Chapter 23: Phase 3: Use His Stuff Without His Permission
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I smirked and pulled a protein shake from the fridge and eyed it suspiciously for a moment before calling toward the bedroom, "Ohh, what’s this?"
The apartment was quiet except for the faint scratch of Damien’s pen against paper and the low sound of the fridge. Late afternoon sunlight streamed gently through the big windows of Preston Hall, warming the marble countertops and polished floors in a soft golden light that made the space look ridiculously luxurious, because it was.
Everything in this place seemed like it was chosen by someone with endless cash and a personal mission to make everyone else feel underdressed just by standing in it.
Honestly, even after being here for over a week, I still wasn’t used to it. I half-expected someone to walk in, look me over, and politely but firmly ask what I was doing there and if I needed directions to somewhere more fitting.
I turned the bottle over in my hands, inspecting it like someone examining potential evidence. It was one of those serious protein shakes, the kind with packaging that screamed it meant business and had zero intention of tasting good. No cheerful colors. No friendly fonts. Just a label that looked like it had been crafted by someone who viewed flavor as a character flaw.
I twisted off the cap and cautiously sniffed it, giving it a fair shot.
Instant regret.
My face contorted in a way that I felt all the way from my eyebrows to the back of my skull.
"Jesus Christ," I muttered, recoiling slightly from the bottle as if it had threatened me personally. "Is this what you take to get those muscles? Like, steroids? Because it smells like a science experiment gone wrong that just kept going."
Finally, that got his attention.
I caught Damien looking up from his desk, his expression so cold it could have dropped the room temperature by several degrees. It was the kind of look that had probably put an end to meetings and silenced even the most intimidating people.
And wow.
That glare was something. It had layers, depth, real craftsmanship.
I couldn’t help but grin because that was the right reaction when someone handed you exactly what you were looking for.
Success. Clean, uncomplicated success.
Holding the shaker bottle casually, like I’d totally thought this through, I waved it in his direction.
"Hey, roomie! If I drink this, will I get big muscles too?" I asked, tilting my head like I was genuinely mulling over the thought. "Damn, finally I could get a girlfriend like my dad’s been begging me to. He’d be so proud, I could even call him right now."
Damien rose from his desk without saying a word, tall and irritatingly intimidating even in simple black sweatpants and a fitted dark shirt that made it clear he worked out way too much, definitely no business looking that good while also being this hard to talk to. There was something genuinely unfair about that combination. You’d think someone that attractive would’ve had a visible personality flaw from a distance. But nope, the flaw was just his personality.
Honestly, it was kind of offensive how good-looking he was while always looking irritated.
He moved into the kitchen slowly, like he did everything, unhurried, like he had already decided how this would go. He stopped directly across from me at the kitchen island, radiating the energy of someone who had spotted a problem and was ready to deal with it.
"You’re breaking rule one."
There it was. Finally. Human speech, delivered with all the warmth of a formal cease-and-desist.
I pouted dramatically, falling into a look of someone deeply wounded by the accusation.
"Come on," I complained, leaning against the counter with the comfortable posture of someone who had decided this was all fine. "Don’t you want me to get a girlfriend? I’m not tall or rich, so at least let me get some sweet abs out of this deal. Think of it as your contribution to my wellbeing. A charitable act. You could write it off!"
Damien stared at me blankly, like someone who’d heard plenty in life and was now adding this to a list he hadn’t expected to need.
God, what am I doing? This is childish. I’m literally annoying a guy just so he’ll look at me for more than two seconds. I need to get a grip.
But I didn’t though...I shook the bottle lightly, giving it a small, encouraging rattle.
"Lemme borrow it, huh?"
His expression somehow turned even colder, which I didn’t think was possible and now had to adjust my perception of his range.
"No."
I blinked at him.
Just one word. Flat, final, issued with the economy of someone who’d decided I wasn’t worth the syllables.
Then I smiled slowly, the kind of smile you wear when a single word tells you more than an essay could.
"Well," I said. "That sounded personal."
Damien crossed his arms and stared me down in complete silence, his version of a long response, and I had learned to read it accordingly. This particular silence said:
I am exercising restraint right now, and I want you to know that.
Wow. He really did look like the human version of a warning sign. The kind they put on fences outside places that meant business.
We stood there for a few seconds, locked in a standoff across the kitchen island, neither of us budging, the afternoon light still doing its best to make the apartment look like a magazine spread around us.
Finally, Damien spoke again, in the tone of someone wrapping up a chat that should’ve been much shorter.
"Put it back."
I tilted my head, genuinely curious about where this would go.
"What happens if I don’t?" I asked pleasantly.
No answer and no threats. Not even a shift in his weight or uncrossing of his arms. Just that steady, unimpressed gaze, like he was waiting for me to figure out a conclusion he’d already reached.
Which honestly felt less like a warning and more like a challenge. The problem, an ongoing, deeply inconvenient problem was that I had zero survival instincts left after three years of relying on instant noodles, bad timing, and stubborn optimism that things would probably work out.
I held his gaze. He held mine back. The refrigerator hummed quietly between us.
And then, with the slow, intentional energy of someone making a decision they were fully committed to, I lifted the bottle to my mouth.
For the first time since meeting him and I can’t stress how significant that was, Damien’s eyes widened slightly. Just barely, enough to exist. A microscopic crack in his composure, gone almost instantly, but definitely there.
𝙛𝒓𝓮𝙚𝔀𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝒐𝒎
Oh. Oh, that alone was worth whatever happened next.
I took a sip.
And immediately regretted every single life choice that had brought me to this moment.
"Holy fuck—!"
I nearly gagged, my body recoiling from the bottle like it had just lunged at me, my face twisting in real-time horror as the full weight of what I had just done hit every nerve.
"What the hell is that?!"
I started coughing violently, holding the bottle at arm’s length, my eyes watering like they do when the body decides to react to something without waiting for permission.