Damien (Slater Brothers #5)(13)

I had recently moved into a spacious two-bedroom apartment in Upton thanks to one of my best friends, Aideen Collins. I had mentioned to her that I needed to move out of my old apartment due to a ridiculous rent increase, and she told me a newly furnished apartment was available in her building for the same price I had always paid in rent. I couldn’t believe my luck when I found it had two large bedrooms instead of one single room, and a separate sitting room and kitchen that were both more than generous in size. The furnishings were stunning, too. I practically leapt onto the estate agent who showed me around and told her I’d take it.

That was a month ago, and I was still walking into things during the night. I put it down to my recurring dreams—no, not dreams, nightmares—and simply hoped that they would stop; otherwise, my friends would start to think I was secretly getting beat up if fresh bruises kept appearing on my face. I could say “I walked into my wardrobe” only so many times before they got suspicious.

I left my bedroom, flipping the light switch as I went, and headed into my bathroom where I relieved myself. After I washed and dried my hands, I heard a ping come from my bedroom. The sound had me furrowing my eyebrows as I walked over to my nightstand. I picked up my phone, removed the charging wire from its base, and pressed the home button. I sighed when I saw I had received a text, a text from a person who I didn’t want to speak to.

Dante Collins.

I touched the screen to open his message and rolled my eyes as I read the text.

Booty call?

For the first time in days, I hit reply to a message.

No, thanks. Our ‘booty calls’ have become a problem.

The problem being that all my friends and Damien now knew about a relationship I wanted to be kept private. I sighed, sitting on the side of my bed, and kept my gaze downcast. One week ago, I was only dealing with family drama, but now, I had to add fuck buddy and ex-lover drama to the mix. I never thought I’d willingly want to be plagued with just the guilt of knowing my father was having an affair and doing nothing about it, but dealing with that and now the drama with Damien and my friends made me want to get into bed and stay there forever.

I lay back on my mattress, staring up at the ceiling, and thought back to a week ago.





Starting out like any other day, I woke up, had breakfast, and then spent most of the day flicking back and forth between sketching, painting, and designing a website for a client. My work had been the only escape from my life as of late, so I tended to immerse myself in it as often as I could, especially with the knowledge of my father’s secret affair.

I was doing a good job of blocking it all out when Bronagh sent me a text message and asked me to hang out with her and Georgie. We spent the morning together, and as usual, we had fun. It all went wrong when we stopped by Ryder and Branna’s house at lunchtime. Damien was there, and he was his usual friendly self. However, my past with him made me suspicious of that friendly behaviour.

He was trying with me.

I knew he was trying, but I didn’t know what he was trying. He could have genuinely just wanted to be my friend, but in the back of my mind, I was reminded that the last time he wanted to simply be ‘just my friend’, I was left heartbroken and humiliated to boot. For that reason alone, I kept him at arm’s length. If he walked into a room, I walked out of it. If he struck up a conversation with me, I politely shut him down. If he looked at me, I made it a point to look away and ignore him. I had been doing it since he returned home over a year ago, but that day, something in my attitude towards him changed.

He asked me out for lunch, and I suddenly felt like my private relationship with Dante was a noose around my neck. It was a bizarre feeling, but I felt like Damien had a right to know I wasn’t available. Not because Dante and I were in a friends-with-benefits relationship, but because I didn’t want him to have the false hope that something might develop between us. Not that he had any hope at all or wanted anything other than a real friendship, but I wanted to be as upfront with him as he had always been with me.

I knew he wouldn’t disregard the warning as foolishly as I had.

“How are you goin’ to get there?” Aideen had asked me when I told her about my meeting to interview a potential assistant for my graphic design business. “I know your car is at me da’s garage gettin’ a diesel pump repaired.”

“I was goin’ to walk.”

“I can drop you,” Damien offered, straightening up from playing with the kids. “Ry and I don’t need to be back to work for an hour and thirty minutes.”

I was hesitant. “I don’t want to be a bother.”

“You’re never a bother,” Damien said, his cheeks flaring with a little bit of heat. “We can get lunch or something after your interview, if you aren’t busy?”

Shite. Shite. Shite.

“I can’t.”

“Why not?” Damien asked, crossing the room, frowning.

I avoided looking in Aideen’s direction, knowing what I was about to say would set her off.

“I’m kind of seein’ someone.”

Everyone went deathly silent, even the kids; it was like they knew something was up.

“Who?” Bronagh asked first.

“Yeah,” Damien said, his voice shockingly low. “Who?”

“It doesn’t matter who—”