CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
Riley
Xavier and I lay side by side in bed, the last thirty minutes swirling through my head. When I’d gone to sleep a few hours before, I’d pretty much given up on ever hearing from him again. And now he was naked next to me. I didn’t know what had changed, and I wasn’t complaining… but I was wondering.
Xavier rolled onto his side and trailed his hand down the line of my hip. “I missed that.”
“I did too,” I admitted, folding my hands together and snuggling them under my head.
His eyes floated down my body. “Take a shower with me?”
The offer made me smile in pleasure. “I don’t want to wake Ann-Marie.”
“You think we haven’t already?”
Realization hit me, and I groaned in mortification. “Oh my God. I wasn’t loud, was I?”
“No,” he laughed. “I’m teasing you.”
I swatted his shoulder. “That’s not fair.”
He tugged at my arm. “Come on. I’m going to clean you up.”
I’d already tried with some tissues, but crept into the bathroom, where Xavier turned the shower on full blast. Taking me underneath the spray with him, he soaped up a washcloth and ran it over my body. I closed my eyes and leaned my back into his chest, enjoying the hard planes of his muscles and the soothing steam.
Once we were all cleaned up, we silently made our way back to my bedroom. Ann-Marie’s door was still closed, and thank God for that. If I was lucky, she hadn’t heard one word or moan all night.
Xavier and I both got dressed and settled on the bed, where I faced him cross-legged. The lamp in the corner threw a soft glow on his face, making the sight of him in my bedroom even more surreal.
“So,” I started, but then closed my mouth. Sitting across from each other, fully dressed, made this event suddenly feel like a business meeting. Despite the passion we’d just shared, I was now left feeling awkward all over again.
“You met Seth.”
His short sentence sounded like an accusation. I squared my shoulders and sat up straighter. “Yeah, I did. He told you?”
“I… ran into him.” Xavier ran his hand over his jaw and peered at my desk with interest. “You write?”
“Huh?”
He nodded at the desk. “Do you sit there and write?”
“No,” I answered, confused over the quick change of subject. “I don’t write anything. Though I might be doing work there if I go back to school.”
He looked back at me with new interest. “You’re going back to school?”
“Maybe. I don’t know. Why are you asking? Two seconds ago, we were talking about your friend.”
A dark look passed over his face. “I would consider that a loose use of the term when it comes to him.”
“Why are you asking me about him?”
Xavier’s eyes drifted sideways as if he was looking for an answer. The few seconds of delay in his response was all I needed to see what I’d been missing.
“You’re jealous.”
Xavier’s face snapped back toward mine. “Excuse me?”
“You’re jealous. Seth told you that he talked to me, and you couldn’t stand it, so you thought you’d come over here and...”
I didn’t know what the next part of Xavier’s plan probably was, but I could tell by the way his face was turning red that I’d hit the nail on the head.
“Why would I be jealous?”
He was doing such a poor job of hiding his envy that I couldn’t even be hurt. A harsh laugh pushed its way out of my throat. “You tell me. You’re the one who came over here in the middle of the night after we hadn’t seen each other for a week. I thought...” My throat began to burn, but I went on. “I thought we’d never see each other again.”
The redness in his cheeks faded away. “You’re not going out with him, are you?”
“No. Why would I do that?”
“Because he asked you to.”
I violently shook my head. For all his charm and intelligence, this man could actually be pretty dumb sometimes. “I don’t want to go out with him. There’s only one man I want. You know that. I mean, you have to know that.” As I spoke, I became increasingly angry. “I laid my heart out on the line for you last week, Xavier. Do you think that’s something I do all the time?”
“No,” he murmured. “I don’t.”
“Good,” I huffed, crossing my arms. “Because I don’t.”
“I tried life without you.” He spoke slowly, pausing before each word as if testing the waters. “And it’s not what it was before. You’re mine, Riley. I can’t have you running around with other men.”
“I don’t want to be.”
He met my gaze. “Good.”
His hand found mine and rubbed across the top of it. I was far from done or comfortable though. There was so much more that I needed to say.
“What’s going to happen next? Will you take off, and I won’t hear from you for a week or two?”
Xavier’s jaw ticked. He didn’t like that one. “That hurts you,” he carefully responded.
“Yeah. It sucks.”
“I can work on that. I can be more attentive. But, you know, I’m busy.”
I lifted my chin. “I know. I’m busy too.”
He smiled slightly, but the humor there didn’t diffuse my mood. I still needed answers. I needed to know exactly what was going on between us.
“Let’s figure out some times that work for both of us,” he said. “Days of the week, perhaps, that are good. And we can go from there.”
The tension in my shoulders melted away, and I took a fresh and cleansing breath. “That sounds like it might be a good idea.”
“Good.”
I bit at the corner of my lip. “So, I’m yours, huh?”
He trailed his fingers up my arm. “Yes. You think you’re not?”
“What does that mean, exactly? What does it mean when you say that I’m yours?”
The seconds ticked by. Xavier seemed to freeze. When he took in a new breath, his nostrils flared. “What are you suggesting?”
“Huh? I’m not suggesting anything. I just want to know what it means when you—”
“You want to know if you’re my girlfriend?” he interrupted.
The question was a cutting one. It made me feel bad when it really shouldn’t have. “Okay, let me be clear that I’m not caught up on labels.”
“So why are you pushing this?”
My mouth fell open. “I’m not asking for a name for what we have. I just want to know what it means. What are the stipulations? What are the rules?”
Xavier’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t need rules.”
“Oh, but you have them for me?”
His lips pressed together. I stared back at him, anger rising in my heart. “You say that I can’t be with other men. But what about you? Are you seeing other women? Are you going to keep seeing other women?”
Xavier sighed long and low and looked up at the ceiling.
“Xavier?” I asked over the frantic pounding of my heart. Five minutes before things were going so well and now they were quickly crashing and burning.
His cheeks puffed out, and he scratched his hairline. His eyes roved around the room, looking everywhere but directly at me. “I’ve never been in this type of situation before.”
“What type of situation? You mean you’ve never been in… in a relationship?”
“No.”
The weight of his answer pressed down on me. Here was a thirty-year-old man who was on top of the world in his career, suave and confident… and he’d never had a girlfriend. It almost seemed crazy, but there it was.
“Okay.” I blew out a breath. “So, this is new for you. It’s kind of new for me too. I mean, the little bit of time we’ve known each other has been like nothing I’ve been through before. It’s been more… intense… more wild than anything else.”
Xavier nodded in agreement. “Absolutely.”
“So it’s hard to know how to navigate it. But I do know one thing. There can’t be double standards. No matter what you call this thing between us, you can’t have certain expectations for me while not having them for yourself. That’s not fair. It’s crazy.”
Xavier pursed his lips so hard they started to turn white. I didn’t know what thoughts were running through his head, but they clearly caused him pain.
“Do you agree?” I asked.
He swallowed hard. “Riley, like I said...”
I couldn’t take it anymore. I’d been so patient with this man. I’d been more than patient, really. At this point, I was just allowing myself to be pushed around.
“Oh my fucking God!” I screamed, jumping to my feet, and pulling at the roots of my hair.
Xavier stared at me like I was going insane. And maybe I was. “Yeah,” I agreed. “That’s right. I cuss! And you have got to be fucking kidding me right now, Xavier. Do you even hear yourself? Do you understand what you’re saying? You sound like the biggest misogynist in the world!”
Xavier’s eyes widened, and the blood drained from his face. He looked like he’d seen a ghost. His shocked expression alone made me freeze. I stood next to the bed, forcefully taking in breaths.
A long, long moment passed. It was a standoff as we looked at each other.
“I’m not taking it back,” I said. “I meant it.”
“I don’t hate women,” he said in the quietest voice I’d ever heard come from him. “And if you knew the kind of people who actually do, Riley Carson, you wouldn’t accuse me of being among their ranks.”
His words were icy, but they didn’t intimidate me. I was far beyond that now. Because of Xavier, I’d changed. And, ironically, I was now the kind of person who could stand up to him.
“Then stop acting like you’re one of those people,” I spat.
My new accusation made him come back to life. His hands flexed against his legs, and he shook his head. He was gearing up for the next round, but my heart wasn’t in the fight. The longer this drew out, the worse it was on me.
“You need to go.” I pointed at the door. “You need to go now.”
Xavier snorted. “You’re joking.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, have you never had a woman kick you out before? Well, you can add it to your list of cherries broken.”
I stood my ground, my arm extended and pointed in the direction of my front door. Xavier silently rose and went. At my doorway, he turned around. “There are some things you don’t understand,” he angrily said. “Not everyone has had the picture-perfect life you have.”
The statement came out of left field. Now it was my turn to freeze from shock. The sound of a nearby door opening did nothing to break the spell Xavier’s weird assertion had on me. Ann-Marie appeared over his shoulder, her sleeping mask pushed up on top of her head.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
I didn’t answer, and neither did Xavier. He must have said his final piece because he turned around and nearly threw himself at the front door. It slammed behind him, his footsteps on the stairs echoing on that last note.
Ann-Marie stared at me, her frizzy hair falling around her face in messy pieces. “What the heck was that about?”
I couldn’t answer. My entire body was shaking. Things went from good to bad to horrible so fast that my head was left spinning.
“Riley? What’s going on?”
“I kicked him out,” I answered. My words sounded hollow and emotionless. Maybe I was in shock.
“Really?”
“Yeah, really.”
“Wow.” She guffawed. “Good for you.”
“Yeah… good for me.” With that, I fell onto the couch and succumbed to a wave of tears.