His mouth curves. Not soft. Not amused. Predatory.
“Eat first,” he says, calm as if none of this is insane. “Then practice.”
Practice. My brain short-circuits all over again.
Damian gets up first. Of course he does. He moves with the same brutal calm he always has, sheets dragging off his shoulders, his frame blotting out half the room while I just sit there staring.
No, not a dream. An alien abduction. Because nothing about this feels real—me in his bed, me in his sweats, my curls a rat’s nest and my throat raw, watchingDamian Kadepad across his own apartment like it’s the most normal thing in the world.
I should run. I should say thanks and sprint home before my heart explodes.
Instead, I follow.
Like the dumb little rookie dog everyone already calls me.
The second I step out of the bedroom, it hits me: his place. Not mine. Not Cole’s flashy condo. Not the half-empty box of an apartment I’ve been crashing in for two weeks.His.
And Christ, it looks like him.
Warm, lived-in. Not neat, but not a mess either. Trophies line one wall—shining, scarred, dented. Sticks propped in corners, blades taped and frayed, one split right down the middle. Pucks scattered in bowls.
And the jackets.
Hung up near the entry, half-hidden, too small for him now. Black and crimson, worn soft, logos half-faded. I know every season by sight, which years they’re from. And I know—I know—they still smell like him, even if they haven’t touched his skin in years. My teenage self would’ve sold his soul for a whiff of those jackets. Hell, my twenty-year-old self wants to shove his face in them right now.
I almost walk into a wall because I’m too busy staring. My shoulder clips the frame, makes me stumble, and Damian doesn’t even glance back. He just keeps walking.
Like he knows I’ll trail after him no matter how many times I nearly concuss myself on his furniture.
By the time he stops, it’s in the kitchen. Wide, dark counters. Steel appliances that gleam like he actually uses them. Coffee already brewing, the smell so strong it punches me in the chest.
He doesn’t look at me. Just opens the fridge, starts pulling things out, as if dragging a half-dead rookie into his bed andletting him drool there all night is the kind of thing he does every Tuesday.
And I’m still frozen in the doorway, staring at him like he’s the last human on earth and I just learned how to walk.
I can’t help it.
Ireallycan’t.
The second his back is turned, I beeline straight for the rack by the door. Those jackets—those relics—are hanging there, and before my brain can shoutdon’t do it,my hands are already buried in the fabric.
And then my face is too.
I shove myself right between them, curls disappearing in a nest of old Reapers jackets, and inhale so hard my chest hurts.
Oh. My. God.
Leather, soap, faint smoke, a bite of steel, the ghost of sweat that no detergent on earth could ever erase. I moan—actually moan—into the fabric like a goddamn lunatic.
“Fuck…” It tears out of me, wrecked and reverent. “Yes.Yes.”
One more sniff, greedy, nose dragging across faded embroidery. My fingers clutch the worn sleeves, my forehead pressed to cracked vinyl lettering. “Exactly like you… oh my god.”
Behind me, the kitchen hums. Coffee brews. A pan hisses low on the stove. Damian doesn’t say a word. Doesn’t even pause.
He just lets me.
Lets me bury my face in his old jackets, moaning while he makes breakfast like nothing’s out of the ordinary.
