I should be happy. Disaster for Damion avoided. I am happy. “Does Damion know?”
“Yes, Damion knows.” We both turn to find him walking around the corner toward us, and I relax into the warmth in his eyes, which tell me he has not had a change of heart. We are still us. We are together. “And we aren’t rubbing anything in anyone’s face, but we aren’t hiding, either.” He glances at me. “Ready for dinner?” He cuts Terrance a look. “And before you invite yourself as usual, forget it. She’s all mine tonight.”
“I kind of got that read on my own,” Terrance says drily, and fixes me with a hard look. “We okay?”
“Yes. We are okay.”
“Good. Call if you need me.” He starts to leave and lifts his cell at Damion. “I’ll text you if I get any more updates. Read them this time.” He heads toward the hallway.
“Let’s go eat,” Damion says, walking around the desk and turning my chair to face him.
“I can’t. I just got the press packet for the charity event. It’s a disaster. I need to rewrite it and get a new angle on it.”
“I volunteer at the shelter on Saturday morning. You can come and write the release there. And we’ll deal with PR once and for all on Monday.” He pulls me to my feet, hard against his body. “We both need a night off.” His palm flattens on my back, molding me closer. “I’ve had a change of heart. Let’s go to my place and order Chinese food.”
“Yes, please,” I find myself saying for a second time today. There is nothing I’d like more tonight than to shut the rest of the world out. Maybe I’ll even convince myself we can do it forever. But that would be a fairy tale, and the past few years have taught me that fairy tales don’t exist. But, then, Damion didn’t exist, either, and now he does.
Part Eleven
Home is where the heart is …
Saturday morning I wake in Damion’s bed, with him wrapped around me as if he thinks I might escape, and I am at peace in a way I have not been in years. Safe. Warm. Right. Remarkably, as delicious as Damion is with a one-day shadow on his jaw and his thick, dark hair rumpled, I am not even slightly self-conscious about no makeup and my own wild mess of hair.
Still naked from the night before, we are in no hurry to abandon the bed, talking about everything from the casino, to my mother, to the politics of doing business in Vegas. But I don’t miss how he dodges the subject of his mother and his youth, and I wonder if this is the source of his bruises.
It’s nearly ten when we order room service. He tugs on pajama bottoms and a T-shirt and looks as gorgeously male as he does in a suit and tie. Clinging to the intimacy between us and without any clothes except my dress at his place, I grab his shirt from the night before and pull it on.
Despite Damion’s insistence that I throw on his robe and stay in the room when the food arrives, I hide in the massive, sparkling white-tiled bathroom of his fancy suite, which makes mine look like an economy spot. I just don’t understand how he seems to want to announce our relationship to the world at all costs. And there will be costs.
Once we’re alone again, we settle at the wooden table where our breakfast has been laid out, and I press him to understand. “Why aren’t you more worried about people finding out about us?”
He fills our cups with coffee. “I’ve found that what is hidden becomes gossip fodder and poison. We’re both professionals. We will still act like it at work, but we also both live here. We can’t hide all the time. And we will be caught if we do.”
“So you want to tell the world?”
“Yes. I’m not saying make an announcement, but if they ask, the answer is, yes, we are together.”
“What about our jobs?”
“I filed a report with the board with your letter.”
My jaw drops. “You did what?”
He takes my hand. “I covered my ass and yours. I’m committed to finding out where this will go and what we can be. We can’t do that by hiding it while we try to work and live together.”
My heart skips a beat. “Live together?”
“We work too much and too long. I’m keeping you with me in our private time as much as you’ll let me have you.”
You aren’t alone, he’d said to me at one point. And for the first time in a very long time, I think he’s right. I lean forward and press my lips to his. He wraps his arm around me and stands up, taking me with him.
Back to bed.
* * *
An hour later, I have returned to my room to shower and change and pack some things to stay with Damion for the rest of the weekend. I escaped long enough to dress in black jeans, a red tank top, and red Keds tennis shoes. Inspecting myself in the mirror—my long blond hair flat-ironed and shiny, my makeup present but not evident—I am satisfied I look casual and comfortable, not too dressy and not too drab.
I return to Damion’s room and, using the key he’s given me, enter to find him in dark-blue jeans, a blue polo, and deck shoes. On Damion, this translates to one of those Ralph Lauren Polo ads that make you want to lick the paper. He is really too good-looking for my sanity.
A few minutes later we step onto the elevator, deep in conversation, both laughing about my mother’s efforts to turn me into a cook and my many horrible failed attempts to please her. “Good thing we both like room service,” he jokes, and pulls me close.
At the same moment another couple sneaks onto the car, just before the doors shut.
I stiffen instantly, hoping the man and woman aren’t part of the very large staff. “Stop acting like we’re doing something wrong,” Damion chides when they get off on the next floor.
“I can’t help it.”
“Baby, I’m not trying to be arrogant, but I’m damn good at my job. The people who matter know it, and they want to please me because I please them. Profits talk and I deliver.” The doors open and he laces his fingers with mine. “Stop worrying, or I might have to tie you to my bed and torment you as punishment.”
“If that’s motivation to stop worrying, it’s not working.”
“How about I won’t tie you to my bed and torment you if you keep worrying.”
I perk up. “Much better.”
Once we’re in the parking garage, Damion holds the passenger door of his BMW for me. “We should talk about your car.”
I hesitate before I get in. “I have money set aside. I need to go buy one.”
“We’ll go this afternoon.”
“Oh, no. I’m going alone.”
“Why would you do that?”
“Because I have a Ford Escort budget, not a BMW budget.”
“Exactly why I need to go with you.”
“No.” I get into the car and he shuts me inside.
“No?” he asks, sliding into the driver’s seat.
“No. In fact, I think I’ll turn my rental in and wait on buying a car I’ll probably never drive. I can buy one when I need one.”
“We’ll talk about it.”
“No. We won’t talk about it.”
“We’ll talk about it.”
“Ask me again in six months.”
He cuts me an incredulous look. “Six months? This is Vegas. Six months is a lifetime to me. Two weeks.”
“Three months.”
“Christmas.”
Christmas? Will we be together at Christmas?
“Yes,” he answers, as if I’ve spoken it out loud. “We will be together at Christmas and long after.”
“And what if we aren’t? What about our jobs?”
“We’ll be together.”
He starts the car and puts it in reverse, ending the topic of conversation, but I am the furthest thing from dismissed. I slide down into my seat and smile.
* * *
“We’re here,” he announces, pulling into what looks like a fancy movie theater with green neon rimming gray glass.
“This is the shelter?”
“It used to be an entertainment center with movies, games, and shops.”
“Surely it’s outr
ageously expensive to operate.”
“It is,” he says, and gets out of the car.
He opens my door and I step out. “I’m confused. How can the expense be good for the shelter even with donations?”
“I’ve made it work.” He takes my hand and drags me toward the door, and it’s clear, in no uncertain terms, that he doesn’t want to talk about this.
Another piece of what is becoming a Damion puzzle. I know, though, that pain isn’t easy to explore, and I won’t push him. I want him to choose to tell me in his own time, unlike the way things exploded on me.
We enter the building and it looks exactly like a movie theater, complete with out-of-date movie posters. Damion’s hand settles on my back, urging me toward a stand with people working behind it. “They even have a concession stand?”
“It provides jobs and profit for the center, and Dehlia has strict rules about what can be served on non-movie nights.” He motions me to the left. “Let me show you around. There’s a homeless shelter on the east side that usually has forty people; those residents are transient. The west side houses long-term residents—mostly teens who have no home. We find them foster homes or keep them here until they start an adult life. Right now there are thirty living here. Unfortunately, we only have room for fifty, and we take applications from outside the city when someone special is brought to us.”
“We?”
“I’m one of five people on the board.”
And I wonder how much of this he funds himself. I’m feeling fairly confident that at a minimum he’s responsible for how the money flows through the doors.
We continue walking the property, and for the next hour I am in shock and awe. All but a few theaters have been converted to a dormlike setting, and there’s a sports complex and gym on the roof.
Our final stop is a movie theater that’s been converted into an amazing cafeteria, with trays installed on the seats. There are a group of kids studying, eating, and playing video games in the corner. I turn to Damion and press my hand to his chest. “This is all because of you, isn’t it?”
“No. This is all because of Dehlia.”
I don’t miss the tenderness in his voice. “I’d like to meet her.”
He motions me to a door across the room. “Like your mother was, she’s always in the kitchen.”
We enter an industrial-sized kitchen with multiple stoves and a large table, where a short, sixty-something, dark-haired Hispanic woman stands, shouting at an employee. “No. No. No. Not enough flour!”
But the employee is not an employee at all. It’s Maggie, with her red hair piled on top of her head, and the flour that is not in the bowl is on her face. “Dehlia,” Maggie complains. “You’re killing me. Last time you told me I put too much flour. This time, not enough.”
“Two years you’ve been helping,” Dehlia says, holding up two fingers. “Dos! You still cannot read a recipe.” Dehlia seems to realize something in the air has shifted, and her gaze cuts to us. “Damion. Son.” She grimaces. “Maggie is having issues again. Are you sure she reads well at the casino?”
Maggie tosses flour in the air and Dehlia rambles in Spanish.
Damion and I laugh, and he warns, “She doesn’t take any junk. Be warned.”
“That’s right,” Dehlia agrees, dusting off her hands and walking toward us, as Maggie gives me a waggle of her fingers. “I don’t.” She stops in front of us, all five feet zero plump inches of her, and she gives Damion a hug before inspecting me, hands on her hips. “You must be Kali.”
“I …” I glance at Damion, who gives me a knowing smile, and then back at her. “Yes. I’m Kali.”
“Well, then,” she says, “give me a hug.” She wraps her arms around me. “And he’s right. You are lovely.”
My cheeks heat. “Thank you.” I gaze at him. “Thank you.”
He and Dehlia share a look. “And polite,” Dehlia says. “You were right. She has manners. Rich is looking for you, Damion. He’s got a plan to finally dethrone you.”
Damion rubs his hands together. “Let the war begin.” He leans down and kisses me. “Ping-Pong battle. You’ll be okay with Dehlia?”
Dehlia snorts. “Of course she’ll be okay. You think she’s a girl so she needs her hand held.” Someone comes in the door and says something in Spanish. Dehlia glances at Maggie. “They need help up front.”
“Oh, thank you. Let me out of the kitchen.” She quickly removes her apron and heads toward us, pausing to greet me.
“What brings you here?”
I start to mention the press release and change my mind. “Damion.”
Her eyes glow. “Damion.” She smiles. “I heard something to that effect. I approve, for the record. He works too much. He needs someone to slow him down. I’ll catch up with you later.” She disappears out the door.
“Maggie lost her husband the Thanksgiving before last, and Damion thought she needed a second home. He brought her here to volunteer and she just showed up every Saturday after. She’s all excited about planning the holiday meal this year. Of course, she picks up McDonald’s better than she cooks, but she tries.”
“Is this the time I admit Taco Bell is my specialty?” I ask sheepishly.
She levels me with a warning look. “No Taco Bell. You want Mexican, I’ll cook it right here for you. Let’s skip the kitchen and go to the lounge.”
We head into a small TV room with worn leather couches and chairs. “Looks like we have it all to ourselves.” Dehlia plops down on a leather couch and then motions for me to sit. “Damion says you want to talk to me about the shelter, for next weekend?”
“Oh, yes.” I settle across from her in a chair. “Can you tell me the history of this place?”
“Well, honey, I immigrated here with my mother. She died of cancer not long after I turned sixteen. I was homeless and scared and landed in a place like this that was more nightmare than shelter. One of the young men who came in to teach us English adopted me. Together he and I vowed to make the shelter better. My husband and I took it over and ran it for many years, until he passed five years ago. That’s when Damion stepped in and created this place.”
So Damion is behind this. “How did you meet Damion?”
Her eyes soften. “He didn’t tell you.”
“Tell me?”
“He knew I would, of course.” Her eyes tear up. “He gets upset talking about it. He doesn’t talk about it.”
My eyes tear up, too, and I’m not sure why. Because hers do. Because I know she’s about to tell me something that hurts Damion. I move to sit next to her. “Tell me. Please.”
“When he was seventeen, he and his mother were here in the shelter. Or the old shelter, before we moved.”
“Damion was homeless.”
She nods. “His mama had lost her job and they had no family. Four days they were here when she just dropped dead.”
I gasp and cover my mouth. “No. God. No.”
“It was horrible,” she says grimly, swiping away a tear. “I was there. I still remember like yesterday. And that poor boy lost it. He was lying over her, screaming for his mama. He went into shock and had to be hospitalized.”
Tears spill down my cheeks. “How long?”
“Two weeks. When he got out, he was my boy. My Roberto and I nurtured him back to health. Six months later it was like he found someplace to put it all. He turned eighteen and took a job on commission, selling stocks or some deal like that, and the next thing we knew he was making money and always trying to give us some. He never turned his back on us, though. He was here every weekend.”
I stand up. “I need to see him.”
She tugs me down. “No. Not here. It’s too emotional for him. Talk to him alone.”
I swallow hard. “I just want to go hug him.”
She smiles. “He can use some hugs. He doesn’t let anyone in. There was a girl years back, when he first got money. He met her here and thought they were alike. Soon she started milking him for money and he got tire
d of it. Gave her some cash and sent her on her way. Only she wanted more cash. She threatened to say she was abused at the shelter.”
“What did he do?”
“Dared her to do it, and thankfully she didn’t.”
I stand up. “I’m not going to say anything to him, but I want to be with him right now.”
She pushes to her feet and squeezes my arm. “I like that idea. Then later I’ll teach you to cook and you can help with Thanksgiving dinner.”
“I’ll make the tea and roll napkins or something.”
She grins. “I can teach you to cook.”
No. She can’t teach me to cook. But she’s taught me a lot about Damion.
A few minutes later Dehlia leaves me in the sports center, and I watch Damion laughing and joking with a group of ten teenage boys. He glances my way. Our eyes meet and he sets down his paddle and walks toward me, and I have only one thought: I’m falling in love with this man. No. I don’t care if it’s too soon. This is Vegas, after all. I love him.
He stops in front of me, lacing his fingers with mine.
“Hey,” I say.
“She told you.”
“Yes. She told me. Why—”
“I still can’t talk about it. I know it’s crazy—it’s fifteen years ago—but I still get … just … can’t.”
“You are the most incredible person.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Yeah, you are. And I’m going to spend as much time as you let me making sure you know it and showing you in any way I can.”
“Just be with me, Kali. That’s enough.”
“I am. I am with you.”
He strokes hair from my eyes. “You know what you can do for me now?”
“What?”
“Help me convince these boys they aren’t ever going to beat me at Ping-Pong.”
I laugh at his change of mood. “I bet I can.”
“So you think you want to play me?”
“Oh, yeah. I want to play you.” And we aren’t talking about Ping-Pong.
“Game on, baby. Game on.” He drags me toward the tables, and, indeed, I think: Game on.