Chapter 9
He’s such a dick.
He didn’t mean to run out on her like that, didn’t mean to just leave her standing in the library stacks after she absolutely blew his mind . . . so to speak.
He panicked.
Plain and simple.
The high from passing his defense and being called “doctor” for the very first time was beyond anything and then .
. . and then she’d somehow gone and topped it.
He’d been more than happy to just kiss her again – to be allowed the privilege of touching her was a dream come true.
Watching her fall apart for him? Beyond his wildest fantasies.
But then, before he fully understood what was happening, she was on her knees turning him into an incoherent mess who couldn’t even form a sentence once she’d finished him off.
He’s still not quite sure how it happened or even why. All he knows is that it did and then he lost his actual mind and he left her there.
Like a complete dick.
“I fucked up, Amelia,” he mutters to the cat as he paces back and forth in the living room.
She’s joined him, tail in the air waving back and forth, slinking up and down the kitchen counter, which he’s pretty sure she’s not supposed to be on, while he burns a similar path across the blue-green-patterned area rug, running a hand through his hair over and over again.
Maybe yanking on it will jump-start his brain, get it working again so he can figure out a way to make it right.
He doesn’t even have work to distract him anymore, because he fucking nailed the shit out of his defense.
Dr Xavier Byrne, PhD.
His academic career ending with a flourish.
The degree everyone told him he was crazy to pursue, the one that’ll allow him to work toward his real passion, the key to the job in Greece and another and another until eventually he has enough bona fides to start his own foundation, dedicated to the repatriation of stolen artifacts.
He’s finally headed in that direction after years of study and . . . and . . .
Somehow the only thing in his head is how he ran out on Bianca.
He’s trying not to think too hard about why, though, because if he lets his mind drift to the way she looked pressed against the bookshelf, how responsive she’d been to his touch, how much he’d wanted to drop to his knees, before being stunned when she fell to hers . . .
Fuck.
Then he’d fled, like the fucking coward he is.
Because that’s the crux of it, isn’t it?
He’s known just how dangerous it could be to allow himself to get this close to her since the beginning, and instead of saying something about it, he’s just .
. . letting her believe, what? That they’re friends with benefits?
No, not quite right. Co-conspirators who spontaneously hooked up one time, after kissing one other time.
Yeah, something like that.
Shit.
What a fucking mess.
Maybe he’ll just lock himself in his bedroom and hide.
His bedroom in her apartment, what a great plan. Truly foolproof.
But that’s pretty on par with his courage level so far in all of this.
Or maybe he should just call it off now, cut his losses, beg people he’d barely call friends for a couch to sleep on, and go full hermit so there’s no chance of running into her during his last two months in LA.
A slightly more reasonable plan.
Still a fucking coward though.
Amelia leaps down from the counter and heads toward the door.
Too late.
She’s home.
“Hi baby, no, you have to stay inside,” Bianca coos softly as she moves into the apartment, edging through the door and then shutting it firmly behind her as Amelia weaves around her ankles.
And here he is again, jealous of the cat.
“Hey,” he says, his voice cracking on the single syllable like he’s twelve years old again.
Leaning back against the door, Bianca looks over to him. He can’t read her expression. It feels . . . expectant, maybe? Like she’s waiting for him to say something other than just hey . Not that he’s going to.
“Hey,” she says back when he can’t come up with anything that sounds even remotely sane. “So . . . can we, uh . . . can we talk?”
Of course she manages to start the conversation. She’s so much braver than him.
“Yeah, we probably should, right?”
“Right.”
“I . . . I’m sorry if I . . .” he starts.
“What?” she asks, her eyes flying open wide as she takes a step toward him. “No, you . . . you shouldn’t be sorry. I was the one who . . . escalated things.”
Yeah, that’s not how he remembers it. She might have led them somewhere private, but he was the one who’d strayed from PDA to indecent exposure. “You didn’t, not until after I did.”
“Maybe we both . . . we both took it too far. I’ve never . . . done anything like that in public before,” she admits.
“Me either. Except . . .”
“Except . . .” She trails off, tilting her head, making her curls fall gently over her shoulders.
It’s an embarrassing story and maybe, he hopes, it’ll be enough to break this tension that he cannot stand between them. “When I was in high school, the girl I was dating decided it would be a good idea to jerk me off in the middle of a movie theater.”
“What?” Her eyes fly wide open.
“I was sixteen and, you know, wasn’t going to say no,” he admits, shrugging helplessly. “I lasted, I don’t know, maybe half a minute before it was all over. But she’d never done it before and she wasn’t, um, prepared for the end result? She kind of screamed at me?”
“You’re kidding?”
“No, right there in the middle of one of the Twilight movies that she needed to see for I think like the fourth time . . .” He trails off, shaking his head at his sixteen-year-old self.
“Anyway, I’m pretty sure the lady a couple of seats down saw us and she was already, like, out of her seat on the way to get the usher, so we booked it out of there and then she dumped me in the car when I was dropping her off. ”
Bianca lets out a wild, throaty sound. He knows that sound now. Knows she doesn’t just make it when she’s laughing. “So your second foray into public sex was way better, is what you’re saying?”
For a moment and then another, he pretends he’s considering, putting a hand to his chin, tapping a finger against his cheek and raising his eyes to the ceiling in mock thought.
“Xavier!”
“Way better,” he affirms.
And suddenly, so are things between them.
“So we’re okay?” she asks, biting down on her bottom lip, which doesn’t help his attraction to her at all.
“I’m okay if you’re okay,” he agrees, lifting one shoulder in question.
“I’m okay,” she affirms.
“Then we’re okay.”
“We need to stop saying okay. It’s starting to lose its meaning.”
“Semantic satiation,” he says helpfully.
“You’re such a nerd.”
“Like you didn’t know that.”
“I only know it from watching Ted Lasso .”
“Me too.”
“The most perfect show.”
“Truly,” he agrees.
“So, if we really are okay . . .” She trails off with a mischievous grin.
“Bianca,” he scolds lightly, but she ignores him.
“Don’t hate me . . .”
“Yeah, that’s impossible.”
“You haven’t even heard what it is yet.”
“Did you, I don’t know, murder someone on your way over here?”
“Xavier . . .”
“Then it’s impossible. So, what’s up?”
“My mom called me and I was just rambling a little bit and I told her you’d passed your defense today, and now we’re invited out to dinner to celebrate with my whole family.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“I’m not really a celebration kind of guy.”
He is, in fact, the opposite of a celebration kind of guy.
Being the center of attention is not his thing, at all.
Celebrating other people? No problem. He was thrilled when Bianca invited him to her post-defense party.
And not just because it had given him an excuse to see her again, but because he genuinely wanted to congratulate her on the accomplishment. Celebrating himself though? Hard pass.
“I figured,” she admits, “but . . . I think it’s more of an excuse. They want to get to know you. I just . . . couldn’t think of a reason to say no.”
“So we’re gonna celebrate my dissertation, but not yours,” he says, suddenly way angrier at her parents than he thought possible. They seemed nice enough the other night, but how hard is it to just support your daughter for the brilliant scholar she is?
She looks down, eyes sort of sad and her shoulders sagging in what looks like defeat, and he never wants her to feel like that, like she doesn’t have any other choice, so he gives in, immediately.
“So, then we’ll go.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, really.”
“There’s no one else you want to invite?”
He knew when he got to Los Angeles that this was temporary, just like every other place he’s ever lived, so he didn’t really make friends – at least not the kind that he’d call right now for something like this.
“In case you didn’t notice, I don’t really have anyone here to celebrate with, except you, obviously, so . . . this is okay.”
“Xavier!”
“I’m not sorry!”
She laughs again and something loosens in his chest. She’s okay and they’re . . . somehow . . . okay, so he’s gonna take that as a win.
“So, where are we headed, boss?” he asks, settling into the driver’s seat of his car, her in the passenger seat beside him as he tries not to think too hard about how softly she’d smiled at him when he held the car door open for her.
“My dad’s cousin owns a restaurant in Hollywood. Greek food, obviously.”
He hands her his phone so she can put it into his maps. “Greek food to celebrate before I go off to Greece? Feels like the right fit to me. Your family is pretty into your heritage, huh?”
“Yeah, well, my parents immigrated as kids, so we’re not that far removed.”
“Same, actually.”
“Really?”
“On my dad’s side, anyway. He’s from Galway, but the only thing left of it is the brogue. It’s nice that you guys keep up the traditions.”
Bianca snorts, but ends it with a smile. “Just be happy you missed Easter.”
“Your family’s Orthodox?”
“More in name than anything else, but my parents still go all out on holidays, full on roasting a lamb on a spit in the backyard.”
“I’d like to see that.”