Chapter 32
It was a few days into the New Year that she met Jacob and Xavier at Bryant Park, refusing Xavier’s offer to pick her up along the way because she and Cara had gone into town for brunch.
“Izzy!” Jacob came running towards her as soon as he saw her. He gave her a big, tight hug—as tight and as big as his little arms would allow.
“Hey, Jacob. It’s been a while.”
“Xavier said he had an awesome surprise for me!”
She looked at Xavier, and nodded.
“He means you,” Xavier explained. “Not the fairground.”
“I’m the surprise?” she asked, laughing.
“I didn’t tell him you were coming.”
It had been almost a month since she’d last seen him, and it was as if she was seeing him for the first time again. She’d be lying if she said she wasn’t excited to see him. She’d felt like a teenager leaving home for a date, trying on a few outfits, jeans with different tops while Cara had waited in the living room telling her to hurry the hell up because she was starving.
The quiet, gentle thrill inside her re-ignited when her eyes locked with Xavier’s. All of a sudden, that feeling of irritation she often had when he was around, was no longer there.
“Are you babysitting me again?” Jacob asked as they walked towards the fairground.
She wasn’t sure what to reply to that because Savannah hadn’t mentioned anything.
“Izzy’s having a day out,” Xavier explained. “She’s got exams, and this is her break. So, she’s not babysitting you today, kid. I am.”
“Exams?” Jacob asked her, earnestly.
“Yes. A whole week of them.”
“I would hate that.”
“I do,” she agreed.
“That’s why we’re going to make sure she has a good time,” said Xavier, taking her by surprise. She wondered why he was being so nice. Things seemed different between them, now. There was no more hate-hate, no quips, no sarcasm.
For the next few hours they wandered around, going on the rides Jacob wanted, sometimes the three of them, and at other times she and Xavier took turns. They bought hotdogs, and candy floss, and hot chocolate and Xavier refused to let her pay.
“My treat,” he told her each time she pulled out her purse.
They followed Jacob to the fairground shooting range, and saw him staring at one of the big cuddly Monkeys that was hanging on display. It was a poor rip-off of Mickey Mouse, but he seemed in awe of it, and squealed with delight when Xavier took a shot and won it.
“Can we get that one, too?” Jacob asked, pointing to another identical toy next to it. Izzy thought it odd, on two counts. Firstly that Jacob would ask for anything, and secondly that he would ask for a toy that was identical to the one he already had.
“Another one, buddy?” Even Xavier seemed surprised.
“I’ve got spending money.” Jacob pulled some coins out of his coat pocket.
Xavier shook his head. “I’ve got this, kid.” He peered in her direction. “How about we let Izzy take this go?”
“Me?” She shook her head. “No. No thanks. Not me. I can't shoot to save my life.” She was no good at these things, had never tried before, but knew without a doubt she would be useless.
“Relax,” he said, slanting a look at her. “It's not a real gun.”
Jacob chimed in. “Have a go, Izzy!”
“Oh, you guys. Can’t you let it go?” She hated all things gun related, even fake guns at a fairground rifle range, even with toy targets.
“I know women don’t have the hand to eye coordination for these things,” Xavier remarked, casually.
“I’ll do it.” She moved forward, and took a hold of the gun. It would be later that night, as she lay in bed, going over the evening’s events and unable to sleep, that she would realize it had been Xavier’s way of prompting her. He seemed to know exactly what buttons to press.
She closed her left eye, and took aim, then pulled the trigger. And missed by a long shot.
“Try again!” Jacob’s voice urged her. She still had two turns left, and aimed again, trying to laser in on the moving target. She shot, and missed widely again.
It wasn’t a big deal, but Xavier was watching, and she didn’t want to look like a total fool at this. Annoyed at herself, she took aim, and shot blindly, and completely missed again.
“Told you,” she heard Xavier say, “Women aren’t too good at this.”
Fuming, because she had been so useless, she glared back at him.
“Another go?” Xavier asked, making her heart thump harder, faster. It was either anger, or something else, something that threw her and made it even harder for her to concentrate.
“She’ll have another turn.” Xavier slipped another bill to the man behind the kiosk.
“C’mon Izzy. You can do this!” Jacob’s encouragement didn’t help. She flinched; just as she raised her arm and focused her gaze at the target, she felt Xavier’s arm on hers. Her body stilled, and she felt her insides beginning to heat up.
“Like this,” he said, adjusting her arms. His breath tickled her ears, and her concentration flew out of the window. “Move your head like this.” His chest lightly grazed her back—or was she imagining it? Her winter coat was so thick, surely she wouldn’t be able to feel anything?
And yet she did.
His presence, his cologne, his warm breath. These things permeated her senses.
It’s not possible, she told herself, to feel these things, not in the cold and darkness around her.
Yet she felt something.
“Try again,” he said, and stepped back.
“It’s only a toy gun, guys,” she managed to say, managed to infuse it with a who-the-hell-cares attitude that would cover over her lapse in concentration. She turned to Xavier. “Relax, dude. It’s not real.”
“It feels real enough to me.” His eyes were dark, darker than the blue they normally were. What did he mean? What was he talking about? The fairground? The target? Or them? Was he feeling what she was?
Jacob broke the spell. “C’mon Izzy!”
She turned her head and aimed, and this time got nearer than before. Then, because her focus was off, because she was too busy thinking of the man behind her instead of the target in front of her, she fired wildly and missed. She pulled the trigger again, and missed, and then, because she wanted this over with, she took the next shot without even focusing and totally missed it.
“Nice try.”
“Not again—” she started. She wouldn’t be able to concentrate. Not now, with the feel of his arms on hers. She was glad he couldn’t see her face, because she could feel heat creeping along her cheeks, even though they were out in the January cold. She didn't need him to know that he was having an effect on her.
But Xavier hadn’t meant for her to take the next go. He hadn’t even looked her way. “Want that one, buddy?” He pointed to the large monkey, confirming with Jacob who nodded eagerly.
He shot. Three clean shots, and two of them hit the target full on.
“Yay!!” Jacob jumped up and down like he’d had a sugar rush.
“What are you going to do with two identical monkeys, buddy?” Xavier asked, handing them over to him.
“They’re for the twi—” he stopped, his tiny lips suddenly going all wobbly.
She wouldn’t have thought anything of it had he not pasted his hand over his mouth, in that tell-tale way that children had. The tell-tale way that had both her and Xavier exchange knowing looks.
Savannah was pregnant with twins? She waited for Xavier to say something, but he didn’t.
“Here you go, buddy.” Xavier was cool as a cucumber, and she, taking the cue, took a hold of the other toy. “I’ll hold him for you, Jacob.” She took the oversized monkey, “otherwise you’re going to have problems walking around with it.”
He walked in front of them, leading the way, while she and Xavier followed, each of them clutching a monkey, neither saying a word.
Later that evening, he dropped her off again at her apartment, parking outside on the street in his Ferrari.
“Don’t you feel show-offy driving around in this?” she asked him. The thrill of being in this car was real. People stared when the car stopped at traffic lights, and she watched their reactions, a mixture of awe and admiration.
“No, why would I?”
“You have to be careful around here,” she said. “It’s not a safe neighborhood.”
“Then why do you live here?”
“It’s affordable.” And it left enough money over so they could eat and go out a few times a month.
He didn’t say anything, but she could tell by the frown on his forehead, that he was mulling things over. “Don’t you have anything less… showy,” she said, trying to find the right word without sounding offensive.
“I don’t do less.”
She stared at his huge watch. “Obviously.” Then she remembered that time he’d called her at Christmas. “I can show you how to do those reports, if you want.”
“Now? Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.” But she didn’t know why she felt a fluttering in her stomach. Why her pulse had started to race. Under her cool exterior, she was a hothouse of emotions, and she didn’t like being this out of control. Worse than that, she didn’t like that the reason for her insides going haywire might be the tall, hard-muscled guy walking alongside her.
In the eerie silence that clung to them like cobwebs, she considered making conversation, but what was there to say? What could she say that didn’t sound trite? And so she attempted humor as she got out her house keys.
“See, no dollar bills today.”
He didn’t look amused. “I fucking hope not.”
The way he swore, and the anger in his voice, surprised her.
“As if you’d tell me,” he added.
“Tell you what?”
“Who he was.”
She stared at him. “What difference would that make?”
His face had darkened; the skin around his eyes was tight as he stayed silent.
“You want to know?” They stopped outside her door. And she hung onto her key, not yet inserting it into the lock.
“Only if you’re ready. When you’re ready.”
The thudding in her heart turned louder. Something about the simmering rage in his voice sent a shockwave through her gut. Xavier, flirting and being lewd, she could handle, she could take him down a peg or two. Xavier being intense, and angry, over a guy who had been a dick to her—made her feel special.
She opened the door and he followed her in. Stepping away, so that her gaze could better sweep over his face, and take in the seriousness of his expression, she rubbed her forehead, and wondered why she was actually considering telling him.
Cara knew. But for some reason, the way this man was looking at her, made her want to tell him.
“How’s Cara doing?” he asked, suddenly interrupting her thought pattern.
“She’s fine. She’s at her boyfriend’s place.”
“She is?”
Was it her imagination or did his voice sound a little odd when he asked her? Or was she feeling odd because it was just her and him, and only the two of them at her apartment? She didn’t want him to think she had asked him in because of any particular reason. Guys like Xavier went from stationary to warp speed in seconds, and she didn’t want him to get the wrong idea.
But at the fairground, his body had been so close to hers, and when he had his arms around her, he’d been so close she could feel his hot breath. He’d made shivers dance along her spine. She had replayed that moment over and over on her ride home, stopping off only for a short while to take Jacob back, and even when talking to Savannah, her whole mind had been on Xavier, waiting for her in the car.
No, maybe it wasn’t a good idea to show him how to do the reports now. She felt foolish, as if she’d led him on, and then backtracked. She wasn’t going to ask him in. Because the more she thought about it the more she talked herself out of it. Because men like Xavier moved too fast, and girls like her weren’t sure.
“You know what, Laronde? “I think maybe you can show me that stuff another time.”
He was backing out, too?
She shrugged. “It’s no big a deal. Those charts are easy enough, once you get the hang of them.”
“I’m not as clever as you.”
The man who couldn’t stop boasting about his accomplishments was all of a sudden feeling insecure?
“That’s not true,” she said, trying to bolster him. “You drive a Ferrari, and have a gorgeous place in Tribeca. You and Tobias are the epitome of success.”
“Yeah, well, some people would beg to differ. Tobias mostly.”
She wondered if this was about the other day, when he’d mentioned that Tobias had been angry.
“Big brothers can be a pain in the butt, sometimes.”
He placed his hand on the back of his neck, then ruffled up the hair at the base. She noticed he did that sometimes.
“Do you have a big pain-in-the-ass brother?” he asked.
“No. I have a younger brother, though, and he’s told me often enough that I’m a pain in the butt.” But, she wasn’t the one who had to live in the shadows of an older, so blatantly successful, superstar brother. She’d seen the way everyone had swarmed around Tobias at the wedding, and at his birthday party. She had a feeling that even if it hadn’t been his birthday or his wedding, people still would have flocked to Tobias, somehow drawn to him. There was something magnetic about success, wealth, and power, the trifecta which many coveted, but few possessed.
It made her feel for Xavier.
“What was it about?” she asked, her voice a whisper. “The disagreement between you both?”
They were still hovering around in the hallway, neither having taken a step towards the couch or the kitchen. She didn’t want to move, and was hesitant to suggest that he sit down, for fear that he might decide to leave altogether, call it a night and tell her he’d speak to her tomorrow.
She was alone, and she didn’t want him to go.
“Nothing of any significance and nothing that is worth talking about.”
He lifted his head, and gave her the kind of forced smile that was so put so fabricated it looked like it needed scaffolding to keep it in place. She always rooted for the underdog and right now, even though she didn’t have all the facts, Xavier seemed like the biggest underdog of them all.
“Do you want to talk about it? Talking helps.”
“Nothing much to say. He was in a foul mood when he showed up.”
“Why was he mad?”
She listened while Xavier explained the exchange between the brothers, and about Tobias being angry about his former friend and confidante, someone called Matthias Rust.
“What happened with Matthias?”
“They had a falling out.”
“Over what?”
“I have no idea, and each time I try to ask him, I don’t get a proper answer. I’ve asked him plenty of times.”
“That’s not fair, him taking it out on you like that. If you don’t know what Matthias did, it’s hardly your fault.”
“He’s going through some major life changes, what with getting married, and the baby. I don’t know about the deal with Hennessy now. It might take a while before I can get started on that deal. So I won’t be able to give you extra hours.”
“I’ve got enough to keep me busy.”
“What Jacob almost let slip, I haven’t been told anything, but I can guarantee that Tobias wouldn’t want that news getting out.”
“I can keep a secret.” In that moment she saw that no matter what, this guy still looked up to his brother, would still protect him, and defend him.
“Did you tell him how you felt?”
“No. When Tobias gets that mad, I kind of let him roll with it. There’s no point.”
“Maybe he needs to hear that you’ve grown up, and that you have feelings too.”
He seemed to consider her words. “I don’t have the time for his drama.”
She had to admit, despite her initial preconceived ideas about Tobias, he hadn’t come across to her as being bad tempered. But people were complicated creatures, and this reconfirmed to her the belief that people behaved so differently with different people.
“People treat you the way you expect them to, Stone,” she said, using the name that drew a line between them and that kept things at bay.
“Really, Laronde?”
“Really.” She eyed him, and then said, “Thanks for today.”
“Good luck with exam week,” he said, stepping away from her door.