by S. Ann Cole
Obviously, he didn’t remember that much, or else he wouldn’t have brought up that conversation. Because, considering the reason for our break-up, there was no way he would think that that “no strikes” conversation we’d had was a valid enough reason to shut me down right now.
My guess was that the memory of our breakup was completely blanked out, and whatever his last memory of our relationship was, we were in a good place. Which we kind of were, but not completely. We’d been making up from an ugly breakup.
Now that explained why he cried when he saw the video footage, as Xena claimed. Why he took it so hard. He didn’t remember it all.
Despite that startling realization, however, I elected not to remind him of it. Who knows, maybe that memory was voluntarily blocked.
The fact was, he’d forgiven me, screw up after screw up. Stuck it out with me. The one time he screwed up, I kicked him to the curb, but this last sin—cheating while he was in a freaking rehabilitation center learning to cope with being an amputee, battling to find his way back—it wasn’t a strike, but a goddamn gunshot.
How could I have been so selfish and greedy to expect him to forgive me for this? To expect this would, memory or no memory, be just another shrug-off for him? Not when things were immensely different for him right now. Not when his life was drastically altered.
I was positive they stressed to him in his therapy sessions how essential it was for him to start making healthy decisions for his betterment, and I was dang certain I fell under the “insalubrious” category.
I loved him, I wanted the best for him, and if the best for him meant I would have to give him up, then I would. Leave, like he asked, and let him decide for himself if being with or without me would aid in his adjustment. As strong as he appeared to be physically, I had no idea of his mental state. Mentally, he could be fragile, barely hanging on by a thread, and my insistence might just push him over the edge.
On that thought, I nodded, agreeing, “Okay. Okay, I’ll go.”
Not on board with this, Mick piped in, “Now wait a minute, son—”
“It’s okay, Mick.” I tried to convey with my eyes that this was most likely the best thing for Xavier right now. That he wasn’t fully recovered as we thought. What did we know about his mental health? We knew only as much as Leo leaked to me, which wasn’t a lot. “I believe I’ve worn out my welcome, anyway.”
Before he could attempt to further talk me out of it, I turned and ducked inside, shooting off to the guestroom. Closing the door behind me, I leaned back against it, slid down to the ground, and I cried.
Yes, I allowed myself a few weak minutes to feel sorry for myself. To mourn what might be the end. Maybe, after stewing, he would decide he couldn’t live without me. Maybe, sadly, he would realize he could. The latter made my insides writhe in agony.
Maybe the memory of the break-up would return and he would realize it wasn’t as horrible as it seemed to him. Because he didn’t know I’d been shut out, banned from seeing him, visiting him. He didn’t how hard it had been for me feeding off scraps of information from his band member. He didn’t know how hard it had been for me to hold it together. To not give up. He didn’t know.
I refused to give him excuses. Because at the end of the day, I wasn’t sorry for what I did.
Summoning the energy to deal with this outcome—no one said winning him back would be easy—I stood, crossed the room and got out our suitcases from the closet, zipped them open and began packing.
Jacob was stirring and mumbling in his sleep. A marker that, any minute now, he would be up and fussing for food.
I packed his mini suitcase last. Moving as quickly as possible. I could hear Mick’s voice out in the living room, reasoning in a placating tone. Xavier’s responses were belligerent, no-nonsense. He wanted me gone and there was no talking him out of it.
The hurt, the pain, the feeling of loss, was like nothing I’d ever felt before.
I packed faster.
Jacob still wasn’t awake by the time I was done and had shrugged on my coat. Nonetheless, we had to leave, so I dressed him in warmer clothes, scooped up his sleeping little body, stuck my head out the room door and called for Chloe.
Chloe appeared in less than five seconds, as though she’d been waiting around the corner or something. “Yes?”
She seemed uncomfortable. I supposed she’d never seen Xavier that irate before either and didn’t know how to react to it. Maybe she felt guilty for being an accomplice in harboring me here.
Frowning at her unease, I indicated Jacob. “Can you hold him for me while I take out these suitcases?”
Her shoulders visibly relaxed as she nodded and took Jacob from my arms. Seriously, what did she think I was going to ask her to do? Was she really that afraid of riling Xavier?
I gripped the handles of my suitcases in each hand and lumbered with them out of the room, down the hall and through the living room where Mick was sitting in a sofa chair and Xavier was leaning against the wall by the door with his arms folded across his chest, as though standing guard to make certain I left.
Mick gave me a disillusioned shake of his head. He thought I was giving up, but I wasn’t. Just loaning Xavier what he thought he wanted. Me, gone.
What was the first thing he did when he saw me? Kiss me. Then got angry. Not the other way around. Also, he never said he didn’t want me. He said he didn’t want to spend the rest of his life in insecurity. He could no longer tolerate being second to Davian. He didn’t not want me. Just afraid of being with me.
The difference between two months ago and now was that back then he didn’t know that I still wanted him. He’d thought I’d gone back to Davian. He’d thought I’d abandoned him because of his predicament. He’d thought I’d given up because I didn’t want a man with one leg.
Now he knew the real truth, that I’d been here since he refused to see me. That I never ran to Davian. Never left him for Davian. It was still him.
Regardless of his rejection right now, later on he wouldn’t be able to ignore the truth. The truth. That he was second to no one. That he had always been my choice. Even with all his flaws. The old and the new. Him. Just him.
When he realized that truth, I’d be right at the guesthouse down the hill. Waiting.
“Let me help you with that,” Mick said. He pushed to his feet and came to relieve me of my suitcases.
Handing him the keys to my rental, I spun and headed back to the bedroom for Jacob’s pull-along and my handbag.
“I go get, uh, zring cheeze,” Chloe told me when I got back to find Jacob was awake and fussing in her arms.
Yep, he needed food.
Chloe slipped past me and made for the kitchen while I collected the rest of our things and closed the door behind me.
Xavier glowered as I wheeled past him, but I didn’t cower. I met it full on. To let him know he wasn’t embarrassing or hurting me. He was hurting himself and we both knew it.
Mick was lurking behind my rental where the trunk was left open. Taking Jacob’s suitcase from me, he shoved down the handle and lifted it into the back, then turned to stare me down. “What is this?” he demanded.
“He wants me gone, Mick.”
“And you’re just gonna leave?” he asked, disbelieving. “After all we did over the last two months, working toward his dream? You’re afraid of a little bark? I thought you were stronger than this. You never came off as the type who ran from a little growl. You had me fooled, young girl.”
I laughed and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Mick, I’m not giving up.”
He blinked at me.
“I’m not leaving France,” I explained. “I’m just going to check into the guesthouse nearby. Don’t tell him.”
Mick’s lips thinned, not on board with this either. He wanted me there, with his son.
“It will work out,” I promised, even though the most I could do at that point was hope.
Closing the trunk door, we rounded the vehicle together to h
ead back to the house, only to come to a halt at the sight of Chloe transferring Jacob to Xavier just outside the front door. He kissed Jacob’s cheek and mumbled something to him as a distracted Jacob nibbled on a piece of string cheese.
What was he doing?
It occurred to me, then, that Xavier had never met Jacob before. Heard of him, saw some pics, but never actually met him, held him. He’d asked to meet him a number of times, but I never let him in that far.
Brooding gray eyes raised and clashed with mine.
Mick mumbled something I was too distracted to register and continued on toward the house. When he got to the front door, about to walk inside, Xavier stopped him and asked him something.
Mick threw a glance over his shoulder at me then replied to Xavier before disappearing into the house.
Xavier’s eyes found mine again, narrowed, and he immediately started toward me with that little bounce, a new addition to him I was starting to dig. The bounce was hot. He was sexy. As all hell.
Halting in front of me, he kissed Jacob on top of his head as if he were his own, clutching him close. “Never told me he was here with you.”
I clasped my hands behind my back to refrain from grabbing his face and sucking every last drop of air from his lungs. “Would it have made a difference?”
“Think I would’ve kicked you out knowing you’re traveling with a two-year-old?” He scowled at me. “In France? In this cold? Kinda person do you think I am?”
I looked up at the sky, squinting. “It’s just a little snow, not a blizzard. We’ll survive.” I reached out to take Jacob from him, but he wouldn’t relinquish my son.
“No,” he clipped.
“No?”
“No. Can’t let you leave like this,” he said, adjusting Jacob’s beanie. “Not with the kid and no help in a strange country.”
Beating down the excitement erupting inside me, I kept a straight face and asked, “What do you want me to do, then?”
“Stay ‘til tomorrow. So you can organize better to fly back home with him.”
I could break it to him that I now had a jet at my disposal—courtesy of cousin Chad—and could get whatever help I needed with Jacob with a single phone call…but that would be shooting myself in the foot. This, right here, was one-step closer to winning him back. I could play on his compassion. Jacob, my beloved son, was saving my ass.
“That would be nice. Thank you.”
His eyes bore into mine for an eternity, searching for who knows what. “You really been here with Dad for two months?”
I nodded.
“Why?” he asked, face marred with bewildered creases, unable to understand the significance of my coming to his old home.
“Because I’m in love with you.”
“Doesn’t explain you coming here.”
With a sigh, I leaned back against the car, watching Jacob try to force a slippery, chewed-to-death piece of cheese into Xavier’s mouth. “Xena beat me up. The band kicked me out of the rehabilitation center. Jess was winning. You were refusing to see me. I messed up, but I love you. I wanted—no, needed to see you. There was no way to fix it. Every door, every window, every alley to you was shut tight. I was locked out. So, I came here. To the part of you that you hide from everyone. To the part they couldn’t shut me out of. To your heart.”
He blinked, adjusting Jacob in his arms. He opened his mouth to speak then shut it. Blinked some more. Then narrowed his gaze and asked, “How’d you know my heart’s here?”
“Honestly, I didn’t at the time,” I admitted. “But I got through to Mick…and now I know you in ways I never did before, and probably never would have if I hadn’t come. Now, I love you a thousand times more.”
“I’m a different man now,” he ground out, as if hating the truth that I knew his heart and loved him more for it.
“Losing a leg and falling out of love with me doesn’t make you a different man,” I whispered, hot breath slicing through the cold. “You can have a change of heart about loving me, and a change of heart about your band, your career. A change of heart about the people you want in your life. But you can’t change your heart. You are who you are. And I love who you are.”
His stare burned. “Never said I was in love with you.”
I passed him a faint smile. “You didn’t have to.”
“I wasn’t,” he gritted.
Jerking my shoulders up and then down in a shrug, I said, “Okay. Suit yourself.” I closed in on him and felt hope when he didn’t retreat from me. “But I can tell you the exact time and place I first realized I’m in love with you. It was that night we made love on the hood of your jeep up Mulholland Drive. I was on top. Your eyes closed, your neck arched, and you were commanding me to ride you harder. You were such a beautiful creature. I looked down at you, bathed in the moonlight, and I thought, ‘Oh my God, I’m in trouble. I’ve fallen in love with this man’.”
For a while, he just stared. Then, “Forgive me for not remembering… a night so obviously special to you. Just that, I stabbed so many chicks on and in my jeep up Mulholland Drive that they all just run together in my head.”
His words were a two-edged sword to the heart. He said it to hurt me, and it worked. I bit the inside of my cheeks, willing myself not to retaliate. I took it because I kind of deserved it.
Unfortunately, he wasn’t done. He moved into my face, glowered down his nose at me, Jacob up high in his arms, glancing between the both of us. “Don’t want you, Alina. Don’t care a shit about what you feel or that you think you’re in love with me. Don’t care. Don’t wanna hear it. The only reason you still standing on my property right now is ‘cause of this little guy. So use the rest of the day to properly organize yourself and make an effort to be gone before I’m up in the morn.”
His glare was penetrating, daring me to contest him. I didn’t. He was righteously enraged and lashing out. The time he spent standing there trying to convince me that he didn’t care, told me did.
Time, that was all he needed. Hence, I kept my mouth shut.
Satisfied with my quietude, he turned and walked back to the house with Jacob still in his arms, leaving me to lug my suitcases back all on my own.
No idea why, but Xavier kept Jacob glued to his side for the remainder of the day. Ignoring me altogether, he drilled Mick—instead of me, the mother—about Jacob. He fed him. Played with him. Taught him clean words. Held his hand while Jacob demanded to run around.
Xavier had been there only a few hours and already they’d formed a bond. God, I loved my son. Coolest kid on the planet.
I was curled up on a settee in the living room with my laptop, under the pretext of changing flights dates and getting “properly organized” for tomorrow’s departure. In actuality, I was simultaneously replying to boring carbon copied business emails, and spying on Xavier and Jacob.
Despite the frigidity between Xavier and me, it felt nice being here like this, with him a mere few feet away gamboling with my son on the carpet. Really nice. Great, even.
I could see many lazy afternoons like this with him. A lifetime of it. A smile crawled onto my face at the prospect and I had to bite my lip to hold back my ebullience. He could rage and war all he wanted, lie to himself about how he felt, but that ring in his chest-box belonged to me. As long as I was alive, there would never be another woman in his life. He was mine, whether he wanted to be or not.
In the middle of that thought, his head swept up and caught me peeking at him over the top of my laptop. He eyed me with suspicion, possibly because I appeared content when I should have been sniffling after all he said to me.
As he kept watching me, I fought, struggled, strained to keep my smile from manifesting. It wasn’t long before I lost the battle and a silly grin broke out. Because, yeah, just being in the same room with him made me slapshitsilly. Because I knew something he didn’t know. Even through that scowl, his love for me shone brighter than a supernova.
No way was I going anywhere tomorrow. I kne
w it, and he knew it.
Chloe picked that moment to float in from the kitchen and announce dinner was ready.
Snapping my laptop shut, I set it aside on the settee and stood, trekking across the room to Xavier.
“Here, let me have him. I need to clean him up and get him to bed.”
“No! Nobedth!” Jacob skipped around me, trying to escape, giggling, and babbling in protest, as he tended to do whenever he heard the word “bed”. He knew that the bed was associated with lights-out, and ever since he came to France, he had developed an aversion to lights-out. Sleep time was no longer his favorite. He wanted to stay up until all hours of the night and yap at me until I got a headache.
“Not having dinner?” Xavier asked me, carefully pushing up off the floor. It took him some time. Having a prosthetic leg was a big adjustment.
“Nah.” I caught Jacob by the tail of his shirt and tugged his scampering ass to me. “I’m in your hair enough. You need your space to catch up with Mick and Chloe. So I figure I’ll get out of your way and eat something later.”
He watched me for a beat, and he seemed like he wanted to say something, invite me to have dinner with them, but he didn’t. Instead, he nodded. “That’d be best.”
I saw Mick—who’d been planted in his recliner all evening, pretending to be distracted by his book—roll his eyes. He, too, knew that his son was full of shit.
“Nobedth!” Jacob griped again as I picked him and exited the room. He was sticky with cheese and jello and whatever else Xavier had been feeding him. Slapping his sticky hands on either side of my face, he grinned his cheeky face off.
“Abuse me as much as you want, son of a rock star,” I admonished. “You’re still going to bed.”
He stuck a finger up one of my nostrils. “I luv u’kay?”
I smiled. His speech got better each month. “I love you, too, my baby.”
I scrubbed him clean in a warm bath and left him inside for half-an-hour to splash around and play with his tub toys while I sat on the closed toilet, simultaneously listening to an audiobook and playing Candy Crush. I hated the act of sitting down to actually read a book. I didn’t have the patience or attention span for it, so I stuck to audio books, as they allowed me the freedom to do other things while listening. Multi-tasking I could do. Sitting in one place too long reading words…nope.