I placed my hand over his. “Sure.”
The inside of the little house behind his wrecking yard and repair shop was different to what I’d thought it would be. The outside of the house indicated it would be run-down, masculine, and unloved. Instead, the interior was a feminine explosion. Pinks and florals were everywhere, in stark contrast to the drab exterior.
“Cora has an eye for interior design,” Bee said as he caught my gaze trailing over the floral French lounge.
“Definitely,” I lied. In truth, it looked like a florist shop had regurgitated its leftovers all over the living room. None of the patterns matched with each other and the contrasting colours were garish at best. It didn’t feel right to say anything though. Not while I was a guest.
“You must be Phoebe!” The booming female voice caught me by surprise and I started against Bee. I could have sworn I saw his lips twitch up in amusement.
I glanced in the direction of the sound and saw a lady who appeared far too skinny for a voice so loud. Her greying blonde hair was styled into a mock beehive that might have been in fashion half a century earlier but had long since fallen out of favour. It appeared to have so much hairspray in it the whole thing would go up if it came within a metre of a naked flame. Like a former beauty queen, she sashayed to my side. An instant later, my chin was captive between the talon-like fuchsia-coloured nails of her right hand.
She twisted my face left and right. “Pretty. Just like my Xavier said. He’s got quite the thing for you, you know?”
“Mom!” Xavier exclaimed. I couldn’t look at him to let him know it was okay because I was worried one of the nails near my chin might accidentally slice through my jugular if I made a wrong move.
She patted my cheek with her other hand. “Relax, Xavie. Phoebe knows she’s pretty, don’t you, love? She’d know by now that men fall over themselves for an attractive face.”
“Uh—” I didn’t know how to respond, but was certain the colour on my cheeks nearly matched the pink on her nails. “You must be Cora? It’s lovely to meet you.”
“You too. Now tell me,” she said as she twisted my head from side to side again. “Are you still a virgin?”
I flinched and my eyes widened at her words. There were so many things wrong with her coming out and asking that way. For starters, what business was it of hers?
Her fingers tightened around my chin as she stared intently into my eyes. “I ask because my Xavie has been raised right and knows to save himself for marriage. And I don’t want no wanton women near my baby.”
“Cora, it hardly matters for a casual dinner,” Bee said to calm her. “It’s not like Phoebe and Xavier are dating.”
“No,” I said. “We’re just friends and workmates. That’s all.”
She tutted and pushed my chin to the side as she let go. I resisted the urge to lift my hand and rub away her touch.
“Phoebe bought the Honda from us a few weeks back,” Bee said, showing me to my seat at the dinner table.
“She fixed it up real nice too,” Xavier said. “You should see her working, it’s a thing of beauty.” As soon as the words were free, he ducked his head. I couldn’t see if his cheeks were red, but the tips of his ears soon were.
“A girl working on a bike?” Cora asked. The disgust in her tone was evident. “Why on God’s green earth would you want to do that? That’s man’s work, that is.”
Mum and Dad had taught me not to argue when I was a guest in someone’s house, but I couldn’t leave the comment completely alone either. “I find it relaxing. There’s nothing better than working with your hands and breathing life back into an engine.”
“But you must get filthy.”
I grinned. “That’s part of the therapy. Greasy hands are as good as any spa treatment in my opinion.”
Cora’s shapely lips, painted a pink that matched her nails, puckered at my words. Her nose crinkled. “Heavens, no. I couldn’t imagine anything worse.”
I shrugged and tried to pass it off as a simple difference of opinion. “Each to their own, I guess.”
“This is what’s wrong with the world today,” she continued as if I hadn’t said anything. “Women should do women’s work and leave the menfolk to their tasks. All this boundary crossing just causes trouble.”
“And what exactly is women’s work?” The words were sharp, but I couldn’t have made them softer if I tried.
“Why, the more delicate things in life, obviously. Keeping house. Raising young’uns. Decorating. Taking care of themselves.” She touched her hair, as if trying to fix a stray hair even though no strands could move.
I frowned. It was one thing dealing with misogyny from a guy, it was an entirely different—worse—matter when it came at the hands of another woman. “Why shouldn’t I be able to do whatever I like though?”
“Cora, how is dinner going?” Bee asked, no doubt trying to break up the conversation before it deteriorated any further.
She made a fuss about leaving the table to go check. I was definitely regretting coming over. I would have been better off moping around my apartment alone.
“You’ll have to forgive Cora,” Bee said. “She was raised in a very conservative family.”
“She was a beauty queen, you know,” Xavier added.
Well, that explains the make-up. “That’s great.” I slapped my fake smile on again. Dinner was going to be tortuous.
For the next two hours, which felt more like a week, I endured a meal where I had to bite my tongue more than my food. To say Cora was backward was an understatement. In fact, she was one of the most conservative, hate-filled, and anti-feminist people I’d ever met.
I was surprised that Xavier was as relatively normal as he was with the way she shoehorned her views into any conversation. One minute, the discussion would be on Xavier’s long-term career plans, the next she’d be talking about how he should find himself a good girl willing to settle down and pop out lots of children for him. That was followed by a ten-minute rant about how badly she wished she could have had more children with her first husband before he’d passed away. It was awkward to listen to when I was sitting between her current husband and her son.
After dinner, Xavier asked if I’d like to go for a walk with him, and it would have been impossible for me to say yes any quicker. He gave me a coat, thicker and warmer than my own. He disappeared for a moment and then returned with my gloves—taken from the pocket of my jacket. I shoved them into the coat pocket, not too worried about the cold of my fingers for the time being. When I’d arrived, it had been the sort of evening that hinted at the cold to come, but was manageable without too many layers.
Finally, he offered me his hand. Under the watchful eye of his mother, we headed to the back of their property.
“Sorry about Mom,” he said when we were out of earshot of the house. “She’s very set in her beliefs.”
I pulled the coat around me. The scent of it was musky and welcoming. “Oh, I got that, that’s for sure.”
He chuckled. “She means well, and most of what she says does make some sense. I mean, is there anything wrong with loving one person for your whole life? Or having of a husband taking care of his wife?”
“I just . . . It’s a very different attitude to what I’m used to. Both Mum and Dad raised me to know that I could have any career I wanted. Be anything I chose. Love whomever I loved. Live as much as I could while I was alive. I’ve always known that no matter what, they would accept me and respect my decisions.”
“It doesn’t hurt to have some self-respect though either.”
“No. But respecting yourself and loving another aren’t mutually exclusive. Self-respect is just a matter of being true to yourself.”
We moved further away from the house, into the darkness of the night. He never dropped my hand or moved further away than a few steps. It was . . . nice.
After we were near the back of their property, Xavier led me to an old swing set. Dropping his hand, I pulled my riding g
loves from the coat. I slipped them on so that I didn’t touch the metal chains with my bare hands.
Thankfully, the coat he’d given me, unlike my own was long enough to cover the seat of the plastic swing as I sat. He took a seat on the other swing. We both kicked lazy arcs with our legs as we continued our conversation. Talking about family led me to tell him about my granddad and the reason I’d called him.
After I’d finished my story, he stepped off his swing and moved in front of me. On the next slow swing he stopped my seat at the top of the arc and held me close to him. “I’m sorry to hear of your loss.”
“It’s odd. I didn’t know him, and yet he’s had such a profound impact on my life, it’s impossible to ignore. If it wasn’t for him, Dad would probably never have left Mum when she was pregnant with me. The first four years of my life, Dad wasn’t there for us. But if things had gone differently, I might have ended up the daughter of a banker or any number of other things.”
When he seemed confused over my words, I took a breath and told him the brief history of Declan and Alyssa Reede. It was a story no one else in the US knew, at least not all the details.
Xavier frowned and released the swing. “Declan Reede . . . I know that name. I’ve seen it somewhere before.”
At first, I was taken aback, but then I realised where he’d probably seen it. I stopped the swing with my toes. “Well, he’s the owner of Emmanuel Racing, so you’ve probably seen his name surrounding that.”
“Maybe.” He didn’t sound convinced.
Willing to change the subject, I grabbed his gloved hands in mine. “Thank you for being here for me tonight. I really didn’t want to be alone.”
“I’m glad you felt you could turn to me.”
“I guess it’s a turning point in our friendship.”
“It should be catalogued,” he exclaimed before freeing his hand from mine and releasing his fingers from his gloves. A second later, he had his cell phone in hand. He moved behind me and wrapped one arm around my shoulders, the other bringing the camera in front of us. His chin came to rest on my shoulder and he grinned like a loon as he snapped a few frames. He stood and thumbed his phone for a second.
“What are you doing?” I asked, confused.
“Posting online proof that you came to my house for dinner.”
“Xavier! I don’t need my business shared all over the Internet.”
He chuckled. “I’ve hardly got enough followers on this thing to say it’s all over the Internet. Besides, it’s just two friends catching up. It just happens that one of them is beautiful and semi-famous.”
“Don’t,” I said.
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t make it about looks or fame. I’m your friend because I want to be your friend. Can’t you pay me the same courtesy?”
He frowned. “Sorry. I, uh, I meant it as a compliment.”
“I know. But it’s all I’ve ever faced. Back home in Australia, I have a constant stream of fake friends and hangers-on. People who only like me because of what I can do for them. I don’t need people like that here.”
“I’m sorry. I never thought . . . I’ll delete the photo.”
“Don’t worry about it now. Just know that’s how I feel about it.”
“I do. I wish you didn’t need to feel that way.”
I hung my head. “Me too. Sometimes I wish more than anything to be normal.”
He cupped my face and lifted my eyes to his. “But I thought you loved racing?”
“I do. And I love my family too. But that doesn’t mean I like all the shit that comes with it.”
“Maybe one day, you’ll have someone able to sweep you away from it all. To give you the things you need.”
His thumb brushed a trail over my cheek and I was reminded of Beau’s almost signature move. Of a gentle scrape of knuckles over the corner of my smile. A sob built in my chest, but never escaped because an instant later, Xavier’s lips closed in on mine and he kissed me.
The shock of it took me by surprise.
The fast kiss we’d shared in the workshop at work was brief and tongueless. Now, he used his tongue to coax my lips wider apart. It wasn’t what I wanted, but I didn’t want to push him away either.
His technique was sloppy, unpractised. The opposite of Beau’s—probably because he hadn’t practised as often. Xavier didn’t have a bevy of girls waiting in the wings for his attention. He was pure.
True.
He’d never break my heart the way Beau had.
Was it so terrible to be wanted by someone so sweet? Couldn’t I see us having a good time together: hanging out, going to the movies, having dinners—preferably away from his parents. We could have something special for as long as we could. Maybe not as special as what had been hinted at when I was with Beau, but maybe that felt so good because it could only ever be fleeting.
Perhaps a gentle friendship was what I needed more than a fiery passion.
A second later, I relaxed the walls around my heart and was kissing him back.
WHEN XAVIER PULLED away from the kiss, he didn’t draw far away. His hands surrounded my face in a gentle caress.
“That was incredible.” His breath whispered across my lips as he said the words. “I’ve been thinking about doing that again ever since you kissed me that day at work.”
I drew in a staggered breath and released it in the same fashion. Xavier didn’t comment on it. He probably thought it was because I was breathless from the kiss. I wasn’t. The kiss hadn’t shaken me to the core the way the ones I’d shared with Beau had. Instead, it was the tonne-of-bricks style realisation of the fact that I’d opened myself up to fresh heartbreak smashing through me that caused my breath to falter.
His gaze explored my face, his blue eyes sparkling with delight. Something he saw on my face caused him to frown. “I’m sorry,” he said. “You came here looking for a friend, and . . . and I kissed you. I’m sorry.”
It was clear we wouldn’t be able to have a friendship without his feelings getting involved. I would have to make a choice. Part of me had already made it because it would hurt too much to reject him.
Ignoring the tremors that ran through me, I reached out and wrapped my arms around his waist. “Don’t apologise. Maybe I was too quick to say no before.” I rested my forehead against his chest.
He knelt down in front of me and cupped my face between his hands. “Are you saying what I think you are?”
“I’d like to go out with you. On a date, a proper date, and we can see where things go from there.”
His answering grin wasn’t enough to make my heart stop, or even skip a beat, but it was enough to warm me from the inside. “Really?”
“You’re the first friend I found here.” I coaxed his hands away from my face and held them between my own. “And you make everything better.”
“Does that mean I can kiss you again?”
Swallowing down the doubt that rose in me at his words, I nodded. His lips were on mine the instant I finished the motion. Once more, feelings of warmth spread through me.
Comfort.
Companionship.
But not lust.
And definitely not love.
He hummed against my mouth as he deepened the kiss and rolled his tongue across my lips. His hands caressed my hair but as he leaned forward, he nudged the swing beneath me and I swung away from him, breaking the kiss and sending him tumbling to the ground.
Pushed off-balance by the shock, I came unseated. Trying to be chivalrous, he reached out to catch me as I tumbled down on top of him. Only, the instant his arms were around me, he rolled. We ended up in a tangle of limbs and laughter. He rolled over so that he was resting on top of me. A smile tilted his lips as he brushed my hair back off my face.
“I think we just swept each other off our feet,” he said before pressing his lips to mine once more. “I could definitely get used to kissing you,” he said as we broke apart.
Untangling myself from his hold, I
climbed to my feet. He mimicked the action beside me. “Me too.”
He reached out his hand to mine. “Phoebe, would you do me the great honour of having dinner with me Friday night?”
It was a formal invitation. Stilted. It didn’t send butterflies rushing through my stomach or make my heart skip a beat, but it put a smile on my face and gave me something to look forward to. “Yes. I’d love to, Xavier.”
Giving a chuckle, he bumped my shoulder. “Does that mean we’re official now? That we’re dating?”
I laughed. “I guess it does.”
“That maybe I can even call you my girlfriend?”
The prospect seemed to mean so much to him that it would have killed me to ask him to slow down. “If you want to.”
“Why wouldn’t I want to shout to the world that someone so talented, beautiful, and all-around amazing has agreed to go out with me?”
I couldn’t help my smile when he listed talented first. He’d clearly been paying attention when I’d told him off for making it about beauty and fame.
“Xavier, you need to learn to see yourself properly.” I ran my fingers through his hair. “You’re pretty cute, loyal, and wonderful yourself.” None of the words were a lie.
When he wrapped his arms around me, I relaxed into his hold. With my head resting on his shoulder, I could be happy with him. And I could do far worse.
“Can you do me just one favour?” I asked.
“Anything.”
“Can you not tell your parents until after I’ve gone? I really don’t need to be grilled on the ins and outs of my sexual history tonight.”
He laughed. “I can do that.” I started to pull away, but he held me tighter. “I just want to let you know that I don’t mind. That you’ve been with Beau, I mean. I can forgive you for that.”
I stiffened in his hold. My first reaction was to bristle, to snap that I didn’t need his permission, his understanding, or his forgiveness. After a calming breath, I resisted the need to react. With Beau, I’d been all reactions and instincts, and I’d ended up alone and hurt. “I should be going soon, before it gets too late.”
He curled a strand of my hair around his fingers. “If I didn’t have the promise of Friday night, I’d complain.”
Phobic (Phoebe Reede: The Untold Story #2) Page 13