Chapter 288: Guess Who Ruined My Monday Morning!

By the time I got to my apartment, it was late. The building was quiet as I unlocked the door and stepped inside. My dad was asleep. I checked on him first.

Dad had dozed off with the TV playing softly in the background. His wheelchair was beside the bed, and one of his blankets had slipped halfway to the floor.

I picked it up and tucked it over him properly. He looked peaceful as he slept, though older than I remembered him before he got sick, which sometimes caught me off guard.

I turned off the TV, then headed to my room.

Sleep evaded me, which was frustrating because I felt exhausted...really exhausted. My body was ready to sleep, but my brain seemed to think that tonight was the perfect time to replay every bad decision I’d ever made.

I lay on my back staring at the ceiling, then switched to my side, then the other side, back again.

Eventually, I checked my phone...my first mistake.

There was a message. My whole body went still. I stared at the screen.

Damien: I meant what I said.

How did he even get my number? I had changed it months ago.

There were no lengthy explanations or dramatic apologies...just a single line. I stared at it so long that the screen brightness reduced.

I unlocked it and typed out...

Me: What exactly did you mean?

Then deleted it and tried again with;

Me: You had four years to mean something.

Deleted again and tried one more attempt.

Me: Fuck you.

Deleted that too....though it was satisfying. I considered sending it anyway.

Eventually, I locked my phone and set it face down on the nightstand.

"I’m not doing this," I whispered.

The phone remained silent, which was good, because I wasn’t talking to it.

The following morning, I woke up with a headache and the realization that Damien Lockwood had managed to wreak havoc on my sleep without even being there.

Honestly, that took some skill.

I ignored his message and spent the weekend pretending that ignoring something meant it didn’t exist anymore.

Saturday was grocery shopping with my dad, and Sunday was filled with laundry, grading papers, and helping Dad with exercises.

At one point, while I was sorting through clothes, my phone buzzed, nearly making me drop an entire basket of laundry.

My dad glanced over from his wheelchair. "You expecting someone?"

"No."

"You jumped."

"I didn’t jump."

"You almost launched your socks into orbit."

"Mind your business."

Dad grinned. "You’re acting suspicious."

"I learned it from you."

That shut him up for about three seconds. The message wasn’t from Damien; it was from Joey, and I hated him a little for that.

Monday morning came way too quickly. I got dressed for work, drank coffee that tasted like disappointment, and drove to St. Jude’s University.

Routine was helpful. That was the thing about routine; it didn’t require explanations. You woke up, went somewhere, did your job, came home, and repeated it until whatever was bothering you faded into the background.

My first class went well. We discussed attachment theory, which felt like the universe was personally flipping me off, but I got through it without standing at the front and declaring that psychology was a scam.

The students asked questions, and I answered them.

One girl sitting near the front raised her hand. "Mr. Reyes?"

"Yes?"

"Can someone develop an avoidant attachment style later in life?"

I stared at her for a moment, then smiled. "Absolutely."

"Is there a specific reason?"

"No."

I turned back to the board, and eventually, the lecture came to an end. Students started packing their bags, chairs scraped against the floor, and conversations filled the room.

I answered a couple last-minute questions, reminded everyone about the assignment deadline, and waited until the last student left.

Then the door closed, and silence settled over the lecture hall. I exhaled. Finally...fuck.

Adulting was miserable...

If only I was rich enough to afford a vacation somewhere.

I began gathering my papers, packed my laptop, and my notes followed. I was halfway through thinking whether I deserved a second coffee when a voice called out from behind me.

"Well..."

I froze as every fucking hair on my body stood on end.

"That was very enlightening."

I slowly turned around to find Damien Lockwood sitting in one of the back seats of my lecture hall.

As if he owned the damn school himself.

For several seconds, my brain refused to process what I was seeing. He was dressed casually...well, casually for Damien.

His dark sweater probably cost more than my monthly grocery budget, and the watch on his wrist looked pricey enough to have its own insurance policy.

He sat relaxed, one arm resting on the back of the chair, looking utterly at ease...

like he belonged there. Like billionaires commonly attended undergraduate psychology lectures on Monday mornings because they had nothing better to do before lunch.

My mouth opened, but no words came out.

What was he still doing here in town?

Why hadn’t he gone back to his big city life?

Damien smiled, a small, familiar smile that was also deeply annoying.

Then he stood and walked down the steps toward me. Every instinct screamed at me to bolt.

Unfortunately, I was a grown man standing by a podium, so making a dramatic leap through a window felt unprofessional.

Damien reached the bottom of the stairs, and up close, he looked different from the man I’d seen in the ballroom.

There was a weariness around his eyes that hadn’t been there before. Something less polished. His hair was messier than at the wedding, and even with everything, I couldn’t help but notice it.

Apparently, my brain still had a subscription to Damien Lockwood Facts Weekly.

His gaze wandered around the lecture hall before landing back on me as he left out a nostalgic sigh at being back in a lecture hall.

"I’ve never paid that much attention in a class before," he said as he let out a smirk. "Even back at Hawthorne."

My eyes narrowed, while his blue eyes bored into mine. "Damien."

"Maybe it’s because a certain hot sunshine is the professor."

For a moment my face flushed to the color of a cherry tomato, the room went completely quiet.

I looked toward the door, then back at him, and then again toward the door.

"W...what the hell are you doing here?!"

Damien’s smile widened just a bit, and for the first time in four years, it hit me that my life was about to get complicated again.

I’d told him to go back to his life, but he clearly had other plans.