Damien pulled me back inside his room and slammed the door shut. He didn’t tell me to hide or start making up excuses like people did when their significant other came home while I was over.

Audrey wouldn’t have been the first time that happened if Sky hadn’t intervened.

Damien just paced back and forth moving his hands like he was having an entire conversation with himself inside his head.

I walked up to him and grabbed both his hands in mine, not in a sweet way, but in a If you keep doing this, you’re going to give me an anxiety attack way. “Stop. Tell me what is going on. Who is that?”

“It’s Ansel,” Damien said between shallow breaths.

“Who?”

“My, uh… father.”

“Your father?” I dropped his hands and mine slapped to my side. Seriously? That was what this was all about? “I thought he wasn’t in your life.”

“We reconnected a while ago. He sometimes visits out of nowhere. It’s a long story.” He started pacing again, and then pointed over his shoulder to the window beside his bed with a balcony and the dark night outside it. “Maybe you should go out the window.”

That brought back memories. I’d gotten familiar with shimming down the support beam back in the day. Damien’s mom had always been… overprotective… to say it nicely.

The amusement of the whole situation hit me. I couldn’t speak without chuckling every word. “You’re joking right? I’m not sixteen. I’m not hiding from your parents anymore. Besides, what father is dumb enough to walk into his adult son’s room in the middle of the ni—”

The door handle of Damien’s door rattled and twisted just before the door flew open, cutting me off by proving me wrong. A man stood in the doorway, perfectly framed and centered like he’d set up his own scene introduction.

He wore a black suit, pressed, flawless, and tailored to fit him like a movie star. Under the jacket, his white shirt remained unbuttoned at the top, revealing the muscles of his chest.

I could see where Damien got his looks, because not only did this man not look old enough to have a twenty-five-year-old son, I could hardly find a flaw on his entire face. His skin was light brown and glowing even against the awful tungsten lights of the house at night. He wore a smile that showed nearly all of his teeth, which didn’t work for everyone, but worked for him.

He was tall, broad, and—

Damien’s fucking father. Cool off, Mikkie. Jesus Christ.

“Well, hello. Who do we have here?” said the man in a posh accent—basically exactly the kind of accent that belonged in a house like the one we were all standing in. I didn’t want to swoon, but accents were a weakness of mine. Damnit.

I looked at Damien who appeared mortified that his father was even standing in his presence. “Uhh… Damien… why is your dad British?” The longer I looked at Damien the more I could only think about how sexy he’d be with a European accent too.

If he’d spent some time with his father growing up, we’d have a real problem of self-control…

Damien side-eyed me with fire in his soul. I guess that was all the answer I was going to get from him because he only spoke to his father. “Ansel, this is Mikkie.”

“Nice to meet you.” I stuck out my hand to shake his, but it wasn’t met.

Damien’s father only looked at my hand but made no movement to accept it, his smile never faded. “Ah, yes. The infamous Mikkie…” It was my turn to side-eye Damien. What exactly had he said about me? “…It’s a pleasure. And I do mean that honestly. Damien, may I speak with you downstairs, away from… this.” He made the first motion to obscure his perfect, straight silhouette in the door frame by motioning his hand in my direction.

Well, that was my cue to get the hell out. I wasn’t sure if I preferred incorrect pronouns or “this” but I wasn’t sticking around to receive more of it. “Actually, I was just leaving.”

“That would be preferred,” Damien’s father said and returned to his at-attention posture. “I’ll be waiting. Make it quick. Time here is valuable.” He turned and left without making a sound, even with his fancy shoes against the hardwood floor. What a strange man.

Attractive… but strange.

Once enough time passed that I hoped he was far enough away, I leaned into Damien and whispered, “Is he going to eat us?”

Damien broke from his trance. “What?”

“I’m getting a very…” I waved my hands around in circles for emphasis. “Hannibal-Lector-James-Bond-villain vibe coming from him. I see why you avoided him most of your life.”

“He’s… intense,” Damien said in the biggest understatement of the century. “You should go.”

“Gladly.” I skipped toward the door and into the hallway, thankfully not seeing his father anywhere in sight. “You deal with your daddy issues. Maybe we’ll talk later.”

Damien swung outside his door and yelled down the hall. “Maybe?”

“Maybe,” I said with one look back before I descended the stairs, picked up my jacket, and ran out the front door. It was only after the freezing night hit me that I realized I didn’t really have a way home.

I’d made the walk from Damien’s home to mine several times in the past. It wasn’t the quickest, but honestly, the cold air would do me good.

Everything that happened today sunk in during the walk: my parents leaving, jet lag, Damien. By the time I reached my house, it was nearly one in the morning. The lights were still on in the living room, but off in Sky’s window which was visible from the street. I could see bodies moving around inside the door. I couldn’t believe Sky’s friends were still over.

Small-town parents were seriously careless. At least they chose to have children they were not keeping track of. Sky was thrust onto me. I couldn’t be expected to be held to the same standards.

When I opened the front door, there was chaos for two seconds before the two teenagers in the room noticed me. They were both yelling and running around putting things in the fridge and straightening out furniture like there had been a wild party.

If there had been, at least it was clean by the time I got home.

The blond kid with the styled hair looked at his wrist, which did not have a watch. “Whoa. Look at the time. My parents won’t be happy. Time to go.” He jogged right past me, but I stopped him by the collar of his shirt because one thing was missing from the scene.

“Where is Sky?”

“Got tired. Fell asleep. We finished putting everything back. Bye.” He broke free and disappeared into the night. The brunette girl followed after, stomping and looking more pissed off than a fourteen year old who just had a party should have looked. At least neither of them smelled like substances other than pizza rolls and soda.

That was a relief.

I had no idea what age kids started stealing their parent’s liquor and replacing it with water these days.

Damn, though. I missed the days when all I had to worry about was my friend’s weird babysitter catching us making a mess of the house and whether I’d be able to sneak in my own window without my parents knowing how late I was out.

Good times. I hope they enjoyed it.

I kicked off my boots, threw my jacket back onto the ground where it tended to spend most of its time, and rubbed my eyes. It was technically only 10 pm where I was from, yet I was so tired now that the adrenaline was gone. I’m sure I had Damien Matthews to blame for most of that.

Or rather myself to blame for pushing Damien to give me a reason to blame him.

With light feet, trying not to wake up Sky, I climbed the stairs and peeked into her room just to be sure everything was okay. She was curled up in her blankets, snoozing away, with only bits of her white hair poking out above the comforter.

She’d never been much of a night owl. I was proud she made it as long as she did.

“Night, Sky,” I whispered and pulled the door just shy of shut.

I went into my old bedroom, still decorated like I’d done it when I was a kid, with the dark red walls I painted while my parents were at work (and got grounded for a week after), the signed Halestorm poster above my bed (the only band an angsty PA teen needed), next to the IP Man poster (best martial arts movie, if you were to ask me) and the shelves full of other action films I hadn’t watched in years.

The best part of any night was taking off my compression shirt. As thankful as I was for having them, I definitely wore them more than the recommended amount. Anytime I left the house I had one on. Anytime I expected company of any kind, I had one on.

I only took it off when I knew I would be alone for hours. I jumped in the shower to make sure I scrubbed the skin of my back, shoulders, and chest well. Those shirts could make you all kinds of sweaty, and blackheads didn’t hide well on my light skin.

Not to mention the cuts they’d leave. Ouch.

Only after that, and putting on comfortable clothes, could I lay down in bed and finally allow myself to rest.

I thought the events would keep me awake, but the exhaustion won. I had plenty of time to think about Damien Matthews in the morning. For now, I needed rest.

And rest came mercifully swift.