Chapter 87: Damien Lockwood: 3, My Dignity: -1
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Life really has a way of surprising you.
The apartment was dark, save for the city light filtering through the windows, soft and gray, indifferent to my crisis. My feet led me toward Damien’s bed long before my brain could come up with a better plan, which it had clearly been struggling to do for a while.
I paused. This was ridiculous, embarrassing. Possibly career-ending... for a job I didn’t even have yet but could one day develop just for this to ruin it.
But I couldn’t sleep, and that fact was stubbornly, frustratingly true no matter how much dignity I tried to apply to the situation.
With a resigned sigh, I reached out, touching his shoulder gently. Nothing happened. The guy slept like there was no alarm in his system.
I shook him a bit harder. "Damien."
A quiet sound escaped him, not quite a word, just the protest of someone being pulled from a cozy dream. Then another noise, and slowly he blinked awake, disoriented in the dark, his gaze landing on my face then drifting down to the pillow I clutched before returning to my eyes.
"Oliver?"
His voice was scratchy with sleep, low and unguarded, making the whole scenario feel even more embarrassing. For a fleeting moment, I considered just running away and pretending this whole thing never happened.
But it was too late for that. He had already seen me.
"Sup."
"What’s wrong?" he asked, propping himself up on one elbow, his voice still thick but his focus sharpening as he read something in my expression.
I opened my mouth, closed it, then tried again. Nothing came out, which was new for someone usually armed with a ready sarcastic comeback.
This was a mistake. A catastrophic, history-altering mistake.
Damien waited. No teasing, no smirking, just watching with a patience that made it even harder, as if waiting for me to figure out what to say.
I stared at the floor. Then at the pillow. Then anywhere that wasn’t his face.
"I...uh, I can’t sleep," I finally said, softly.
A pause. "Okay."
I swallowed hard. Heat crept up my neck.
"I think—" I hesitated. "I think sleeping next to you helped, last night. So I was thinking maybe I could..."
I trailed off into silence.
For a moment, I considered the merits of just throwing myself out the window. Not because I was upset, exactly, but because it felt like the easier route at that point.
But my mouth kept going, apparently determined to finish this conversation. "But if you’re not up for it, it’s fine. No pressure! I–I mean, it is kinda w...weird and shit..."
I shifted my weight, staring over his shoulder at the wall, waiting for him to respond, anything...while the silence stretched into genuine panic.
I half expected him to laugh at me.
Then Damien smiled.
Not the usual smug grin it smirk. Not the infuriating one I cataloged over the past weeks. This was softer, warmer, like I’d handed him something unexpected and he was delighted to receive it.
The expression hit me harder than I’d anticipated.
"Come here," he said.
My heart did something complicated. I chose to ignore it as usual.
He lifted the blanket, such a simple gesture, and yet it felt more intimate than it should have, the easy invitation of someone who had half-hoped for this moment and was trying not to make a big deal out of it.
I hesitated for a split second.
Then exhaustion beat embarrassment decisively, and I climbed into bed.
The mattress shifted underneath me. The blanket settled over us, and warmth enveloped me almost instantly, causing my entire body to relax without my permission...a sudden, total release of tension that I hadn’t realized I was carrying.
It was immediate. Annoyingly immediate.
He was better than a fucking sleeping pill!
Shit, I was never going to come back from this...
"You comfortable?" Damien asked, his voice laced with that low note of amusement he always had when he felt he’d won something.
"Don’t ruin this."
A soft laugh escaped him. "There he is."
I rolled my eyes, even if he couldn’t see it in the dark, because I felt him smiling behind me, that unmistakable warmth of someone enjoying a moment they’d choose not to comment on.
The room fell into quiet. Not an awkward silence, but a comfortable one , the kind that exists once two people stop performing for each other and just share the same space.
I lay on my side, facing away from him, surrounded by the scent of clean laundry and his cologne, and behind me, I could hear his breathing...slow, steady, and reliable, like an anchor.
At some point, the mattress shifted slightly, a gentle movement that felt careful, just enough for an arm to lie across my waist. Not constraining me, not holding me down, just there, present in a way that felt natural.
My eyes opened briefly at the contact, then drifted shut again, the protest I should have voiced fading away before it made it to my mouth.
I could feel his heartbeat through the mattress, steady, unhurried. The rhythm settled into a comforting pattern I wasn’t ready to analyze, tucking it neatly into the ever-growing pile of things I’d deal with eventually.
Sleep came so swiftly it almost took me by surprise. My body melted into the mattress as if it had been waiting for this moment all night, just holding out until the conditions were perfect.
The realization should have scared me.
Instead, it just made me sleepier. The kind of tiredness that blurred the edges of all my rational thoughts, merging my carefully constructed arguments from earlier into something I simply didn’t have the energy to maintain.
Before sleep fully claimed me, I heard myself whispering into the darkness.
"Thank you."
Behind me, Damien shifted. "For what? Letting you into my bed? It’s alright...I said I like your warmth anyways."
I swallowed hard. The answer flowed out easier than I expected.
"Not just tonight." There was a pause, longer this time, as I searched for the rest. "For everything."
Those words hung in the air between us. For a long moment, neither of us spoke, and I wondered, lost in the haze of approaching sleep, if I’d said something too significant, something requiring an explanation I wasn’t prepared to give.
Then his voice broke the silence, low and warm against the back of my head.
"What are friends for?"
Friends.
The word settled in my chest, comforting, complicated, and dangerous all at once, holding contradictions without resolving anything.
A small smile formed against the pillow.
Sleep pulled at me harder.
The last thing I registered was the warmth surrounding me, the steady heartbeat behind me, the gentle arm resting on my waist, and the inconvenient, undeniable fact that all of it felt way too right to argue with anymore.
I had come here because I couldn’t fall asleep alone.
And somehow, curled next to the guy I used to genuinely, enthusiastically hate, drifting off felt like the easiest thing I’d done in weeks.
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𝔞𝔲𝔱𝔥𝔬𝔯’𝔰 𝔯𝔞𝔪𝔟𝔩𝔦𝔫𝔤𝔰
wow... we actually made it to the end of Volume 1! ❤️
first of all, I want to say a massive THANK YOU to every single one of you. Whether you’ve been here since Chapter 1, dropped in midway, left comments that made me laugh out loud, sent gifts that genuinely shocked me, or simply silently read and supported, thank you from the bottom of my heart.
your comments, thirsting over Damien, bullying Oliver for his denial, and constant encouragement kept me motivated even on days when writing felt impossible. this volume truly wouldn’t have been the same without you.
not too mention, we hit the first win-win tier🥳
thank you all so so much, we’ve come so far!
we’ve gone from icy rules and forced proximity, to kiss cams in front of thousands, to shared blankets and very questionable "not-dates" 😂. Oliver is still deep in denial, Damien is still dangerously patient, and we’re only just getting started.
I have so much more planned... because next volume is where the freaky, smutty stuff begins 😈...
if you enjoyed Volume 1, please keep supporting the story! your comments, votes, gifts, and reviews mean the world and help me stay consistent with updates for Volume 2.
thank you again for riding with me on this journey. let’s make Volume 2 even better together! 💕
See you in the next Chapter~