Damian gives me a blank stare. “Yeah, I have no clue what that is.”
“Well, don’t try figuring it out now,” I warn him. “You might hurt yourself.”
“Wait, so that’s it? You’re majoring in just…math?”
“Just math,” I parrot, rolling my eyes at him. “My ‘just math’ major would probably have your brain melting out of your ears in less than a week.”
“Most likely,” he agrees, unashamed of that fact. “But in all seriousness, you plan to do what with that? Like, specifically. It’s just kind of vague is all.”
“You mean, like, for work?” I clarify.
“That is usually the next step after college, yes.”
I open my mouth to answer, then pause. Because the truth is…I don’t have a clue. For as long as I can remember, the one thing I’ve been exceptionally good at is math. Numbers agree with my brain in a way nothing else in this world ever has. I’m not creative like Andie or performative like Ronnie. My social skills are utterly lacking, and I have a tendency to shove my emotions so far down people often question if I actually have them. Which I do, I just don’t like to wear my feelings on mysleeve, and I’m fairly good at compartmentalizing. Most of the time, at least. Clearly, that is not the case around Damian, who seems to bring out the worst in me, like I’m Dr. Jekyll and he triggers my internal Mr. Hyde, but that’s not my norm. It’s the exception.
Math, on the other hand, isn’t my exception. It’s my rule. My secret power. My safe space. Since I was very young, it’s been the one thing I was always better at than everyone around me, the one thing I could always rely on when I could rely on nothing else. Math is consistent. Math isconstant. And so many factors in life just…aren’t.
But while I excelled at it, I never really had the opportunity to consider how I would use math in the real world, not even once I hit high school. It was just expected I would fall into a job that centered around it because…well, why wouldn’t I? I love math, and mathdefinitelyloves me, so why squander that talent, especially when it was going to guarantee me a full ride to college?
My advisor at the time agreed, though I think she only cared about doing the bare minimum of her job description by ensuring I was applying for colleges by the deadline; there was very little actual advising being done on the matter. As for Mom…well, by the end of senior year, she had other things on her mind. She didn’t have time to worry about what I would do beyond college, and neither did I, not when it was four years away and we weren’t even sure she would survive the one. Compared to that, deciding on a future job that seemed a lifetime away was insignificant. It wasn’t my priority, and I guess I also never really thought about it because I didn’t feel I had to. It was math, after all, and don’t all jobs use math in some respect? I mean, look at my mom. She’s a bookkeeper, so math is a necessary part of her work. And Gina, who is a nurse, utilizes math to dispense medication at the hospital and calculate IVflow rates. Math is all around us. Just like love, in that old Christmas movie with Hugh Grant my mom loves.
But I’m not going to say any of that to Damian. Instead, I redirect his question. “What about you?” I ask. “What areyoumajoring in?”
“Business administration,” he answers, yawning as if the words themselves bore him, “with a minor in biotechnology.”
My brows spring up. “Wow, that’s…”
“Impressive?” he says when I trail off. “I know. I am an impressive guy, after all.”
“I was going to say surprising,” I counter. “The business major I can understand, but the minor…well, it sounds like a lot of work, and your whole aesthetic hardly screams ‘dedicated student.’”
“Maybe not,” he agrees, “but I am definitely dedicated to inheriting my family’s billions.”
I let out a dry laugh. “Wow. Well, at least you’re honest about it.”Which is a first.
“I’d say Honesty is my middle name, but I think that would be a touch hypocritical considering everything.” When he gestures back and forth between us, I nod.
“You would be correct in thinking that.”
Damian clears his throat, and to my amazement, he looks almost contrite. He may be acting still, wearing fake remorse for show, but even if he is, I can’t help it. He’s like an injured puppy on the side of the road; I can’tnotfeel sorry for him. Or maybe not sorry, exactly. But I do suddenly find I don’t want to kill him quite as much as usual.
Internalizing a sigh, I shake that thought away and focus back on our conversation.
“So, biotechnology. That’s really interesting.”
Damian’s eyes, which had drifted down to the table, pop up again at my comment, and he meets my gaze with a slightupward tug to his lips that gives him the appearance of a mischievous child. “And indispensable if you want to get into the drug-pushing business.”
I expel a sound that’s halfway between strangled choke and flabbergasted laugh. Is there anything he won’t try to make a joke out of? “You are unbelievable.”
He flashes that infuriating, shit-eating grin of his. “Unbelievablyawesome, you mean,” he corrects me, and I don’t know if it’s his unfathomable cockiness that does it, or if he’s actually driven me to insanity, but I find myself giving him the one thing he asked for before we came to Izzy’s.
A genuine fucking smile.
“There it is,” he whispers with a victorious fist pump. Then, with a strange look I can’t decipher, he reaches across the table and takes hold of my hand. I startle, gaping first at our intertwined fingers, then up at his face. Was that look he gave me supposed to be the signal he mentioned on Friday? We never did come up with a code word for these moments of physical contact.
I open my mouth to say something, but Damian just gives an imperceptible shake of his head before subtly jerking his chin, signaling for me to look over my shoulder. When I shift in my seat, following his gaze to yet another student either filming us or taking our picture, he leans in just enough so I can hear his whispered voice.
“Now, show that beautiful smile to the camera.”
