Chapter 20 #2
Welcome to the third date, in which we went from leaving the sleep study to the gas station for snacks, to driving along the 101 in peak rush hour.
Because Xander is fucking insane. This might end up going down as the worst date in history, if we ever finish it.
Or we might just die here. Bumper to bumper.
Also, I have no idea where we’re going. And I don’t know if Xander thinks it’s cute to keep it a secret, but the traffic we’re crawling in has me muttering under my breath.
This morning at the sleep study, Ben woke us up like a kid on Christmas morning, informing Xander that he’d slept for a total of four hours.
“That’s your new record,” Ben said, like he was announcing an entry into the Guinness World Records for sleeping.
And after my debrief with Em in the bathroom a few nights ago, I’ve been sleeping like a goldendoodle that just got adopted by a rich white woman.
You know, warm, tucked in, and taking up most of the bed.
Basically, we have continued to attend the sleep study without any more incidents.
“Care to share where we’re going?” I say through a mouthful of red flavored plastic. Yum. I glance over at him, and with the windows down, his curls are whipping around, having the time of their lives.
His lips tip into a smile and the text from Em flashes in my mind. I like him. You should too.
“To learn all about our hopes and dreams …,” Xander starts but deliberately stops, giving me time to react.
“Gag.”
“We need to go back to the very beginning,” he finishes, like he’s perfected when to talk, when to let me cut in, and when to continue. Okay. Not bad. A bit considerate.
“What cryptic shit is that?” I say, while simultaneously trying to crack the code like I’m Bruce Willis in Die Hard with a Vengeance.
The hopes and dreams bit is from his/society’s definition of what constitutes a date. But what’s the “very beginning” of Xander’s hopes and dreams?
“Are you taking me home?” I say, lifting my eyebrow.
Two hours later, we pull up into a parking lot on the side of the road, just outside of Santa Barbara.
“Rincon Beach,” Xander says, which, judging by how full the parking lot is, and how many fit surfers there are running to and from the beach, is the one decent surf spot in Southern California.
“You grew up here?” I say, trying to consolidate the sharp-tongued corporate lawyer with the laid-back beach boy vibes of the three surfer dudes hanging around the trunk of their car. Their naked torsos ripple with every movement.
I tear my eyes away to scan the parking lot. We’re surrounded by greenery. Shrubs, trees, and general coastal vegetation. I can’t see the beach, but I’m assuming it’s down the narrow pathway that seems busier than the 101 we were driving on—at ten AM on a Thursday.
I focus on Xander through a new lens, taking him in. Those wide, strong shoulders, solid hips, strong thigh muscles.
His body is carved by fucking Poseidon himself.
The aircon is still blasting as the engine idles, but it’s getting hot in here.
“Santa Barbara, yes,” he says as my eyes fly back up to his face. “But this is where you’d find me and—”
“Xander!” A woman that looks around my mom’s age comes jogging up to the car, the saltwater drying on her skin in white blotches, sand up to her ankles, and her dark brown curls fighting their hardest against being slicked-back wet.
She’s holding a surfboard. Dread fills me at the realization. Surely this can’t be. He wouldn’t …
“Mom,” he says, startled. He does a double take to me before getting out of the car to greet his … MOTHER.
I am meeting his mother. This cannot be happening. This has to be against dating protocol. I watch as he goes in for a big bear hug, not caring that it’ll get his white T-shirt wet. I hear his mom say something about the waves pumping.
I’ve got about three seconds to figure out how to play this.
I don’t date. And yet, I am dating Xander. I don’t have relationships. And yet, I’m in a fake relationship with Xander. I don’t meet the parents. And yet, I’m about to meet his fucking mom right now.
Stoked, dude.
I unbuckle myself reluctantly and haul my ass out of the car. The sun immediately beats down on me, reminding me that Ventura County in the dead middle of summer might just be in the hottest place on planet earth.
I look over to Xander’s mom and offer her a smile.
She beams right back. “You must be Ash,” she says, her voice warm and sparkling.
I wait for the coronary I expect to have, knowing that Xander has spoken about me enough that his mother can recognize me by sight, but it never comes.
In fact, she is so inviting, it makes me instantly want to hug her.
As if on cue, she goes in for a hug but pulls back at the last moment, thinking maybe I don’t want my T-shirt wet.
With one hand extended, she says, “I’m Eva. It’s so nice to meet you.”
I look to Xander. “I swear I didn’t know she was going to be here,” he says. Apparently, my face is an open book, and he just speed-read the whole thing in one glance.
“It’s true. This isn’t an ambush. I couldn’t resist the swell,” she says, running one of her hands through her long, loose curls, shaking out the water. Like mother, like son. “But while I’m here, can I be of assistance?”
I cock my head at Xander. Assistance?
He puts his hands in his pockets. I’ve got nothing to hide.
“I have embarrassing stories. I have the first love letter he ever wrote to his high school girlfriend,” she says, offering up the first anecdote I’ve heard from Xander’s childhood. “It was so bad, she broke up with him.”
I steal a glance at Xander. Naw. Poor baby, I convey to him wordlessly.
His shrug is so casual he could be lying down. What can I say, I’m a romantic.
“Not nearly embarrassing enough,” I say, turning back to his mom, rubbing my hands together. “What else you got?”
“Oh, he once had the stomach flu at the same time as a junior surf competition,” she says, shaking her head. “I told him not to surf, but he was determined.”
“Oh no,” I say, enjoying this way too much.
“They had to stop the competition. The water was deemed unsanitary,” she says, shaking her head in shame.
“I was winning my heat,” Xander says, defending his decision. “So that makes me the winner.”
“He’s not even embarrassed. He’s bragging,” I say, protesting to his mom at this piece of information.
I can’t help but be impressed she raised Xander with the kind of self-esteem that borders on a fully functioning, healthy grown adult.
If only he could get seven hours of shut-eye a night. I guess we can’t all be perfect.
“Right,” she says, pondering. Then she clicks her fingers. “I walked in on Xander in the bathroom surrounded by candles and my very expensive lotion slathered all over his hands,” she says. Oh, shit. “I’ve never seen someone slam a laptop shut so fast.”
I burst out laughing. “I cannot picture Xander watching porn.”
“Oh no, he wasn’t. He was watching Romeo + Juliet.”
I look to Xander, clutching my heart. So romantic.
He winks at me. Gotta love yourself first.
My cheeks heat at the implication.
“Thank you, for sharing so generously,” I say, in my most professional yet approachable parent-teacher voice. “I will use these stories against him should I need to bring him down a notch,” I say, and this sends her reeling.
“Exactly as I’d hoped,” she says back, beaming at me like a proud parent. And I can’t control it. My heart swells.
This is the pure goodness I’ve seen in Xander.
Directly from the source. Before I can analyze my own reaction, the moment is interrupted by a cacophony of cheering and I turn around to watch a fit as fuck younger woman emerge in a bikini that shows off her lean, long, and strong frame.
She’s carrying a surfboard under her arm, her golden-brown hair dripping with water.
“Scar! Wicked cutback!” one of the dudes shouts from the car next to us, grinning ear to ear.
“Thanks, Bodhi,” Scar—short for what? Scarlett?—says as she jogs to what I assume is her car when she does a double take at Xander standing there. She stops.
“Xander?” she says, at first confused. Then, her eyes light up, not even bothering to rearrange her face into something chill. She is genuinely excited to see him. And she’s not afraid to show it. “What are you doing here on a Thursday at ten AM?”
“I could ask you the same question,” Xander says, offering her his winning smile. The casual nature of his greeting tells me they have history.
I ignore that my heart starts to pound as I get to watch the meeting of the exes unfold in front of my eyes.
And then it clicks.
Is this the ex? The half a decade together ex?
“Didn’t Eva tell you I went part time?” she says before stretching on her tippy toes to kiss his cheek. He leans down and obliges.
“He’s a very busy man,” Eva says, in her defense. “I see you more than I see him.”
Definitely the ex.
Definitely not my heart rate picking up the pace.
“Enough about Xander,” Scar says, ignoring him in favor of his mom. “The carve you did on the last wave. Incredible.” Scar goes in for a fist bump that Eva obliges.
“Thanks. Your cutbacks are coming along,” Eva says, her mother-loving-warmth radiating off her. I take them in. They are as comfortable as two peas in a pod as they fall into easy conversation.
I imagine the five Christmases they’ve shared together. The five summers. The five New Years. Just the sheer amount of time they’ve had to spend together to feel this comfortable. Then. And now. Post breakup.
Like breaking up didn’t break their bond.
Unlike my relationship with my dad.
Who forgot that I existed the moment Keeley came into his life.
And that does it for me.
Jealously flares throughout my body. Followed by anger.
What the actual fuck am I doing here? Why would he bring me to a fucking family reunion? How this pertains to Xander’s “hopes and dreams” is beyond me.
Xander catches my eyes for a moment, and I hate that he can read how uncomfortable I feel crashing this impromptu family gathering.
That is, until I feel Xander’s hand wrap around mine. The immediate comfort that I feel has my heart rate picking up all over again.
I snap my gaze to Scar and Eva. They’re in their own world, using their hands to gesture wildly at each other, so I dare to look up at Xander.
Instead of communicating via a stare, though, he leans into the shell of my ear and says, “I swear I’ll make this up to you.
” The heat of his breath. The promise of his words.
His fingertip that’s circling the inside of my palm.
I hear his thoughts echo in my head. I want you.
It’s like he’s letting me know that I’m the only one he’s thinking about. “Anything you want.”
I pull back. Our faces inches from each other.
“Anything?”