Page 107 of Damián

“Well… what if Tom is late?” I ask, though by now I know I am only searching for things to panic about.

Anything I can use as an excuse or a distraction for my brain.

“Tom is never late.”

“I don’t know, Z…” I trail off, and my fingers fidget with the hem of my shirt. Zara sighs, and then her green eyes glare at me.

“Oliver… Either you tell me what the hell is actually going on in that head of yours, or shut up.” She points her finger at the mess of papers around her. “We have exactly ten hours to get this entire thing ready before we meet with Kaleo, and your nervous pacing is making me nervous.”

“Fine… but promise me you won’t look at me with those puppy-dog-pitying eyes you make whenever something absolutely pathetic happens.”

“I don’t make puppy-dog-pitying eyes.”

“Then I’m not telling you. What’s next on the—”

“—I promise, I won’t make puppy-dog-pitying eyes,” she says, lifting her hand in a swear.

“A few days ago, Damián went to my house, and he swam with Serena and me.”

“Ahh!” she gasps. “He swam? How does he look wet and half-naked in a bathing suit?”

“…okay, fucking incredible… but that’s not the point… We drank, talked, and things got… well, a little too intense.”

“Intense how? Was Rafael there?”

“More like intense, as in he made out with me in the pool after telling me he had to be exclusive.”

“Oh, my God!” Zara squeaks, beyond excited. “Oh, my God!”

“No, no!” I physically hold her down so she stops jumping. “There are no ‘Oh, my Gods’ in this story. This is a sad story.”

“Then get to the sad part.”

“We decided to be exclusive because that way the relationship cover is more believable.”

“Ajamm…”

“Then it rained, so we went to my room, and it was getting cold, so I opened the shower for him and…”

“And…?!”

“And we made out like crazy, I blew him in the shower, he blew me on my bed, and we fell asleep. Then the next day, he panicked and told me he fucked up and that he’s never fucked up before, we got into an argument, and then we were dragged by my family to the most uncomfortable breakfast of my life, where Damián put a knife between Rafael’s fingers, then he left… the end.”

Zara opens her mouth… then closes it.

She opens it again… and closes it.

“Should I come back in ten hours, when you’ve found your words?”

“So… what you’re telling me is…” she says, and I nod. “…that you blew him in the shower?!” she gasps in shock. “Ollie! How was that?! Omg, how big is he? Did it match the rest of the body, because sometimes they don’t.”

“Seriously?” I glare at her. “You hear all this, and the info that got stuck in your head is that I blew him in the shower?”

“Well, first of all, this is the first time I can talk about this with my bestie, and second, nothing of what you said sounded terminally horrible—” she starts saying, but she stops and shakes her head—“except for the breakfast with your family. That could’ve been, well, terminally horrible.”

“He said he fucked up, Z,” I repeat, and well, look at this, turns out the words hurt even more when I say them out loud than when I think about them.

“But he is a spy. Saying he fucked up could’ve meant a lot of things, like he fucked up the mission, or his morning gym routine, or even sleeping with a client.”