He winks at me.Gotta love yourself first.
My cheeks heat at the implication.
“Thank you, for sharing so generously,” I say, in my most professional yet approachable parent-teacher voice. “I will use these stories against him should I need to bring him down a notch,” I say, and this sends her reeling.
“Exactly as I’d hoped,” she says back, beaming at me like a proud parent. And I can’t control it. My heart swells.
This is the pure goodness I’ve seen in Xander. Directly from the source. Before I can analyze my own reaction, the moment is interrupted by a cacophony of cheering and I turn around to watch a fit as fuck younger woman emerge in a bikini that shows off her lean, long, and strong frame. She’s carrying a surfboard under her arm, her golden-brown hair dripping with water.
“Scar! Wicked cutback!” one of the dudes shouts from the car next to us, grinning ear to ear.
“Thanks, Bodhi,” Scar—short for what? Scarlett?—says as she jogs to what I assume is her car when she does a double take at Xander standing there. She stops.
“Xander?” she says, at first confused. Then, her eyes light up, not even bothering to rearrange her face into something chill. She is genuinely excited to see him. And she’s not afraid to show it. “What are you doing here on a Thursday at tenAM?”
“I could ask you the same question,” Xander says, offering her his winning smile. The casual nature of his greeting tells me they have history.
I ignore that my heart starts to pound as I get to watch the meeting of the exes unfold in front of my eyes.
And then it clicks.
Is this the ex? The half a decade together ex?
“Didn’t Eva tell you I went part time?” she says before stretching on her tippy toes to kiss his cheek. He leans down and obliges.
“He’s a very busy man,” Eva says, in her defense. “I see you more than I see him.”
Definitely the ex.
Definitely not my heart rate picking up the pace.
“Enough about Xander,” Scar says, ignoring him in favor of his mom. “The carve you did on the last wave. Incredible.” Scar goes in for a fist bump that Eva obliges.
“Thanks. Your cutbacks are coming along,” Eva says, her mother-loving-warmth radiating off her. I take them in. They are as comfortable as two peas in a pod as they fall into easy conversation.
I imagine the five Christmases they’ve shared together. The five summers. The five New Years. Just the sheer amount of time they’ve had to spend together to feel this comfortable. Then. And now. Post breakup.
Like breaking up didn’t break their bond.
Unlike my relationship with my dad.
Who forgot that I existed the moment Keeley came into his life.
And that does it for me.
Jealously flares throughout my body. Followed by anger.
What the actual fuck am I doing here? Why would he bring me to a fucking family reunion? How this pertains to Xander’s “hopes and dreams” is beyond me.
Xander catches my eyes for a moment, and I hate that he can read how uncomfortable I feel crashing this impromptu family gathering.
That is, until I feel Xander’s hand wrap around mine. The immediate comfort that I feel has my heart rate picking up all over again.
I snap my gaze to Scar and Eva. They’re in their own world, using their hands to gesture wildly at each other, so I dare to look up at Xander.
Instead of communicating via a stare, though, he leans into the shell of my ear and says, “I swear I’ll make this up to you.” The heat of his breath. The promise of his words. His fingertip that’s circling the inside of my palm. I hear his thoughts echo in my head.I want you.It’s like he’s letting me know that I’m the only one he’s thinking about. “Anything you want.”
I pull back. Our faces inches from each other.
