"Which is why you asked with such close interest about my television watching habits." He blinked at me, his expression still blank. "You wanted to know if I knew who you were."
"Yes."
"Which means you intentionally kept the truth of your identity a secret from me."
I blinked back tears, which trickled down my cheek. "Yes." I reached for him, but he backed away. "I'm sorry, Xavier."
"Why?" he asked. "Why lie, even by omission? Do you not trust me with the truth? Am I not worthy of the truth?" There was a tremor in his voice on the last sentence, and that, more than anything else, broke my heart.
"It wasn't about any of that. It was..." I breathed deeply through my nose, trying to keep some kind of control over myself. "It was selfish, I admit. People look at me like...like a commodity. Like they know me, like they own me, like they have a right to me. Anywhere I go, whatever I'm doing, I'm photographed and watched and pointed at. Anyone I meet, they only see me as Harlow Grace, the celebrity, the movie star, the sex symbol. They see me for my net worth, for my filmography. They want to know if..." I shook my head, brushing tears away. "You didn't look at me like that. You just looked at me like...like a guy looks at a girl he's interested in. And I wanted that."
He didn't respond, even facially, so I had no idea if he'd even heard me.
Eventually he did speak. "There are so many things I am confused about, so many things causing me to feel...a great many intense emotions. Hurt, I believe, foremost among them. Betrayed, perhaps. Used, possibly. I also understand the logic of your reasoning, so I cannot entirely fault you, but my ability to trust is...a rather fragile thing, I am afraid."
"Xavier, you have to know that I..." I swallowed a hot hard knot in my throat; the swirl of emotions inside me baffled me with their intensity. "I kept my celebrity status from you, yes. But everything else I said, everything we did, every moment we spent together...it was all real. I meant everything. You have to believe me."
"I want to." He unclenched his fists and shook them out. "I am trying to."
"This whole thing with us, Xavier--it's...it's more than I ever thought it was."
"I do not know what that means."
"She means she started out looking for a quick and easy hookup with a local," Claire said; I'd become so focused on Xavier that I had forgotten we had an audience. "But now she's realizing she has actual feelings for you."
Claire's man--her husband, boyfriend, fiance, whatever they were--stepped up behind her, pulling her away. "Claire, babe, I think maybe we let Xavier handle this from here."
"Hookup?" Xavier asked. "Meaning a sexual encounter devoid of emotional investment, intended from the outset to last for a limited timeframe."
"Yeah, buddy," Bax said, "that's a pretty good definition."
Xavier's gaze went to me, direct this time, for a moment or two at least. "Is that what you intended?"
I let out a shaky breath. "Yes, and no. When we met, all I knew was you were a hot local guy who was a little...different. And yeah, I'm on vacation so I'm only here for a temporary stay, which meant whatever we ended up as, it'd be temporary."
"I am not capable of such a thing. Even if I was not a virgin, I do not think I could engage in a sexual encounter with someone I was not invested in, to at least some degree."
"I didn't know that then."
Claire glanced between Xavier and me. "Wait, so are you still a virgin?"
Brock huffed in irritation. "Not our business, Claire."
"No," I said, shooting a glare at her. "It's really not."
Claire just rolled her eyes. "Whatever. Bite me."
I frowned. "Why are being so nasty to me? What did I do to you?"
"We all care about Xavier a lot, and we all just want to protect him from getting hurt," Brock answered for her; he shot a meaningful glance at Claire as he continued. "Claire is just expressing her protectiveness in a less than helpful way."
Claire whirled on Brock. "You better watch it, bub! I can speak for my fucking self." She turned back to me. "When someone I love is hurt, I turn into Mama Bear. And you're just lucky Mara's not here, or she'd have already kicked your ass."
"Word," Zane, the other scarily enormous bartender said.
"Can we back up for one second?" Bax said. "I feel compelled to point out that Xavier has been hanging out with and possibly messing around with Harlow Grace, and I for one would like to just take a moment to bow down to your game, little brother, because damn." His action suited his words, bowing at the waist toward Xavier, arms extended in a deep, pantomime bow. "Also, Claire, you are being kinda salty. You know I love your skank ass, but Harlow did come here, apparently, to make things right, so maybe...you know...cut her some slack?"
"I'll cut your slack dick off, is what I'll cut," Claire snapped.
The woman with jet-black hair left her stool for the first time. Until now, she'd watched the proceedings in silence. Now, she took Claire by the shoulders and spoke in a soft, gentle tone. "Claire, honey, no one is faulting you for being protective. But there's no need to be antagonistic toward Miss Grace."
"I just...I get so mad, Eva," Claire said, deflating. "All the boys are special to me, you know that, we've talked about it. But Xavier is just...he's Xavier. And the thought of some big-shot Hollywood superstar waltzing in and messing with him when he's such a gentle and special soul, it just...I just get--"
"I know, I know," the other woman, Eva, said. "But Brock was right when he suggested we let Xavier handle this in private."
"There is nothing to handle," Xavier said, shoving his hands into his jeans pockets and heading into the kitchen. "I am leaving, now. I have to think."
"Xavier, wait," I said, following him a step. "Can we please talk in private?"
"There is nothing to talk about," he said, not turning around or slowing down. "You said yourself that you are leaving, so whatever may have happened between us is done, I would think."
"It doesn't have to be, though," I said, choking back that stupid knot in my throat yet again. "I don't want it to be."
"Why? You are a famous movie star, and I am just...me. An awkward local boy."
"I never said that," I protested. "And I never acted like that toward you, did I?"
He stopped, then, facing a counter in the kitchen, toying with a pair of tongs. "No, you did not. You always seemed to be genuine."
"Because I was being genuine. I was never pretending. I meant everything I said." My voice dropped to a whisper. "What happened with us today, Xavier...that meant more to me than you know."
"To you?" he said, pivoting abruptly. "To you? I'm the virgin, here. I'm the one who's never...had anything, with anyone. What do you think it meant to me?"
"I don't know!" I said. "You ran away again before we could talk about it."
Wrong thing to say--I knew it the moment I said it.
"I was barely capable of functioning, Low," he snapped. "There is not a word in any language I know which can properly or accurately encompass the level of overwhelming closeness I felt in those moments with you. I could not breathe. My brain was...shutting down from sheer overstimulation. You overwhelm me even more than life does. It's a--it's an exponential amount of too much, Low. I ran because I felt out of control. I was drowning."
"You could have stayed and I could have helped you through that, Xavier."
"How?"
"I don't know!" Tears fell then, unstoppable. "I don't know. I just know I'd rather you have tried than just running away. I know I said I went into this thinking it would be a temporary hookup, but that was before I really knew you, before I knew what you were like. Now it's...it's different. I want--I want--fuck, I don't know what I want."
"Nor do I," Xavier said. "Although that is not the truth. I do not want temporary. I do not want lies. I do not want omission. I do not want to feel like a secret, or something you are ashamed of."
"I'm not!" I said, crying harder. "I'm here, aren't I? I'm risking exposure I came to Alaska to g
et away from to be here, to talk to you. I'm fucking--I'm making a horrible embarrassment of myself in front of strangers, in front of your family, because that's exactly what I don't want you to think. I'm not ashamed of you, or of anything between us."
He only stared unblinking, giving nothing away.
I took a step toward him. "Xavier...talk to me."
He blinked once. "And say what?"
"Anything!"
"I do not know what you want from me, Low. Or should I call you Harlow?"
I sobbed, though I didn't understand at all where these wild, chaotic, intense, fraught emotions were coming from. "No, please...call me Low. The only people who know that nickname for me are the people I'm closest to: my parents, my agent, my publicist, my assistant, and a few close friends. And...and you."
He backed away a step. "You will return to Hollywood. To being a star. You won't be Low anymore, you will only be Harlow Grace, famous person. The Low I knew on your yacht...who was she? Was she real? Was any of that...was it just fun for you? Messing around with a local on vacation?" He blinked again, inhaling sharply through his nose, jaw flexing and tensing. "I cannot be temporary, Low. I do not form attachments easily, but when I do, it is immediate and it is powerful."
"The Low you know, the Low on my boat...that's me, the real me. That's who I want to be. Who I can't be out there," I said, gesturing at the door. "I can't be her anywhere or with anyone. Except you."
God, where was all this coming from? Why was I such an emotional disaster? We messed around, hung out, talked.
Xavier shook his head. "I do not know what to say."
"Tell me what you're feeling."
He stared past me, this time. "Uneasy. Confused. Hurt. Angry. Sad." A pause, a glance at me. "Mad with desire, fraught with more attraction than ever. Lost." He shook his head, and for a moment that carefully blank veneer cracked, showing a hint of the boiling cauldron inside him. "It's all too much, Low--so many thoughts and emotions it feels like my head is going to explode. I can't do this."
"Xavier, let's just--"
"I cannot do this, Low." The wall slammed back into place but his voice was almost tender; for a moment, he was the real Xavier, the one I only got sometimes, when he let me in a little. "You're leaving. You don't belong here, Low. This isn't your world. You showed me things I didn't know were possible, and for that I am eternally grateful. I'll cherish our time together more than you could ever begin to imagine. But I can't do this."
I didn't cry when Harrison and I broke up; we got smashed together and had some intense goodbye sex, and I was sad, but I didn't cry. I don't cry much, and never have.
I hate crying. It makes me feel weak and vulnerable and small and broken, and the few times I have cried, I've been alone.
I had no control over this. It was like vomiting, or an orgasm--it was just ripped out of me whether I was ready or not.
Sobs, cracked and shattered and soaked, broke out of me.
Making it worse, I couldn't understand the intensity of my feelings. Why was I crying like this? I barely knew him. I've had casual relationships with men that have lasted for weeks and I haven't gotten attached, let alone emotional. Part of why I was drawn to acting--the largest part, honestly--was because it allowed me to reveal emotions I otherwise didn't and couldn't show. In a role, I could be dainty and withdrawn, or weepy, or clingy; in a role I could be trashy or elegant, wild or reserved. I could be what I didn't know how to be in real life.
In my relationship with Harrison, I was the affectionate girlfriend, as much the instigator of sex as him, as prone to needing a night out with my friends away from him as he was; loyal and fun, not jealous, eager to please...but not deeply emotionally invested. I had cared about Harrison, and I had enjoyed our relationship, but...
Wherever this intensity toward Xavier was coming from, whatever it was, whatever it meant, it was coming from a much deeper place, a raw, unfiltered, primal place.
So, I cried.
I sobbed.
In front of strangers, in front of his family, in front of him, I sobbed.
Because I couldn't do anything else.
11
Xavier
* * *
Ever since Bast met and married Dru, I had become used to the presence of women in my life. Until then, women were something that happened to other people. There were professors at Stanford and teachers in high school, and bus drivers and waitresses and strangers, but no one that penetrated the veil of my daily life.
Until Dru.
Since then, I've seen Dru cry, but only once--she cut herself cooking and required a large number of stitches to her left hand, and she cried as I held a towel around her injury while Bast guided her to the truck.
I've seen Eva cry, and Aerie, and even Claire--but I wasn't supposed to, and she made me promise not to tell anyone.
I've seen them cry. But none of it was connected to me. They weren't crying to me, or for me, or because of me, or about me.
Low was crying in all those ways right now.
And not just crying, but sobbing. As if the pain was simply too great to fathom, and the great shuddering racking sobs were the only possible outlet for them.
Her tears made me panic.
What was I supposed to do?
I glanced at Bast, and he just inclined his head toward Low in a gesture whose meaning eluded me. Go to her? But do what? Hug her? Apologize? Ask her to stop? What did one do with a woman you'd made cry?
Why was she crying?
She'd wanted a hookup. Something temporary. I understood how that worked--I'd seen my brothers carry on hookups by the dozen; they met a girl they were attracted to, used their "game" to bring them home, had sex with them, and then that was it. That was the whole of it.
I couldn't do that.
Even if I wasn't a virgin, such behavior was anathema to my personality.
People were either just people--outside my world, outside my life, and ephemeral--or they were inside my world, inside my life, and I was fiercely attached to them. I didn't hug as my brothers liked to do, but I loved them all ferociously, in my own way. I could never walk away from them, never leave them. Not now. If I'd stayed in California, perhaps it would be different, but living here with them and having this ever-growing tribe of family members who knew me and loved me and accepted me despite my aberrant behavior...it wasn't something I could ever do without.
Meaning, in my mind, in my heart, you were either family--inside, close, needed and necessary and mine--or you were no one.
And sex? How could I casually do something I'd never done before? How could I give her something like that, something important and precious to me, and then just watch her leave? I couldn't. Even now, after what we'd shared, it was cutting me to pieces to know there could be nothing else, because I could feel an attachment to her forming.
Or, more correctly, it had already formed.
She was already inside me, wrapped around my mind and heart and soul like tangling vines of ivy.
She was still sobbing, and I had no idea what to do.
The panic was growing, mounting--do something! Make it stop. Her pain was palpable, knifing into me, merging with and becoming my own pain.
I felt my body moving forward.
She had her face covered with both hands. Shoulders shaking. Her whole body was stiff and tense and shaking. She was turned away from me, toward a wall, as if to hide her brokenness.
I wanted to comfort her and to stop her tears.
Not wanted to--I needed to. I had to.
I caught her wrists in my hands, pulling them gently away from her face. "Low, stop. Please...please stop crying. It hurts me too much to see you crying this way."
She pulled out of my grip and turned away, crying harder, saying something the force of her tears made unintelligible to me.
Panic had me in its grip, and the need to comfort her, to stop her crying was total.
I moved up behind her, wrapped my arms around her should
ers, breathing past the initial sting of discomfort at the touch. Clasping her shoulders in my hands, I turned her around to face me. Her hands dropped, and she looked up at me, tears streaking down her cheeks.
"No more crying," I whispered, brushing tears away from her cheeks with my thumbs.
I kissed her, then.
It was desperation, both as the only thing I could think of to quiet her, to calm her, to comfort her, and desperation of my own to simply feel the dizzying electric thrill kissing her gave me. That thrill was a drug, and I was addicted.
I knew better.
I knew she was going to leave.
But I had to kiss her anyway.
I heard shocked exclamations from my brothers and the women, but I tuned them out and focused on her, on her waist in my hands, her lips on mine, moving now, seeking mine, seeking more, on her hips nudging against mine, her hands lifting to bury in my hair, sobs escaping into the kiss, the salt of her tears on my tongue.
"Holy shit! It's Harlow Grace!" a voice I didn't recognize shouted, and the shout was accompanied by a flurry of smartphone camera clicks.
The moment was shattered.
A cluster of tourists had stumbled in, at least fifteen of them, all looking well on their way to inebriation.
"Bax, you lousy fuck, you forgot to lock the door," Bast snarled.
"Hey, there was shit going on, okay?" Bax snapped back, moving toward the tourists. "And we've been dead all damn night, so how was I s'posed to know anyone'd come in at two thirty in the fuckin' morning?"
Harlow was edging behind me, trying to hide surreptitiously, and I moved to stand in front of her, shielding her.
"Hey, can we get a photo?" This was a young woman, clutching her cell phone excitedly.
"Sorry guys, we're closed," Bax said, moving toward them with his arms outstretched to herd them out.
"Aww come on," the girl said. "Just a couple photos with Harlow, and we'll leave."
"No, sorry," Bax said, his voice firm.
"Harlow! Wanna go out with me?" This was from a guy around my age, drunk, with his arm around another girl. "You were hot as fuck in that movie where you were a lawyer."
Another guy slapped him across the back of the head. "She's always hot as fuck, moron." He laughed lecherously. "Besides, she wants to go out with me."
One of the girls in the group blew a sarcastic raspberry. "As if! You two are idiots if you think Harlow Grace would ever waste her time on morons like you. You're like a pair of fucking Meer cats."
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