Neighbor Dearest(22)
Listening to it was like slowly getting stabbed in the heart with Damien as a witness to my being massacred. I cringed at the sound of my own voice in the video.
“Aren’t you supposed to be interviewing me, Elec?”
“I got distracted for a minute.”
“By what?”
“By how beautiful you look right now under the sun like this. I just love looking at you through this lens.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re so fucking adorable. I can’t believe you still blush when I compliment you.”
“Do I?”
“You do. And I’m just warning you, keep batting your eyelashes at me like that, and this will turn into an unintentional adult film in about two seconds.”
Giggles.
“Maybe we can try that later at home, Mr. Cameraman.”
“Seriously, though, the camera loves you. So do I, actually.”
“You do, huh?”
“I do, Chels. I really do.”
“How much?”
“Let me show you.”
Elec drops the camera.
Kissing sounds.
Laughing.
“It’s true, baby, you make me so happy. I’m the luckiest guy in the world.”
When Damien finally turned and noticed me standing beside him, he shut the video off and just looked at me.
Silence.
The expression on his face was a mix of sympathy, anger, and understanding. I think he finally realized why I was so fucked-up.
When a teardrop started to fall, he caught it halfway down my cheek and said, “He’s a fucking idiot. He’s not worthy of the way you were looking at him in that video, and he’s certainly not worthy of these tears.” He rubbed his thumb along my cheek. “No one is.”
“I can’t help it.”
“But you know…I get it now. Watching that. Listening to that. I get why it’s so hard for you. I know I joke about you being crazy and all that…but you have every right to be upset and confused. The things he said to you…the way he said them…I would have fucking believed it, too. And I’m a perceptive motherfucker. You just don’t do that to someone. More than that…you deserve so much better.”
“That was only three weeks before he went to Boston and reconnected with her, when everything changed. When he was away, I found a ring in his drawer. He was going to ask me to marry him.”
Damien shut his eyes momentarily and let out a series of profanities under his breath.
“He’d better not ever set foot in our building. I swear to God, if I ever see him, I’m gonna fuck him up.”
Our building.
A small laugh escaped me at the thought. “Thanks for wanting to do that for me.”
“You shouldn’t be watching that video.”
“I wasn’t watching it recently. I swear. I never use the DVD player now because I have Netflix. That disc has been in there for several months.”
He ejected the disc and held it in his hand in front of me. “You don’t need to hear this shit ever again. With your permission, I’m going to destroy it. Can I?”
What was I supposed to say? I had to let him do it.
Somewhat reluctant, I nodded anyway. “Okay.”
With one hard bend of the disc, Damien snapped it in half before walking over to the trash and discarding it.
He wiped his hands clean exaggeratedly. “What’s next?”
“What do you mean?”
“That shirt you’re wearing. It was his, wasn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Are you wearing a bra?”
“Yes. Why?”
“Turn around.”
Expecting him to try to take the shirt off of me, my heart started to beat profusely. I closed my eyes when I felt Damien bunch up the material at my back and tug on it. The closeness of his body behind me made my skin heat up.
“Stay still,” he said before I felt him cutting through the shirt with what I assumed were my kitchen scissors. A draft of cold air replaced the warmth of the shirt as he ripped it off of me.
“Go put a new shirt on.”
Wrapping my arms around my chest, I disappeared to my room, taking a minute to grab my bearings as I leaned my back against the door. His cutting the shirt off of me ignited an odd mix of emotions. On one hand, it was a symbol of finality. That shirt was the last item of Elec’s in my possession. More than that, I was caught off guard by how much his ripping my shirt off had turned me on.
Forcing myself to remember what I’d even come in here for, I grabbed the perfect shirt for the occasion and returned to the living room.
Damien grinned as he looked down at my chest. “You Bacon Me Crazy. Good choice.”
“Well, it’s true. You drive me crazy sometimes, but in a good way. Thank you for pushing me to do something I really needed to do.” I leaned in and gave him a friendly hug. I refused to allow myself to acknowledge how fast his heart was beating and how fast mine was trying to catch up to it. Or how he smelled so good that I could practically taste him.