Chapter 11
Xavier watches Chloe wrap her arms around herself at the elbows and squeeze tight. Then, with a quick nod, so fast he almost missed it, she agrees to stay.
“Do you want to talk about it or . . .” Bianca offers, but the other woman shakes her head, almost wildly.
Then with a soft voice, she whispers, “I think . . . I think I just want to go to bed.”
With fresh sheets on the bed and a glass of water, a melatonin gummy on the nightstand, Bianca hands over a pair of her pajamas to her friend.
“Thanks, you guys,” Chloe says, sending them both a tired smile.
“Sleep well,” Bianca says.
When the door clicks safely shut behind her, they let out a mutual sigh of relief.
Xavier turns into the kitchen, busying himself there, putting a stopper into the bottle of wine before offering her the last sip from her glass.
Bianca takes it and downs it.
The night took a wild turn from the first sip of that drink to the last.
“She’s better off,” he offers, washing out his own glass at the sink. He’d never even met the guy and he knows that.
“Yeah, clearly.”
“Why did she stay with him?” he asks, taking her glass too as she leans up against the counter beside him.
Bianca looks at the closed door and sighs, lowering her voice. “I think she didn’t want to start over with someone else. Like she’d invested all that time and energy and for it all to be for nothing, you know? I mean, I don’t think she consciously did it, but that’s kind of what I always thought.”
“Yeah, makes sense. I think that happens to a lot of people.”
It happened to his mom and he had a front-row seat to that fallout his entire childhood.
Shrugging, Bianca tilts her head in very clear confusion.
He can’t imagine her staying with someone out of sheer habit.
“It’s what she said she wanted. And I think she really did.
Maybe still does, but I don’t know. I don’t think it’s a thing you can control, though, you know?
You don’t get to control when you meet the person you’re supposed to spend the rest of your life with.
Being with someone just to be with someone, it . . . well, it leads here.”
“I don’t get people,” he says, finishing up the glasses and wiping off his hands. “Why would you want to spend the rest of your life with someone you don’t love with every fiber of your being? What’s the point?”
“People want families,” she says, her voice softer than before.
He turns toward her, bracing his hip against the countertop. “Kids with someone you don’t love . . . it’s fucked up. Trust me, I know.”
She looks up at him in surprise. “Your parents didn’t love each other?”
“My mom loved my dad until the day she died and maybe he loved her too, at least at first. I’m not sure he’s capable of loving anyone for very long, so by the end, even though she loved him, I don’t think she liked him very much.
And I think you need both, loving each other and liking each other too, for the hard days, you know? ”
“Yeah, I think so too,” she agrees, but then she’s chewing on her lip, eyes trained determinedly away from him. “Can I ask you something?”
“Anything,” he says easily.
“What were you going to do, if he’d hit her?”
That wasn’t the question he was expecting, but the answer is easy enough. “I was going to go over there and have a conversation with him.”
That has her looking at him, panic written clearly across her expression. “Xavier . . .”
“What?” He shrugs. “I wouldn’t have touched him.”
“You don’t strike me as a violent person.”
“I’m not . . . usually, but there are lines.”
“Yeah, I can see that. Not that I’d be able to fight anyone.”
“You could go for the ankles. Once they’re on the ground, I’d put my money on you.”
“Nice,” she scoffs, clearly thinking he’s making fun of her. He’s not.
“What? You’re one of the toughest people I’ve ever met. If I’m ever in a foxhole, I’d want you in there with me.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, boss, who else? I gotta take orders from someone.”
“I think you do okay on your own.”
“Maybe I’d rather not.”
“What? Take your own orders?”
He opens his mouth and then shakes his head. “You haven’t led me astray yet.”
“Yeah, well, soon enough you’ll be on your own again. Just the way you like it.”
“Yeah . . .” He trails off, whatever he was going to say cut off by a massive yawn overtaking her.
“You should head to bed,” Xavier says, lowering his voice in case Chloe is still awake.
She nods, taking a step toward her room, but then she stops. “You could . . . you can bunk in with me, if you want.”
That stops him. He didn’t even think about it.
He just assumed he’d camp out on the couch.
After what’s been happening between them for the last few days, sharing a bed seems like a really bad idea, especially with how much his parents have been on his mind tonight, like a fresh bruise over an old scar.
And yet . . .
But, no, he should sleep on the couch and he should just say so and wish her a good night’s sleep. Why add an extra layer of temptation where they don’t need one, especially with someone else in the apartment?
Then again, that someone thinks they’re engaged. It would be weird for him not to sleep with Bianca, right?
“Your bed isn’t that big,” he says.
It’s a weak excuse.
“We managed to fit on the couch just fine not so long ago.”
“Which is why I’m saying I can sleep on it.”
“And blow our cover?”
“We could say we had a fight?” he suggests.
An even weaker excuse.
“I don’t want to lie to her.”
He raises his eyebrows in disbelief.
“I know it’s semantics, but I don’t want to lie any more than I already am.”
“That’s a hell of a distinction.”
“I don’t want her to think the fight was about her. She’s going through the roughest thing; she doesn’t need to worry about anything else on top of that. We can be adults about this, can’t we?”
“You’re right. We can be adults about this, obviously. It’ll be fine.”
“Well, I was already fine, until you got weird about it.”
“I’m not being weird,” he insists, running a frustrated hand through his hair. “I’m trying to be respectful.”
“Are you saying that you can’t be respectful while sleeping next to me?”
“I’m saying,” he clenches his jaw and his hands land on his hips as he gathers his thoughts, “I’m saying that things could get confusing if we don’t maintain some boundaries.”
“Confusing.”
“Yeah, confusing. We keep moving the line, boss, and yeah, maybe it’s a little bit confusing. What we can do . . . what we can’t . . . if we should be doing any of this at all . . .” He trails off, unsure how to phrase it, his eyebrows drawn together.
“If you don’t want this, you can just say so, it’s okay. I’m not going to be mad at you, or whatever.”
No. That’s not it. And he doesn’t want her to think it, even for a second. But how does he say that without confessing everything. Shit, this is fucking confusing.
“No,” he protests, “it’s just . . . I don’t want to . . .”
The more he hedges, the more her face falls.
“Jesus, maybe I’ll sleep on the couch.”
“Bianca, I don’t mean . . .”
“What do you mean, please tell me, because I wasn’t confused until you tried to keep everything from becoming confusing.”
“I’m saying that sleeping in the same bed as you would be . . .”
“What, Xavier, what would it be?”
Fuck it. He needs to tell her.
“Torture, okay?”
“Wow. Okay, I’m sorry if I . . . if I made you feel uncomfortable or . . .”
“No, that’s not . . . listen, you’re beautiful, you know that, right? Gorgeous,” his eyes run slowly down, leisurely taking her in, allowing himself that luxury, “and being that close to you all night would be fucking torture.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. Oh.”
When did they get so close together? His eyes flick down again, to her lips and then back up to meet hers.
She opens her mouth and then closes it again.
“I know it’s not the same for you and that’s okay.”
“Who says?” she asks, voice no more than a whisper. So low he needs to make sure he heard her right.
“What?”
“Who says it wouldn’t be the same for me?”
“Would it?”
“Don’t pretend like . . . like you don’t know.”
“Know what?” But there is absolutely no containing his smile, one side of his mouth lifting, and he catches her eyes flickering down to it. “Do I do to you what you do to me?”
“Xavier,” she says his name, half scolding, half desperate, still staring at his mouth.
“Fuck, boss, you gotta tell me what you want. I won’t . . . if it isn’t what you want, then I won’t, but . . .”
“But if I do . . . want?”
“Then you just have to tell me. This is your call, always will be.”
“I do want, but I feel like maybe I shouldn’t . . . because . . .”
“Because?”
“Because you’re leaving.”
And just like that, the sweet buildup of tension is broken with the inescapable truth. Even if they both want this, want each other, no matter how much, in a few weeks he’s leaving, and starting something now won’t lead to anything except pain on the other side of that.
“I’ll sleep on the couch.”
“No, wait . . .” she says, reaching out and grabbing his hand as he tries to step around her.
The touch of her soft skin against his is a shock to his system, his skin prickling with sudden awareness of her, of how close she is, of the sweet scent of her hair and the soft glow in her eyes and the generous curves of her body. Whatever she wants from him, she can have.
“Stay with me. Not . . . not to . . .” She hesitates. “I know this is going to sound crazy, but this sucks and there’s no one else to talk to about it. I just . . . could you stay and just be there?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I could do that.”
And he will, even if it might kill him.
They get ready for bed, circling each other, him shedding his shirt, but leaving on his shorts, her tying her hair up at the top of her head, disappearing into the bathroom to put on sleep shorts and a tank top, her face washed clean and a little shiny from her lotion.