Chapter 53: The Straightest Thing I’ve Done All Month
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When Saturday finally rolled around, I found myself wasting a ridiculous amount of time staring into my closet.
Not that I actually cared about what I looked like.
Honestly, I didn’t care at all. This was just a casual date. A perfectly normal date with a perfectly normal girl, so there was no reason for me to be standing in front of the mirror for ten minutes, holding two nearly identical shirts while questioning everything about my life and choices.
And yet, here I was.
"This one makes me look like I’m trying too hard," I muttered, tossing the black shirt onto my bed.
Five seconds later, I picked it up again.
"Or maybe the blue one makes me look like I don’t care enough."
I held both shirts out at arm’s length. They stared back at me with the indifferent blankness of clothing that had never been asked to solve a problem, and clearly wasn’t about to start. Neither provided any helpful feedback. I was on my own.
This was absurd. I’d gotten dressed in under four minutes for every class this semester, even for the 8 a.m. ones. I’d once worn mismatched socks to a presentation and figured it added character. Yet here I stood, frozen by two pieces of fabric.
Life could be cruel.
Especially to those who couldn’t afford shopping for nice clothes.
Eventually, I settled on the dark blue button-up and jeans because I was done wrestling with shirts, not to mention I had some self-respect to maintain.
As I stepped out of my room, Preston Hall was quiet in that peculiar way it gets on weekend afternoons — no distant music, no movement, just the low hum of the building settling in. Late afternoon light streamed through the huge windows, casting everything in a warm golden hue, even making the fancy furniture seem like it had feelings.
Damien was lounging on the couch, laptop perched on one knee.
Of course he was there, looking all composed, almost like he was purposely placed there to complicate my exit. His sleeves were rolled up, exposing his tanned arms, while he typed away with intense focus, his dark hair slightly tousled from running his fingers through it. He looked completely relaxed, maybe even unfairly good for a Saturday afternoon spent doing nothing.
I glared at him, look at him wearing nice clothes to sit in his ass at home while I couldn’t find something decent for a fucking date.
This was depressing.
The unfairness of rich people definitely deserved some serious study. With funding, surely.
I grabbed my wallet from the counter. Just because I was poor didn’t mean I wasn’t a gentleman who could spend a little on a date.
Damien glanced up, his eyes sweeping over me, once, then again, slower this time. It was a quick, assessing look that lasted maybe two seconds before a flicker of something crossed his face and disappeared so fast that I almost missed it.
"Going somewhere?"
His tone was casual. Almost too casual. There was this specific kind of "almost" that sat between a genuine question and one that someone had been dying to ask; his was firmly in that zone.
I rolled my eyes. "I have a date remember?"
The words came out feeling strange, heavier somehow, like they’d gained weight between my brain and the open air. Saying them out loud made everything feel more real, which was annoying since I’d been trying to keep this in the not a big deal category.
To be honest I was kind of nervous, I hadn’t been on a date since highschool.
Damien’s fingers stopped on the keyboard for just a beat, a brief pause, barely noticeable unless you were paying attention. Then he went back to typing.
"Right."
I frowned. "Right?"
"You mentioned it."
And that was it. No teasing, no sarcasm. Just a straightforward right, delivered with complete neutrality, like I’d told him I was heading off to the library.
For some reason, that annoyed me more than if he’d thrown some snarky comment my way.
"That’s it?"
His eyes shifted from the screen to me. "What were you expecting?"
I wondered if he even liked Melanie to begin with, had I mixed it up? Maybe the girl he liked was someone else? Then why was he so uncomfortable when Melanie and I were chatting at that mess of a party?
I opened my mouth, closed it, and opened it again. Then I pointed at him in what I felt was a justifiable, though a bit vague, accusation. "I don’t know."
"Very helpful."
"Shut your ass up."
The corner of his mouth twitched, not quite a smile, but close enough to show some amusement, just that slight movement hovering between amusement and plausible deniability.
"Have fun, Oliver."
Those were perfectly normal words... just three ordinary words strung together in an ordinary sentence. The issue was how he looked at me when he said it, steady, quiet, holding something underneath that I couldn’t quite place and didn’t want to analyze because I was already late and my sanity had a budget.
I looked away first. Fast.
Because maintaining eye contact with Damien Lockwood had seemingly come with real health risks, and I wasn’t covered for that.
"Yeah," I mumbled, grabbing my jacket from the hook by the door. "I will."
I left before either of us could say anything else.
My heart, unhelpfully, didn’t sound convinced by any of this.
Melanie was already outside the cinema when I arrived, and she spotted me across the courtyard. Her face lit up genuinely, immediately, without any of the guarded expressions some people put on in public.
She had soft blonde waves framing her shoulders and wore a simple dress that somehow looked both effortlessly chic and ridiculously pretty, a combination I found both impressive and a bit intimidating.
"Oliver!"
Before I could fully process what was happening, she pulled me into a quick hug. She smelled like vanilla and something warm and floral, and the contact was easy and uncomplicated, a refreshing change from the general chaos of my life lately.
"I was starting to think you’d ditch me," she said, pulling back with a grin.
"I showed up, didn’t I?"
"Barely."
"I was five minutes early."
"That’s still suspicious."
"How is being early suspicious?"
"It means you were nervous," she said, her cheerful tone suggesting she knew exactly what she was talking about.
Despite myself, I laughed a little, and just like that, the tightness in my chest eased off a bit like a window cracking open in a stuffy room. Talking to Melanie was effortless.
That was her gift, she made conversation feel natural, not something you had to carefully construct and maintain. No awkward silences. No words with like three fucking meanings. No expressions I had to decode later in the privacy of my own mind.
Just two people talking. Normal human interaction, as it was meant to be.
I’d forgotten how that felt. Didn’t realize I missed it.
We bought tickets for a rom-com neither of us had heard about, chosen simply because it had the best showtime and we couldn’t agree on anything else — and headed inside.
"I can’t believe you’re letting me pick," Melanie said as we joined the concession line.
"I’m not picking," I countered. "I’m abstaining."
"Why?"
"Because every time I pick a movie, everyone ends up regretting it within the first twenty minutes."
She shot me a look that suggested she had just unearthed some valuable information. "How bad are we talking?"
"The last movie I chose had a forty-two percent rating."
"Oliver."
"It seemed promising." I said. "It had killer squirrels on the poster."
I held my ground with dignity. "They looked motivated. I gave the premise some credit."
Melanie burst into laughter, nearly dropping her popcorn. "Gosh! You’re so cute!"