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“You were eavesdropping on all of that, were you?” Damian sighed. “Look, Jace, you can’t really understand this.”

“You know what I understand?” said Jace. “I understand all the times I saw Mom cry about you not being there, you not caring about her, you being cold to her—”

“I loved your mother. I’ve always had a lot of responsibilities, and I’ve always been pulled in too many directions—”

“Bullshit, Dad.” Jace’s voice dripped with scorn. “When I grow up, I don’t want to be anything like you.”

A long pause.

Then Damian was calling his son’s name. “Come back here. Hey.”

But then, nothing.

I shut the door and went to my car. I drove away and I felt very, very tired, even though it was still morning.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

USUALLY, DAMIAN DID not lose control of himself.

I remember one time, I came to the restaurant where he was working to wait for him to be off so that we could go out. The other people who worked at the restaurant knew me, and it wasn’t a big deal for me to hang out there in the dining room, even though I wasn’t a paying customer. They let me sit at an empty table.

It was back in the days before I had a smartphone, before everyone had a smartphone, and so I didn’t have anything to really do with myself. I remember sitting there and watching what was going on in the restaurant. Whenever Damian would walk through, I’d get a little happy charge, because he was gorgeous, for one thing, and because he was mine.

That day, I was sitting two tables away when Damian brought out food to a guy at a booth. The guy took one look at it and said that the order wasn’t right. I can’t remember why. They’d given him a baked potato instead of fries or something like that.

I know it was something easy to fix, and that Damian was real polite, and said he would get that taken care of right away and that he brought the right side out for the guy.

Who was still irate. The guy went on a tirade about how no one had paid any attention to him, that the service was subpar, that the restaurant was terrible, and then he started calling Damian himself names, saying that Damian was some kind of idiot who couldn’t get the order right, and that he must be deaf and stupid, too.

But Damian didn’t react at all. He just smiled and nodded and piped up here and there to say, “Wow, I’m really sorry, sir.”

But the customer was out for blood. Damian apologized, smiling, and he offered to get the man another complimentary order of the side—whatever it was—and said he would be off to go and do that. He tried to leave the table. The customer screamed at him, “Do not go anywhere while I am talking to you.”

So, Damian stayed and listened as the man raged and raged and said swear words and got red in the face and pounded one finger into the table right next to his glass of soda over and over.

I remember watching the man with growing horror. At this point, everyone in the restaurant was watching the man and also watching Damian.

Damian waited until he was done, still smiling. “You’re right, sir,” he said, without an ounce of irony. “Absolutely unacceptable. This was my fault, and I’m going to make it right. Let me go and see what I can do.”

At this point, the customer seemed to realize everyone in the restaurant was looking at him, and he let Damian go off and come back to comp his meal and give him a gift card for the next time he came back, something that Damian had negotiated with the manager.

I had seen that, because I’d gone after Damian, and he’d been pleasant, giving me a little bemused smile before he pounced on the manager and said, “Everyone’s watching, and if we kill this guy with kindness, it’s going to go a long way. Let’s give him two free meals.” And smiled at the manager in that way of his.

Damian had this mantle of authority that just seemed to hang over his shoulders, even with people who were technically in charge of him. He made everyone feel like his decisions were good ones and that trusting him to make decisions was a smart play. He made you feel like it would be a good idea to leave everything in his capable hands. He was a leader, through and through.

After his shift, he wasn’t the least bit ruffled. He said, “That guy regretted losing it. He was embarrassed. And I think he wanted me to get mad at him. That would have given him an excuse for his behavior. When I didn’t, he had to take responsibility for himself. I think it went really well, actually. I bet that guy doesn’t do that again.”

If that had been me, I would have yelled back at that man. Well, no. I probably would have burst into tears and then tearfully sniffled at the man that he was awful, and why was he so awful? If I had managed not to, I would have definitely needed to vent for twenty minutes after work. But not Damian. He let that sort of thing wash right through him.

Another time, I was getting out of Opal’s dad’s boat on the dock, and I didn’t put my foot down right. I caught it on something, put all my weight on it, and I let out this shriek of pain and stumbled backwards.

It was a Saturday night, late, and we were all freaking drunk. I can remember the smell of the summer air, the feel of the humidity, the sounds of the insects in the distance, and the way that the pain splintered all through me and ruined my night of fun.

Everyone freaked.

I was moaning, clutching my ankle, rocking against the dock, and Opal was behind me, going, “Are you okay, Leo? Stop making that noise and say something.”

Vincent was running his hands through his hair, going on about the alcohol on the boat. “We got to get it out of the coolers, right now. We got to figure that out.”