Not wanting to wake him, I reluctantly pulled away, and moved carefully to climb out of the bed. I searched his bedroom for my clothes and bit my lower lip curiously when I couldn’t find any of my clothing. Not one article of my clothing was in his bedroom, at least not on the floor where I swore we’d discarded our clothing the night before.
I briefly thought about waking Xavier to ask him about it, but instead I strolled over to his dresser and opened the drawer I knew he kept his tank tops, T-shirts and other workout gear. After selecting a Nike T-shirt, I pulled it over my body, letting it drape down my figure. The tee stopped a couple of inches above my knees. Satisfied for now, I headed to use the bathroom down the hall as to not wake Xavier by using the one in his room. I scrounged around for one of the unopened toothbrushes I knew he kept in the bathroom for guests. Finding one, I brushed my teeth and washed my face before heading into the kitchen.
It was a little after seven in the morning and, feeling particularly good after the previous night, I suddenly had the thought of cooking breakfast. I must’ve been in love because I typically abhorred cooking, especially in a kitchen that wasn’t my own. I shook my head at myself even as I began to pull out pots and pans from the cupboards. I refused to acknowledge that I became even more excited at the idea of cooking breakfast when I saw the shiny Williams Sonoma stainless steel cookware Xavier kept. If you’re going to cook, it might as well be on the good stuff.
I pulled out a carton of eggs, veggies for omelets, flour and sugar to make batter for waffles. I opted to start the coffee a little later so it’d still be hot once breakfast was ready. Turning on the Echo Dot that Xavier kept in his kitchen, I requested Alexa play some music, so I could jam as I cooked. I began singing along as TLC’s Damaged started playing. As I sang along to the words, I realized how perfectly they mirrored my own feelings and fears. My own “damage” from my past was, in part, what hindered my current relationship with Xavier. That was, if we even had a relationship at that point. Hell, for all I knew, he could’ve just been interested in a roll in the sack for the night. Deep down though, I knew that wasn’t the truth, but we still had a lot to talk about. Shaking off those thoughts, I allowed myself to get lost in the music and cooking.
Finishing the last waffles, I unplugged the waffle maker and turned on the skillet on the stove to begin the spinach and mushroom omelets. I then turned on the coffee maker to make a couple of cups of hazelnut coffee for us. Just as I moved back to the stove to melt the butter in the skillet, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. A tingle that started at my feet spread throughout the rest of my body, and a smile spread across my face as I turned to see Xavier, dressed in nothing but a pair of Calvin Klein boxer briefs, leaned against the entryway to the kitchen.
He remained silent, but his eyes said everything he was thinking. Those coffee brown pools ate me up. And when his pink tongue snuck out, running along his lower lip, I was suddenly reminded that I wasn’t wearing anything below his T-shirt. My body shivered.
“Good morning.” It came out as more of a purr than a greeting.
Again, no words came from him. Instead, he strutted up to me, towering over me as he took my face between his two big hands, tilting my head up to his. He lowered his head and captured my lips with his. I sighed into his mouth, savoring the flavor of his minty toothpaste and mouthwash as they mingled with the flavor that was uniquely his.
“Good morning,” he finally responded against my lips.
I felt the tingle from the top of my head all the way down to the tips of my toes. I swear it still pissed me off how attracted I was to this man. And no heterosexual woman should be subject to seeing Xavier Grant dressed in only boxer briefs first thing in the morning. We’re mere mortals. I mean, how in the hell was I supposed to continue cooking breakfast as if I didn’t want to ask—no, beg—him to bend me over the counter like how he’d bent me over the desk in his manager’s office the night before?
Shit! I admonished myself as I shook my head, trying to rid my mind of that memory. I had to take a step back from him. The mischievous look in his eyes told me he knew exactly what I’d been thinking about.
“You’re cooking breakfast?”
I glowered at the awe in his tone as I turned back to the stove.
“Somebody had to make sure we ate around here, sleepyhead. Ouch!” I jumped when he slapped me on the ass in response to my snarky comment.
“I fed you all night long.”
I shrugged and bit my lower lip to keep the smile off my face. “Whatever. It’s just a little something I threw together with what was in your fridge.”
“Omelets, waffles, fruit, and bacon.” He snorted. “Yeah, a little something. I must’ve put it down last night.” The cockiness in his voice made me want to both smack him and sink to my knees and pull him into my mouth. It made no damn sense.
“Don’t get full of yourself,” I stated instead, pointing the spatula I had in my hand at him.
“Why? You were already full of me. All night.”
I had to clench the muscles of my nether region as his cocky attitude reminded me yet again that I wasn’t wearing any underwear. Speaking of…
“Um, I hope you don’t mind I had to pull out one of your T-shirts to wear. I couldn’t find my clothing from last night.” I glanced over my shoulder at Xavier.
“I hid them,” he answered while he fixed two cups of coffee to set in the dining room just off from the kitchen.
I turned to him.
“You hid my clothes?”
When he finished setting the coffee on the table, he looked up at me. “Yeah.”
“Why on earth would you do that?”
“Because you like to run and I wasn’t taking that chance this morning. Breakfast done?”
I put my hand on my hip as I poked it out. “I wasn’t planning on running this morning,” I defended.
“I wasn’t taking the chance. We still need to discuss a lot.” He leveled a serious look at me. “Breakfast first.”
He fixed both our plates and carried them to the table. When he stood there looking at me, waiting, I strutted over to the table, allowing him to hold out the chair for me to sit. We ate mostly in silence, the music I had on still playing in the background. I savored the last few bites of my breakfast, wanting to put off this inevitable talk as long as possible. I knew it was necessary, but still hated the idea of it. What if Xavier told me he didn’t want to be with me? That just might crush me.
I’d been trying to convince myself that we were over, but in truth, deep down, I hoped we’d find our way back to one another. What we had was too strong and magnetic just to let it slip away. Still, there was a lot in my past that needed to be drudged up and exposed. And I suspected in his, too. For a while I’d been convinced there was something in Xavier’s past that had triggered his reaction when he found out about Ethan’s abuse. It was more than just my lying that’d pushed him out the door that day.
“You’re doing it again.” His words broke my train of thought.
I lowered my fork to my plate and wiped my mouth with one of his cloth napkins. “Doing what?”
“That look. The one you get when you’re thinking hard about something. The one when your eyes gloss over a little bit and they get that far-off look. It’s accompanied by a slight crease in your forehead. Depending on how deep the crease is I can tell whether you’re thinking about work, family, or me.”
My mouth went dry. I lowered my head, looking down into my lap. I’d never get over how closely he observed me. How well he knew what I was thinking just from a look. I inhaled deeply before looking back at him.
“And what look was I doing just then? What was I just thinking about?”
He gave me a half-smirk. The dimple that I’d missed so much emerged on his cheek and my belly flip-flopped.
“Me.”
I blew out a breath.
“You ready to talk yet?”
He casually pulled my chair closer to his, turning
it towards him, so we were face-to-face.
“Doesn’t seem I have a choice,” I quipped.
“You don’t.”
I sighed. “Okay. I’ll start. Where’ve you been the last month and a half?”
“Mostly Vegas. A few other places, working, and no, I haven’t seen or been with any other women.”
I felt my shoulders sag at his words. I hadn’t planned on asking him about other women, but hearing him say there was no one else was a relief. I stared out over his shoulder, avoiding eye contact, but still able to feel his gaze burrowing into my eyes. Finally, I garnered up enough courage to ask the question I’d wanted to know for weeks.
“Why did you walk out? And why didn’t you answer any of my calls?” I hated the thread of hurt that laced my voice. It made me feel vulnerable and needy, two feelings I loathed more than anything.
“Why did you lie to me?”
Instinctively, the lawyer in me came out, at his answering a question with a question.
Just then, something Dr. Winston mentioned about vulnerability popped into my mind. “Vulnerability is difficult, and it should be,” she’d said. “We aren’t meant to trust our hearts with everyone, but you won’t ever know who’s right if you never try. You only know you can trust someone when you show them all the broken parts of you, and they treat them with the care and love you deserve.”
“I was ashamed,” I admitted. I ran my hand through my hair, as I slowly brought my eyes up to meet his.
“Tell me.”
“About Ethan?”
His jaw clenched, and he nodded.
My chest cavity filled with air as I inhaled and prepared myself to tell the full story of my past relationship.
“I met Ethan the summer before I started law school. He was starting his third year at Georgetown and was helping a professor with his 1L class. We lived in the same building not too far from campus. I moved to D.C. the summer before classes started to get out of Houston after the debacle with my ex and former best friend.
“Anyway, I met him, and he was smooth and funny, always the life of the party. We clicked, but I’d told him I wasn’t ready for a relationship. I confided in him about my ex. He said we could be friends and when I was ready, we’d take it from there. Over the next couple of months, we hung out. He helped me get used to the demands of law school. We had a solid friendship, at least I thought we did. He even told me about his poor relationship with his father. One night during the second half of my first semester, we were hanging out alone at my place, and um, things changed.”
I didn’t feel the need to go into details of the night Ethan and my relationship went from platonic to romantic. I looked up at Xavier to make sure he was following me. I watched as his jaw tightened, but I decided to keep going.
“After that, we were inseparable, and he started to change. At first, it was just comments about guy friends or classmates whom I talked to outside of class. Asking who they were, why was I talking to them, things like that. I didn’t think much of it. Actually, I enjoyed it. I thought his extra attention was just his way of showing how much he cared for me. I was young and naive.
“The end of my first year, I moved in with him. He’d gotten a job at a prestigious firm in D.C. Once I moved in was when things got worse. He would make comments about what I wore, insisting that I change to something different before we went out. One night after about two months of living together, he came home from work pissed. I was supposed to go out with friends to dinner. He insisted I cancel my plans. When I refused, he grabbed my arm, squeezing it painfully and twisted it behind my back until I begged him to let go. He refused until I agreed to cancel my dinner plans. I woke up the next morning believing the previous night had just been a dream until I felt the soreness in my arm. I had a ring of purple bruises around my forearm in the shape of a handprint.”
I paused, drawing up my legs into the chair, pulling the T-shirt I wore over them and wrapping my arms around them. I blinked a few times, trying to clear my vision from the sheen of tears that’d gathered. I couldn’t look at Xavier. I already felt the heat of his anger radiating from his body. I knew if I looked at him I wouldn’t be able to keep going.
“He swore he’d never do anything like that again. He’d just been having a bad day and wanted to spend time with me. To make up for it, he bought tickets to see one of my favorite artists who was on tour. He was so gentle for weeks afterward. I thought it was just a one-time thing. But exactly one month later, we got into an argument about the way some guy was looking at me at dinner. I didn’t even know the man, he was some random guy at a restaurant, but Ethan swore I knew him, or at least enticed him somehow by the dress I wore. When I told him he was acting ridiculous, he backhanded me. That was like an out-of-body experience. I’d never been hit before. Neither of my parents had ever hit me as a kid.
“I lay on the bed after it happened, cupping my face looking up into Ethan’s un-remorseful eyes. I know I should’ve left then or the first time, but I thought it was my fault. If I hadn’t talked back, if I wasn’t so disrespectful, if I hadn’t done whatever I did to elicit the attention of other men…if, if, if. That’s what I truly believed, so time after time I made excuses for Ethan. Every time I used makeup to cover my bruises I’d remind myself that it was my fault. That cycle went on for close to two years.”
“What changed then?”
I almost jumped, remembering Xavier was there. I’d gotten so lost in saying my story out loud.
“Gabby finally found out what was happening. For more than a year, she suspected something. Even told me how much she didn’t like Ethan. But I would lie and rave about how good he was to me. Anyway, one time she saw some bruises on my wrist, and she just knew. She didn’t even ask, just offered to let me move in with her. Of course, I lied and refused. I had a little over one semester to go in law school, and I rationalized that once I graduated and started working, things would get better between us.”
“Gabby and I got into a big argument. She insisted he’d never change and told me that I needed to leave or run the risk of him killing me. I told her she was irrational. It got really ugly.”
“Is that why you two stopped speaking?”
My eyes ballooned, and I gave him the screw face wondering how he knew that.
“The time I stopped by the place you shared with him in D.C., you mentioned that you and your best friend weren’t talking when I asked why you were home on a Friday night.”
My jaw dropped. “How…? I can’t believe you remembered that.” I recalled the time he’d stopped by with my favorite pumpkin scones.
“I remember a lot. Like the way he looked at you when he came home and saw me there.”
I nodded and stared down at my cloth-covered knees. I remembered that too.
“Did he…?”
I closed my eyes, wishing I didn’t know where he was going with the beginning of that question. But I knew, and nodded. Yes, after Ethan walked in on Xavier and me, he went into another rage. I was black and blue for weeks after that night.
“Son of a bitch!”
I jumped as Xavier yelled and slammed the table with his fist at the same time. I heard the scraping of his chair against the hardwood floor, and my eyes popped open. He stood up from his chair with so much force that it fell to the floor.
“I’m going to fucking kill him,” he snarled through clenched teeth. He paced back and forth seriously looking like he was going to kill something.
I jumped up from my chair and went to him, grabbing both of his arms at the wrists.
“Please, just calm down. Look at me.” I waited until he finally lowered his gaze to mine. The anger and hatred in them shook me to the core. I squeezed his arms. “Look at me. I’m fine. I-it was a long time ago, and yes, it was ugly, but I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine. That bitch-ass nigga is still part of your past. And you saw him again just a few months ago. Why?!”
He attempted to take a step back from me, but
I held onto his arms. I knew he was strong enough to break my grip, but he let me hold on to him.
I licked my lips, trying to find the right words to explain why I’d felt compelled to meet up with Ethan.
“When I finally decided to leave Ethan, it wasn’t some big discussion or breakup. I honestly was scared of what he’d do so, one day I just packed a duffle bag with some clothes and stuff I needed and left while he was at work. I took a credit card I’d just opened that Ethan didn’t know about to pay for my flight to L.A. There I met up with Gabby. I just left, and a part of me felt guilty for that.”
“Guilty?”
I knew it sounded crazy. Xavier’s face told me how crazy that sounded, but it was the truth.
“Yes, I left with no word or warning, and I knew I’d embarrassed him in front of his family, especially his father. We were supposed to be married in three months. Crazy as it sounds, a part of me felt like I owed him that meeting.”
“Chanel, that makes absolutely no fucking sense,” he seethed. He finally broke the grip I had on his wrists and stepped back, folding his arms over his chest.
“I know it doesn’t. I just...it’s how I felt. I debated for weeks on whether to meet Ethan, but then I thought it might be good for closure too. I mean, this thing with you took me by total surprise and it brought up memories from my past. I wanted to close that door.”
“And what the fuck did he want?”
“To apologize.”
I almost stepped back at the look of sheer incredulity Xavier threw my way. “To apologize? You can’t be serious.”
“I am, and he did.”
“And you believed him?” The high pitch in his voice told me he believed I fell for another one of Ethan’s lies.
“Look, I know given what I just told you, it makes absolutely no sense, but I did. I looked Ethan in his eyes, and he was just...different. I don’t know what he’s been doing the last five years, but he’s changed.” God, I hated the way it sounded like I was defending Ethan. That wasn’t my intent at all, but the truth was, I’d believed him when he apologized, and I still did.
Safe Space II: The Finale Page 8