Chapter 3 #2
I wasn’t sure how well he was listening, though, considering I had just confessed I had something big to share. His attention threatened to drift, but every time I thought he was going to disappear, he came right back with a comment that proved he was keeping up.
His pale, almost porcelain skin gave him an effortlessly polished look—one he somehow maintained without trying.
Dark hair, neatly parted and slicked back, showed some classic prep-school charm.
His face was smooth, lacking any sharp jawline, but its rounded softness only made his deep brown eyes seem warmer.
A pressed Oxford shirt with the collar just slightly popped didn’t hurt the effect, either.
Those eyes met mine when I said, “I ran into Landon earlier this week.”
“Your ex-boyfriend Landon?”
As if there were another one.
“Yes.” I cut off the last piece of salmon from the skin. Xavier was a pescatarian, and he cooked a lot of fish dishes. “He moved back to Chicago.”
Xavier lifted a thick eyebrow. “He moved out of Chicago?”
Seriously?
I knew for a fact I told Xavier, in excruciating detail, about my relationship with Landon. It stuck with me, considering I went home with the memories hard on my heart and cried about them in the shower for twenty minutes. I hadn’t cried over Landon for years up until that point.
“He told me I deserved better, broke up with me, then moved away, remember?”
“Right.” Xavier nodded in a way that told me he didn’t recall that detail but would play along. “Why is he back in Chicago?”
My brain short-circuited. I thought back to our conversation and realized I never gave him a chance to explain why he moved back. “That’s not important. What is important is that you know.”
“Oh.” There again with the confused-but-pretending-to-follow-along voice. “It’s nice that you told me, baby, but you didn’t need to. It’s not like anything happened between you two.”
Xavier knew me well enough to know I would never cheat. But if he really knew me, he’d know that I hated being called baby. I associated it with being catcalled by creepy men downtown.
“Right.” I collected our cleared plates from the table. It was an unspoken rule: whoever didn’t cook, washed dishes. “Nothing happened.”
“Hey.” Xavier slipped his hand over mine—no thought or hesitation, just a steady sureness to the gesture. That was also a quality I admired in Xavier: the confidence behind every action. “Did he do something?”
I squeezed his hand once before taking the plates to the sink, dropping the cutlery in, too. “No. There’s nothing he could do now to hurt me anymore.”
“Okay. Good.” He crossed one foot over his knee. Just like that, he was back to listening to the piano emanating from next door. Mozart’s Symphony 40, by the sounds of it.
My parents forced me into piano lessons until I was fourteen. It was what good, smart children did, according to them. Or more accurately, according to my mother. My dad usually just nodded along and kept quiet.
They didn’t let me quit until my piano teacher gently suggested I might be better suited for other creative pursuits.
Unfortunately, my mother didn’t consider art one of them. Every year in high school, she funneled me into some new “respectable” outlet like poetry, writing, and acting. I was terrible at all of it.
Don’t even get me started on her reaction when I told them I was thinking of majoring in art in college. I’d take a piano to the head, cartoon-style, before reliving that argument.
“Anyways.” I poured soap over the dishes and ran water over a sponge. “Something else happened this week. My partner at the Community Connections Center quit, which means they’re going to have to cancel art class.”
“Oh, that sucks.”
I nodded as I rinsed the plates. “It does. There’s good news, though. The class will be saved if someone volunteers with me.”
I didn’t need to look at Xavier to know he was pulling his frustrated face: puffed-out cheeks, head tilted back in theatrical frustration.
“It’s only a couple of hours Sunday morning,” I rushed to add. “Just through the end of the year. I’m sure we’ll find a permanent replacement before then.”
“That’s like four months away.”
It was mid-August, so really more like four and a half months, but I wasn’t about to point that out.
“Think of how much time we’ll get to spend together.” I turned to face him, leaning my back against the counter, dishes secure in the drying rack behind me.
“With children.”
“Well, yeah,” I sputtered.
This was not the attitude I had been expecting. Xavier was acting like it was a hassle to spend this extra time with me, not a privilege. I understood it wasn’t an easy request, but wasn’t that how partners helped each other?
“Baby.” He approached me and placed a hand on my cheek. “I totally would if I could, but Sunday mornings are for golf, you know that.”
“Right.” I drew away, choosing to dry the dishes with a rag instead. My hands needed something to do. “I know.”
Xavier pulled the rag out of my hand and set it on the counter. Everything in this kitchen was monochromatic. I felt like my pupils were going to collapse any moment due to the lack of color in the room.
“Are you mad at me?” he asked.
“I’m not not mad.” Down one rag, I resorted to wringing out my hands. “But I feel like you don’t understand how big a deal this is.”
He narrowed his eyes. “We’re still talking about the art class, right?”
I threw my hands in the air. “Yes. I love that class almost as much as I love art itself.”
“I didn’t realize you were so passionate about art.” He rubbed his hands up and down the sides of my arms. A comforting gesture, but not enough to soothe the sting of the moment.
“Art is everything to me.”
His hands paused by my shoulders. “But you never talk about art. For God’s sake, you’re an actuary, Kira.”
“Not all of us have the privilege of working in the same field as our passion.”
Xavier was a chemical engineer. He loved numbers, organic chemistry, and formulas. Meanwhile, I had to beg my high school chemistry teacher to bump my 89.8 up to a 90. Which was a big deal at the time, considering I had never received lower than an A+.
The point was he got to go to work every day and do what he loved. Not many people got to do that. Me included.
“Sure, but you like being an actuary, don’t you?”
My shoulders deflated, and he removed his hands. What was my point, again? We had strayed so far from the original question.
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “I’ll find someone else to replace Jordan.”
“What about Macey?” Xavier suggested.
Between her busy blog that kept her on the road and her frequent love fests with her boyfriend, Macey didn’t have time for a massage appointment, let alone time to volunteer with me.
“Maybe,” I said. Just to let the issue die.
“It’ll work out, baby.” Xavier shot me a smile, all straight teeth.
I wished I could share in his positivity. But there were few things in life I had taken for myself, the volunteer art class one of them, and I had a sinking feeling that would soon be ripped from me too.
With one hand, I rubbed at my eye. “Sure.”
“Did you want to—”
“Actually,” I cut him off, “I just remembered that Macey needed help with something at the apartment. I can’t stay tonight.”
Disappointment showed on his face, but even though the smile faltered, it didn’t fade. “Sure. I’ll drive you back.”
“It’s okay.” I grabbed my cardigan off the chair at the dining table. “The weather’s nice. I’ll walk.”
I had the two things needed for a long walk: good shoes and inner turmoil. Walking home would give me the chance to wear both out.
Besides, Macey owed me two dollars.