Chapter 21
Chapter
Twenty-One
XAVI
I’m incredibly overwhelmed. Overwhelmed by all the information that Nash and Avory supplied yesterday. Overwhelmed with how this entire thing is moving forward. Overwhelmed with how Enfield looked out for me.
I didn’t ask him to. I didn’t even think to tell Avory when we first spoke over the phone prior to the meeting about how Enfield had treated me when he arrived.
Avory and I have had a couple conversations during the week or so since Nash insisted that I have my own attorney to look out solely for my interests.
Our conversations had a lot to do with accessing family information. Those concerning the Adair Trusts and the Adair Sports Club franchise, phone logs and video doorbell records, and speaking to the police department on my behalf. Most of our conversations were about gaining access to something.
I’d never known that having an attorney was so invasive.
And yet, with every new conversation in which Avory was very thorough in telling me why he needed something and what he’d do with that information, I felt like…
his child. I really did feel like he was looking out for me, and to hell with anyone else.
I’m hoping he’ll allow me to keep him on retainer after this is over. Enfield keeps saying it’s almost over, and it is. We have a plan.
No matter what I tell myself, though, there’s a part of me that’s sad. I’m confident that it’s not specific to Enfield himself, but to this entire thing. I feel disheartened. Twice now, four years apart, this hasn’t worked out. Maybe it’s never going to happen for me.
I scratch Shapiro behind his ears and glance at Sparrow.
He’s sitting on a couch perpendicular to the one I’m on with his headphones on.
I’m not sure what he’s listening to, but he has my laptop in his lap, and he’s meticulously uploading my products into three separate storefronts, dividing them by event.
I’m not hurting for money, but Sparrow really wants to see them out in the world. He’s very concerned with my ‘staying relevant’ in the rapid pace of internet algorithms. Honestly, if I never sell a thing again, I’m still going to make them. I enjoy making jewelry.
Sparrow is probably bored. He’s usually cruising around the equator right now. Instead, he’s here with me. Holding my hand while I get through this weird moment in my life.
I turn my attention toward the television and absently watch the movie. I’m not into it even though I chose it. Probably because it’s a holiday movie and we’re in the middle of summer. I can’t get my head around snow falling right now.
Enfield steps into the room with a tray in his hand. I watch, surprised, when he sets what looks suspiciously like a root-beer float on the table beside Sparrow. Sparrow stares at it and then looks at Enfield suspiciously. He pulls back one side of his headphones and looks up at him.
“This laced with rat poison?”
Enfield shrugs, smiling far too sweetly as he offers me one, too. Yep, totally a root-beer float. I grin. “Thanks.”
He takes the third off the tray and offers it to Sparrow instead.
Sparrow looks between them and then at Xavi.
“I feel like any of them could be laced with something. I keep mine because you wouldn’t give yourself the laced one, and you seem to like Xavi better than me.
Which means I could take Xavi’s, but you knew I’d do that.
I could take yours, but that’s obvious. But I keep mine, and I’m dead. ”
“You watch too many murder mysteries,” Enfield says. “Want to trade or not?”
I take a sip of mine and offer it to Sparrow too, proving that there’s nothing wrong with mine. He shakes his head and cautiously thanks Enfield for the drink, though he doesn’t stop looking at it warily as he smells it.
Enfield chuckles. “Such paranoia. At the very most, I’d add salt or something. I’m not going to kill you, Sparrow. So dramatic.”
He sits beside me. Not on the opposite end of the couch, but on the cushion beside me. I try not to think anything of it. The kind gesture with the drink. Sitting close when there are easily three other seating options further away.
Maybe we really are becoming friends.
I take another sip of my float and glance at him. “Are you talking to your kids today?” I ask.
“Already did,” he says and shifts to get his phone out of his pocket, which has him leaning in closer to me. “My sons are having a sleepover, remember?”
I nod.
“I watched them play for a while, and they loved having me there, though they kept asking why I wasn’t there physically.
So I told them I was with a friend. They decided to draw me and my friend.
” He turns the phone screen to me, and there are two guys on the screen, obviously drawn by children.
One with blond hair, smaller than the other.
Obviously me. And the other, obviously, Enfield.
“That’s Shapi,” Enfield says, zooming in, and I see a little orange cat. “I didn’t even have to tell them about your cat. Shapi seems intrigued by whatever’s on my phone. He’s almost always there when I have a call with my kids now.”
I look at Shapiro with surprise. “Is that so? Nosy cat.” He pretends not to hear me.
Enfield laughs. “Yeah. I thought it was cute, and I promised to show you.”
“You told them you were with me?”
“I told them I was with a friend. We were working on something important, but promised that once I’m home, I’ll never leave them again.”
“That’s a big promise.”
“I’m primarily doing this for my kids. Yes, I want my freedom.
I want my birthright without all the stupid stipulations, but ultimately, without my kids, I’d have walked away.
Hell, if it were just Ronan, I’d walk away.
But I don’t feel like I can give them what I want them to have now that I have three.
So yeah, I’m seeing this through for my kids. Then I won’t leave them again.”
“What if you fall in love one day and want a couple’s trip?” I ask.
He looks at me with amusement. “Then it’ll have to wait until my kids are grown.”
I wonder what it’s like to love another person that much. A kid. Three kids. “You love your kids more than you think you’ll love another person,” I muse out loud.
“I don’t know. I think it’s expected of me to answer yes, but I also think that’s societal brainwashing. You love who you love, in whatever capacity you love them. That’s just how it happens. There is no right or wrong, and I don’t really give a fuck what anyone has to say about it.”
“But you don’t think you’re going to fall in love with someone someday and want to take a couple’s trip.”
“I think you put more into love than I do,” he says, shrugging.
“You don’t have anyone around you that you look at and think I want that love?”
Enfield dips his spoon into his glass, mixing up the ice cream with the root beer.
“Honestly, I don’t know. My immediate family is two siblings who I’m not close to and my parents, with whom I clearly have a broken relationship.
I have cousins I’m close to and…” He trails off for a minute, gaze absently locked on his float.
“The cousins I’m closest to—two of whom are married.
One with a family, and one newly married, so no kids.
But both married via contracts, and I think I’m jaded, so it’s difficult for me to look at the love they share and think I want that because I know it was chosen for them.
I know all the details chosen for them. I can’t help but wonder what they want and not what the contract insists they have. ”
“Oh,” I answer and chew the inside of my lip. “I never thought about it that way.”
“You have a lot of people in your life that you wish for a future relationship to emulate what they have,” he notes.
“So…. My oldest brother married Omaris when I was twelve. I’ve always been relatively close to my brothers.
I’m the baby, and I was always treated as the baby.
I used to spend the night at Ayren and Omaris’ a lot growing up, and I feel like I literally watched them fall in love.
A year later, Jabarie married Alina, and I watched the same thing.
But even before that, I had Sparrow’s family.
Sparrow’s family is big. He has two parents and three siblings, whom you’ve met, but his extended family is huge.
One household is six guys, all together; one is five, all together; one is three, all together.
By all together, I mean in various… dynamics, right?
But they’re still a loving, happy family.
As I was struggling through my own growing pains and my oldest brother was beginning to fight with my parents about the gender of his partner in his future contract, I kept looking at Sparrow’s family and thinking It’s going to be okay.
This is out there in the world. There’s love for everyone. ”
“Your parents came around, obviously,” Enfield says.
“Oh yeah. Actually, I think they love to support the different kinds of love my brothers share. Nelly is my third-oldest brother, and we were all at dinner one day when he said, ‘Mom, I’m bisexual and polyamorous. I want a polyamorous contract.’ My mother stared at him for a long time.
I kind of thought she’d never heard that term before.
” I laugh at the memory. “But I was surprised when she beamed at him and said, ‘I’ll find you a perfect family, Nelly.’ And my dad added, ‘We promise.’ I guess, because my parents are so supportive and have delivered exactly what my brothers have dreamed of since the very beginning, with just a few hiccups here and there early on, I imagined I’d have the same kind of happily ever after. ”
“Instead, you’ve been disappointed twice.”
I glance at him, a little surprised to see that he looks almost sad. “Yeah,” I agree. “Admittedly, I keep thinking, what did I do to piss karma off?”
Enfield grips my hand. Not my wrist but my hand. He doesn’t lace our fingers together, but he does turn my hand over so he can properly hold it.
My heart doesn’t race at all. Nope.
“I’m sorry, Xavi. I’m sorry that I fucked up your chance.”
I shake my head. “You didn’t. Your parents did.” Was my voice a little higher than usual?
“They did; I agree. But I did too. I wish I could fix this for you.”
There’s no reason at all I should be feeling emotional. No reason that my feelings should be balling in my chest and making it difficult to swallow. I take a deep breath and nod as I look at my lap.
“You’re a good person.”
“Good guys don’t win,” I mutter.
His hand tightens on mine. “They do. I imagine your six brothers are good guys, aren’t they?”
I nod.
“They won. They’re all happy. Yeah?”
I sigh. “Yeah.”
“You’ll win too. Maybe it’ll just take a little longer.”
“I was supposed to be married at nineteen.” There’s a chance that I sound a little mopey. Pouty. Like a petulant child.
“You know what I think?” I meet his eyes. How is he looking at me that I feel a little flushed? “I think that guy wasn’t right for you. He was never meant to be yours. I think if he’d shown up here as planned, you wouldn’t have that happily ever after that you’ve longed for.”
“Instead, I get an angry straight man. Forgive me, but I fail to see the improvement.”
Enfield laughs. “You’re right. At least your first guy’s sexuality was correct.”
The teasing helps loosen some of the weird feelings inside me. I release a breath and smile. He doesn’t let go of my hand, though.
Our conversation stops for a while, and we watch the movie. With him sitting beside me, my hand in his, I feel a little more into the movie. Enfield thinks it’s cheesy, which might help to keep our conversation light as we joke and laugh about it.
After a while, Sparrow leaves to make dinner, and we eat together in the media room.
I think he tries to make Enfield feel the same kind of unease about the food he sets before him, but Enfield shrugs and says, “If I die from what I eat, there’s only the two of you in this house.
Either you’re going under, or you’re throwing your best friend under. ” Then he takes a big bite.
Their bickering doesn’t fail to make me laugh, even though I try to hide it. I’m not sure whether I’m encouraging the bad blood between them or not. Either way, it’s funny.
We stay up late watching corny movies. Long after Sparrow goes to bed.
Enfield remains close, sometimes holding my hand and sometimes not.
I’m a little torn over how I feel when Shapiro plants himself in Enfield’s lap, demanding attention.
I kind of love that Shapiro is demanding Enfield be part of his pride, and also a little sad because he’ll be leaving.
Interestingly, I understand what he means about only wanting permanent figures in his kids’ lives because I worry if Shapiro will be upset once Enfield leaves and doesn’t return.
By the time I’m yawning more than breathing normally, Enfield leans over me and reaches for the remote to turn the television off. “Bedtime. You can’t keep your eyes open.”
“One more movie,” I complain. “I can make it.”
He laughs and hauls me to my feet. “Cute. Go to bed.”
Grumpily, I head for the stairs. Enfield remains at my side, maybe to make sure I go where I say I’m going. He stops at my door and pushes it open. I watch him. Watch as his eyes take in my bedroom. Then they’re locked with mine.
The silence between us feels… weird. Not awkward. I hesitate to say heavy or charged or something, but there’s certainly something different lingering between us. Is that friendship?
I hold my breath when Enfield takes a step closer. I inhale sharply when he leans in. There he hesitates, eyes only slightly open. I can feel his breath on my lips. What is he doing? Did he forget who he’s with? Did he forget that I’m a guy?
The world around me disappears as soon as his lips press against mine. I’m reminded of how I imagined our first evening together going. We’d talk all evening until it’s late, and we can’t keep our eyes open, then he’d walk me to my door and kiss me goodnight.
It’s as if those dreams are simply delayed, and suddenly, the phantoms I imagined are racing forward and settling around me. His hand slides into my hair as he pulls my mouth closer. Kisses me more deeply. When did he even put his tongue in my mouth?
My god, has someone ever kissed me like this? Has a kiss ever made my entire body feel like it’s vibrating with anticipation?
I’m almost more startled when his mouth retreats from mine than I was when he actually kissed me. I stare, eyes fucking wide. His lips curl in a soft smile.
“Goodnight, Xavi Adair. I’ll see you in the morning.”
I nod somewhat dumbly and watch him cross the hall, slipping his hands into his pockets. My god, that didn’t just happen.