can’t remember much."
"...You slept."
"I did."
"That’s the story. Two people...sleep. The end."
His eyebrows shot up in fake surprise. "Really?"
"Really."
"Hmm," he said, clearly not buying a word of it. "That’s cute. You’re blushing so hard, I can see it from here, Oliver. So you really are going to pretend last night didn’t happen? You’re hurting my feelings, you know. I feel so used."
Heat rushed to my face like it had been waiting for its moment. "I didn’t mean–!"
"No?"
"I—"
He waited. Patiently. Like a guy who has all day to coax an answer out of me.
I spun around, gripping the cloth like it was a shield, heat radiating from my cheeks, hotter than the steam wand on the espresso machine.
"It was nothing!" I blurted, the denial spilling out before I could even think. "You were just... helping me let out some...steam, right? It doesn’t mean anything."
"Then why did you climb out of bed like you were fleeing a crime scene?"
"...!"
"I watched you spend five whole minutes trying to put your shirt on backward."
My eyes went wide. "You were awake for that?"
"Yep. The whole time."
I wanted the floor to open up and swallow me whole.
"You—" I pointed an accusing finger at his chest. "You let me embarrass myself and said nothing?!"
"I was enjoying the show."
"You’re crazy..."
"I know," he said with a smirk. "But it wasn’t as good as the show from last night, though."
Damien leaned against a stack of boxes, arms crossed casually over his chest. That annoying smirk played at the corners of his mouth as his icy blue eyes sparkled with mischief, but there was something deeper in his gaze that made my heart skip a beat.
"’Just letting out some steam’, you said," he repeated, tasting the words like they were absurd. "That’s funny because I clearly remember you being very vocal about how good it felt. All those pretty little sounds you tried so hard to muffle into the pillow. ’Oh...Damien—fuck~"
No, no, no! What the actual fuck?!
He really had no shame!!!
I wanted to disappear to a place he would never find me.
"Stop!" I hissed, mortified, then grabbed a small throw pillow from a nearby shelf, the spare ones we kept for the outdoor seating and whacked him with it.
The soft thump hardly made an impact, but it was a small victory.
He laughed heartily, a warm sound that filled the storeroom and made my heart race again.
I hit him again with the pillow, feeble swats that couldn’t hide how flustered I was becoming. Damien caught the pillow on the third swing, gently tugging it from my hands and tossing it aside.
I then grabbed the nearest cleaning cloth from the shelf and hit him across the arm with it.
He blinked once, then burst into laughter, the sound taking over the small space. "Calm down, love."
"Oh, that’s it!"
Whack.
Another hit near his shoulder.
"You—"
Whack.
"—are—"
Whack.
"—the worst roommate—"
Whack.
"—in the history—"
Whack.
"—of roommates!"
By this point, Damien was laughing so hard he could barely lift his arm to defend himself, which just encouraged me more.