Page 29 of Level Up
“But my friends know I don’t hate you anymore,” I add quickly. “I’m pretty sure, anyway. I told them that we were, y’know, talking.”
He nods understandingly. “But they still don’t like me.”
“Victory is just protective of me,” I say with a shrug. “I’ve had some friends in the past who were dicks to me, and she’s worried you might also be a dick.”
“Because you told her I was a dick.”
“Correct.”
“Okay. Got it.”
“And Pal is just…sort of strange,” I muse. “They think you—” I stop myself before I inadvertently say the wordhornyin front of him.
“They think I what?” he asks, sounding mildly amused.
I shake my head. “Doesn’t matter. Both of them are wrong, anyway.”
“So what doyouthink of me, then?” We reach the stop for the streetcar, and he turns to face me, hands still shoved in his plaid pockets. “Now that we’ve,y’know, talked.”
I sneer at him jokingly for the way he mocked my wording, but I’m suddenly aware of how strange it is to see his face like this. I’ve only seen the bottom of it for years, in a tiny window at the corner of my screen, and our two other brief encounters were before I knew who he was.
Not just that he’s Scones, but that he’s the person I’ve spent the past three days talking to and joking with and thinking about—not that I’ve been thinking about him that much, really. A normal amount, for friends-or-whatever-we-are.
“I…don’t know?” My shoulders bunch up around my ears until my neck is swallowed by the roll collar of my sweater. “But I think you’re probably not as much of a dick as I once thought, if that helps.”
“It does. Thank you.” He nods so seriously that it makes me laugh, and then he’s laughing too and our chatter flows easier the rest of the way to his apartment.
The fearof being murdered has flickered through my head several times since Damien suggested that I come over, but it is usually short-lived, and my rational brain takes over quickly. And for the entire streetcar ride to his place, the fear is gone. It doesn’t hit me again until we reach his building and I see what looks like dried blood and vomit on the steps up to the front door.
The building is several storeys high, but he only lives onthe third floor, so we take the stairs up instead of the elevator. Which is probably a mistake, given that I’m usually winded by the time I reach my second-storey apartment at home every day.
I try not to let it show that I’m breathing too hard for a young-ish person who just climbed a thousand steps, or whatever that was, when we stop in front of apartment 305 and Damien unlocks the door. I slip my phone out of my pocket and discreetly text Victory the address and apartment number—probably a good thing that she knows about this, then—even though I’m ninety-seven percent sure that I’m not going to be murdered, before following him inside.
The first thing I notice when I step into the apartment is that it doesn’t smell nearly as bad as I expected.
The next thing I notice is that the entryway is very narrow, and we have to do an awkward dance to get around each other as we take off our shoes by the door.
The narrow hallway continues further into the apartment, with doors on either side. One of the doors on the left swings open just as we reach it, and his roommate, Malcolm, swoops out of the bathroom in a whoosh of aftershave, nearly smacking into Damien.
“Watch it!” Damien stumbles back a step, forcing me to take a step back as well.
“Damien, my glorious friend!” Malcolm says with a wide smile, sandwiching Damien’s face between his hands with a thwack. I notice he’s wearing sparkly nail polish on one hand.
“Ow,” Damien mutters, muffled through his smushed cheeks.
“Today is a great day,” Malcolm adds, finally releasing his friend before looking past him. At me. “Streamer girl!”
“Au-Audrey,” I say hesitantly as I lean back a little, worried that he’s going to thwack my face as well.
“Why so chipper, Mal?” Damien asks, rubbing the side of his face.
“Because I, my sweet summer child, have a date with Evan tonight.”
“Congrats, I guess.”
“Con-fucking-grats, my guy!” Malcolm grabs Damien’s face again and kisses him on the forehead.
“Oh, come on,” Damien groans, wiping his forehead as Malcolm twirls away down the hall and disappears through a door on the right. Damien glances back at me. “Ignore him.”
