Chapter 89: The Hazards Of Friendships
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I lifted his arm an inch, paused, and waited.
Nothing, good.
Slowly, I slipped out from under it and froze when he shifted in his sleep. My heart stuttered for a second, but he only made a quiet sound and settled back into his slumber. I exhaled, relieved like someone who had just defused a bomb.
I had now developed the fear of him catching me sneaking away from his bed and pulling me back to his arms...
Victory. Quiet, unexpected, and kind of silly victory.
Our dorm in Preston Hall was peaceful as I padded toward the kitchen. Morning light poured through the windows, golden and relaxed, while outside, the city buzzed to life. Cars flowed along the street, people hustling to wherever. Inside, everything felt slower.
Comfortable.
This was what home felt like.
Today felt like a proper breakfast day. Not cereal eaten over the sink or coffee accompanied by regret. An actual meal, made with some care.
I tied on the apron hanging by the stove and got to work. Eggs, toast, thinly sliced potatoes tossed in a pan, and of course bacon, because it was that kind of day. Simple, straightforward, the kind of breakfast that didn’t demand anything complicated.
When I switched on the speaker, soft music filled the kitchen...’Eyes Without A Face’ by Billy Idol. It wasn’t not loud enough to wake Damien, a familiar tune, low and gentle.
Without thinking, I started humming along, the smell of bacon wafting through the air, coffee brewing nearby, sunlight warming the countertop beneath my hands.
It was nice. Genuinely nice, the kind of morning you’d want to capture in a photo if you were that kind of person, which I usually wasn’t but found myself considering anyway.
I was flipping the potatoes when arms wrapped around my waist from behind.
I nearly sent the spatula flying.
"What the—!"
It didn’t take a genius to figure out just who the culprit was...
This little shit...
My whole body jerked. "Damien!"
A deep laugh rumbled from behind me, close enough that I felt it in my spine before I heard it, which was definitely unhelpful at seven in the morning.
"What are you doing?" I asked, twisting slightly, though there wasn’t much room to do so.
His chin settled comfortably on my shoulder, like this was a perfectly normal thing to do, as if he hadn’t just scared several years off my life with one stealthy kitchen ambush.
"I smelled breakfast."
"That’s not a valid excuse for sneaking up on someone with a spatula."
"It worked, didn’t it?"
I hated how hard that was to argue against. Heat rushed to my face, climbing quickly. The worst part, genuinely the worst part...was that he wasn’t even doing anything. Just there, warm, being his ragebaiting self.
"Get off me, idiot."
"Good morning to you too."
"Go back to bed."
"No."
I tried to refocus on the food, but it was pretty much impossible with Damien attached to my back, his arms around my waist, the scent of him, clean and way too present.
My concentration took a nosedive.
A potato burned.
I stared at the charred edge. The potato stared back with a kind of judgment I could only recognize.
"This is your fault," I said.
Damien seemed delighted by the accusation. "The potato’s fault?"
"Yours."
"Interesting claim."
I pointed the spatula at him without turning around. "The evidence is overwhelming."
"The court rejects your claim."
"It does not—" I groaned, tossing in the towel. "You’re hopeless, you know that?"
"I’ve been told."
For a moment, neither of us moved. His chin rested on my shoulder, his arms in place. The longer this went on, the more dangerous it felt in a way that had nothing to do with the stove.
"You look cute in the apron," he said.
I almost dropped the spatula again. "Oh my God."
My heart raced. At this rate, I might pass on before I was thirty years old.
"What?"
"Do you start every day with the goal of making my life difficult? Go away already!"
"Only on weekdays."
"It’s Saturday."
"Then consider this recreational."
I closed my eyes for a moment, trying to breathe through it. Damien laughed behind me, warm, comfortable, too familiar, settling nicely in my chest before I could stop it.
A month ago, I would have shoved him off without a second thought, maybe even with a little elbow involved. A month ago, the whole situation would have seemed impossible...a fever dream, a joke too silly to entertain.
Now? I mostly complained because it was expected, not because I really wanted him to let go.
That thought hit me hard enough to steal my breath for a moment. What was wrong with me?
Seriously. What was wrong with me?
Was this something normal friends just did with eachother?
Hug eachother to sleep? And...and get jumpscared by intimate hugs here and there?
My phone buzzed on the counter, cutting through the moment like a knife. I reached for it.
A notification flashed: Melanie.
My stomach tightened, not quite guilt, but more like confusion, the same messy feelings I’d been toting around for weeks.
Behind me, Damien’s hold loosened just enough to give me space, as if he always knew how much room to give without being asked.
The warmth stayed. So did the questions.
I glanced at the message a beat too long, then locked my screen and set the phone down, face-down.
The apartment felt quieter after that, never empty, not with Damien around, just deep in thought. Complicated, like mornings get when you’ve spent a month building something unnamed.
I looked at the breakfast in front of me, at the sunlight pooling across the counter, at the man beside me who casually reached over for a piece of bacon as if he fully believed he’d earned it through emotional manipulation alone.
At this strange, unplanned life we’d somehow crafted together over the past month, one coffee, one shared blanket, one hockey game at a time.
And there it was again. That stubborn feeling, insisting that something was incomplete...something significant lurking beneath everything that I still wasn’t ready to face.
A month ago, I would have shoved Damien Lockwood across the room for hugging me in the kitchen like this.
Now? I was just annoyed that my heart wouldn’t quit racing.
This new norm was getting cozy. Too cozy.
My bisexual heart couldn’t take this...
And more than the burned potato, more than Melanie’s unanswered text sitting there, more than anything else, that was what truly scared me.