Chapter 30
CHAPTER THIRTY
I hit the ball with such frustration it lands smack bang in the crotch of our tennis coach, Cody.
“Fuck!” He clutches his manhood as he goes down. All we see is his sandy-blond hair as he curls up in a ball. “You’ve got a serve on you,” he says, wheezing from the ground.
“You weren’t using those anyway, right?” I say, calling out from our side of the tennis court. Oh, I am in a mood.
And because Cody didn’t wake up and choose violence today, he raises a thumb up, but he’s more like rolling around on the court, withering in pain than A-okay. I turn my back on him and walk back to the baseline.
“Let me get you some water,” Em calls out, then grabs me by the arm and pulls me toward our water bottles on the edge of the court. Oh great, now Em’s in a mood, too. This’ll be fun.
“Was that necessary?” Em hisses. She was planning on asking him for drinks—and most likely more—after our lesson.
“I’m sure you’ll still be able to play with his balls later,” I say, dismissing her. I reach for my water bottle, but she slaps it out of my hand before I take a sip. Before I can chastise her, she beats me to it.
“What the fuck is going on?” Em says, standing with her hands on her hips. I stare at my water bottle that rolls from left to right until it finally stops. Then, I look at her, and her face morphs from pissed-off to concerned. “What happened between you and Xander?”
She picks up my water bottle and hands it to me.
I take a sip then tell her everything.
Every kiss. Every laugh. Every snuggle.
The wedding. Xander’s confession. Me walking off on him. Again.
And most importantly, I tell her about Mom admitting her entire book is a fucking hoax.
When I’m done, Em is silent. And then she lets out a whistle. “Holy shit. You just had a reckoning with your rules.”
I nod. “I mean, part of me still thinks I was onto something back then. That I wasn’t entirely wrong. That my mom wasn’t entirely wrong. Because I haven’t had my heart broken in eleven years. So I must have done something right—”
“Really?” Em says, interrupting me. “You think you haven’t been walking around with a broken heart?” Sarcasm drips off every word. I proceed to ignore the subtext.
“Until now,” I say. “No.”
“Bullshit.”
“Excuse me?”
“You are full of shit,” Em says, enunciating every word. “You’ve heard me say this in one form or another over the years, but I’m going to say it again.”
Oh fuck, here we go.
“Your parents’ relationship was so brutal that you decided love means war. And now you’re blowing yourself up to stay true to some thought formed when your brain wasn’t even fully formed. You’re willing to ignore love, real love, because of that?”
“Who said anything about love?” I say, pumping the brakes on this conversation.
“You’re joking, right?” Em says, eyebrows raised.
“I’m dead-ass serious.”
“You’re in love with Xander,” Em says.
“What?” My heart squeezes so hard I almost join Cody on the ground.
“Love. You know, a profoundly tender, passionate affection, often mingled with sexual desire, for another person,” Em says, and I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s the actual definition in the dictionary. Fucking English teacher.
“I didn’t think that was possible,” I say.
“Of course you didn’t. You’ve been spoon-fed bullshit by your mother for the past fifteen years,” she says. Well, that is one thing we can agree on.
“Love is not just possible. True love can last a lifetime,” Em says.
I let the words wash over me.
Eleven years isn’t a lifetime, but it has felt like forever.
Holy shit.
“I’m in love with Xander,” I say, blinking.
And our first night together comes flooding back, all encompassing.
The heat coming off Xander’s body, fanning the flames I feel inside. The moment I put my hand on his heart to feel his heartbeat. Fast but steady. Like he’s never been so sure of anything in his entire life. He was all in. All. In.
I blink, and there are tears in my eyes.
Because the truth is, in that moment, I was all in too.
But here I am eleven years later, with a fuck-ton of excuses, half in.
Only half in with anyone. Only ever half in with Xander.
And this hurts the most. The fact I was only brave enough to give Xander half of me.
My heart shudders.
Let me tell you, finding out you’re in love with someone is the worst. Actually, scrap that. Finding out you’re in love with someone you hurt is the actual fucking worst.
That’s why I’m rotting on the couch.
No Criminal Minds. Just moping.
After Emily nursed Cody’s crotch back to health with an assortment of cold compresses, he bounced right back, completing our first lesson. And before Em slinked off to drinks with him, she pulled me aside to double, triple, quadruple check I was okay.
When I asked her why I wouldn’t be okay, she said she’d called my name like ten times. Turns out, being in love is a full-time job. A massive distraction. An obsession. An addiction.
Still, I gave her my blessing to go get dicked down by Cody and made my way home.
“You’re going to get him back,” she’d called over her shoulder, trying to reassure me.
And that’s exactly what I’m not doing. Because there’s a small doubt that’s crept up now that my dumbass heart is involved.
It was over then. And it’s over now.
A knock on the door jolts me out of my mope. If this is Mom, coming with more wedding cake as a way to make amends, I’m going to lose it.
I drag my feet to the door and fling it open with an air of irritation, only to see Xander standing there.
“Hey,” he says. His voice comes out rough. My breath hitches at the strain in his voice.
I rake my eyes over him. He’s got on his classic white T-shirt, bare forearms, ripped jeans, curls curling in a way that makes my stomach bottom out. I’m aware I haven’t said anything.
Why is he here?
Is he here to get me back?
A sliver of hope weasels its way into my chest, and I have to clutch my hands to physically stop myself from reaching for my heart to massage it away. Impossible. I’m the one who walked away. Not once. Twice.
And he was the one who put it all on the line. Not once. Twice.
What’s that clichéd saying? Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
No, he’s not here to get me back. Xander Miller is many things. Funny. Freakishly smart. And kind. He is not a masochist. And yet, all evidence points to him being one, standing at my door.
“Can I come in?” he says, waiting for me to respond.
In my mind, I lean forward and run my hands through his curls all the way to the base of his neck, where I grab onto a fistful of hair and pull him toward me.
I want to hold him. Forever.
Love him forever.
“Ash?” Xander says, reminding me that I have yet to respond.
“Yes,” I breathe out, blinking. He walks past me, giving me a whiff of his so fresh and so clean cucumber scent. And I immediately crave burying my face into his neck.
Nope. No. Get it together, Ash.
I watch as he shrugs his satchel bag off his broad shoulder, throwing it on the floor near the kitchen bench. And that’s when I notice a stack of papers in his hand.
He turns to me, and I see it in his eyes.
He’s not here to win me back. He’s got that ruthless determination look, the one I saw back in the café, when he caught me playing the penis game with Emily and he was in the middle of a court case.
“I know how to get your job back,” he says, his tone cool and calculated. All business.
The eye contact alone has me squirming inside. I want to grab his hand, drag him to the bedroom, push him against the wall, and drop to my knees, watching his eyes grow dark.
“Ash,” he says, pleading like I projected that image right into his brain.
“Mmmm,” I say, almost breathless. My gaze drags down his body.
“No,” he says, reading my mind. His words have the same effect as taking a cold shower. And this is why I wanted to massage that sliver of hope right out of my heart.
It was over then. And it’s over now.
Because you don’t reject someone twice and live to tell the happily ever after.
God, I’m so fucking embarrassed.
“No, I know. Of course,” I choke out, scurrying behind the kitchen counter and making myself busy getting him a glass of water. “Thirsty?” I say, handing him the glass, desperate to not talk about just how much we’re not doing anything with each other ever again.
“I can win your case for wrongful termination,” he says, already moving on from the fact that there is no “us.” He opens the cream folder with purpose, but I can’t take my eyes off his face.
“Because you were fired due to discrimination, we’ll file a report with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. ”
He finally looks up at me, and heat creeps up my neck.
Discrimination?
I want to vomit. I’m going to be the poster child for sexually empowered women who are secretly lovesick over their lawyers.
I don’t know what to say at this point, so I just say, “Okay” to let him know I heard him.
Xander studies me a moment before continuing. “I had my team request footage from the security cameras on campus. The … incident happened off school property.” He stumbles on incident—which is professional speak for ass-grab—but composes himself quickly. “You’re in the clear.”
I internally freak the fuck out. I thought he was looking into it. I didn’t realize he’d set the wheels in motion. That he’d reached out to the school. That this is happening.
He takes my silence as acceptance and continues. Turns out, lawyers have a lot to say.
“We’ll need to prep you for a deposition,” he says, clasping his hands together. “It’s basically your verbal testimony. We’ll do it in my office conference room, but don’t let the chill nature fool you.”
“There is nothing chill about you right now,” I blurt out. I had kept my running commentary of the situation to myself up until this point. You know, all business. No feelings.
Now, I watch as my uncontrolled comment sends Xander raking his teeth over his bottom lip before releasing it into a smile. God, it’s the first smile I’ve seen since he walked in. And it melts the tension I didn’t realize was hanging between us.
He softens ever so slightly while keeping his cool, calm, and collected lawyer on retainer.
“What I mean is that all the answers you give during a deposition are sworn testimony and admissible at trial.”
My eyes widen. “Trial?” I say, that sick feeling in my stomach returning. People will ask me about my sex life, and I’ll have to air my laundry list of rules and men and sexual encounters in front of the court of law to be judged.
No fucking way. I am not that strong.
Like I’m having this conversation out loud, Xander slowly walks up to me. I put down the glass of water—which was serving as a prop anyway—before he reaches me. That cold tension we had between us when he first arrived is now replaced with anticipation.
He puts his hands firmly on my shoulders and directs me to sit.
When I’m seated and he’s sure I’m not a flight risk, he takes a seat next to me.
“We won’t go to trial. The school will settle.
But we need to light a fire under their asses by filing a formal complaint in court,” he says, leaning in.
He’s aiming for comfort, and I can’t resist. I lean in ever so slightly, and every surface possible from my ankle to shoulder is now gently touching him.
The amount of control going into keeping this touch so light there could be plausible deniability is intense—but worth it.
That entire side of my body lights up like a Christmas tree.
I want to twist my fingers around his. I want to trace my finger along his love line and read his future and tell him I’m in it.
I stare ahead, afraid I’ll project that directly into his brain.
I’m sorry. I can’t do that with you anymore. His testimony echoes through my mind.
Shut it down, Ash.
Xander’s arm moves, and I look down to watch the thick chords of his forearms as he slides the cream folder over to me. “Here’s everything you need to prepare for the deposition.”
I let my eyes snake up the intricate details of his tattoo, up his forearm and past his bicep that disappears behind his T-shirt. I keep traveling up his neck. The neck I’ve dragged my mouth over. Past his lips and into his eyes.
His gaze flicks to my mouth before looking at the folder as he flips it open.
Inside are sheets of paper. But in the corner is his business card with Friday, 4 PM stamped on it.
He points to it. “Don’t be late.” I watch as that same hand reaches back for his jaw and he scratches it.
We lock eyes a moment longer. “You’re really going to get my job back, aren’t you?”
He gives me a barely there smile. “Yes.”
It’s all business. No feelings.
Exactly the way I used to like things.