“You should go with them then.” Tilly smiled at Finn. “Once the storm passes. You’ll make it home to your people just in time for the holidays, hon. Won’t that be nice?”
“Uhm… yeah… maybe,” Finn muttered.
“Yes! You should totally come!” Lulu quipped. “Road trip, baby!”
“Don’t…” Xavi shook his head, placing a hand on Lulu’s shoulder to calm his bouncing. Then, because he didn’t want to seem unfriendly, he directed at Finn, “No problem,hermano. There’s room for one more, believe it or not.”
“Hank?” Finn looked at the older guy.
“Yeah, you should do that, Finn. No need waitin’. Go home for Christmas,” and Finn replied, “Okay.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Lulu
They ended up trailing down snow-covered paths in the forest for the rest of the morning. It was still snowing, but the blizzard had lost its force, and it was now a more subtle kind of snow. The landscape surrounding Hayley’s Peak was spectacular and pristine, like it’d been taken out of one of those Hallmark holiday movies. More than once, Lulu felt a strange pull in his chest as he walked a few feet behind Xavi. Like he wanted to stop time, just presspause,and stay locked in this bubble of peace with Xavi, where they were just together, the two of them. As much as he loved the city, there was something to be said about rural America, too. The tranquility allowed your body to rest in an unfamiliar way, and it was like your head allowed thoughts to enter that were different, too.
“You ever thought about moving out of the city? Like Joe and Noah?”With me, Lulu wanted to add, but something held him back. It was one thing to call Xaviloveroramorin the throes of passion as they clung to each other in a darkened room, but here, in the unforgiving light of day, it was different. He could joke about it, sure, when he called Xavi his boyfriend teasingly, but to say it, how he really wanted to say it, was hard. It was hard not to joke about everything when you were a joker. When you’d taught yourself to be a joker and to laugh at life because the alternative was to just stare into that bottomless, jet-black pit and lose yourself in the darkness. From a psychological viewpoint, it probably wasn’t healthy not to deal with the past, to repress it.
But it wasn’t exactly like Lulu was in denial; he just chose not to dwell on what had happened and what he’d suffered at his father’s hands. It was his choice, a conscious choice, not to think about his mother, and about why she’d left and where she’d gone and if she was still alive. And if she was, did she ever think of the two little boys,herboys, she’d left behind in Buffalo? Thoughts like those were dangerousbecause they made you long for something that was long gone. Something you’d lost for good.
He realized Xavi probably hadn’t heard him, too engulfed in his own thoughts. With the risk of slipping on the snow, Lulu jogged up to Xavi, and when he reached him, he grabbed Xavi’s arm, bringing him to a stop, then spun him around.
“What?” Xavi chuckled, his eyes spilling over with warmth, a few snowflakes clinging to his lashes. Lulu sucked in a breath. Fuck, he was so beautiful. “What, baby?” Xavi asked again, then reached out his hand and dusted some snow from Lulu’s shoulder. “If you think any harder, you’re gonna cause an avalanche.” Xavi frowned, his breath coming out in small white puffs. Releasing his hand from Lulu’s shoulder, he moved it to his face instead, where he then rubbed his thumb between Lulu’s eyebrows, as if to smooth out the line which had formed. “What’s wrong,cisne?” Xavi’s voice was unusually tender. “You can tell me.”You can tell me.Lulu wasn’t sure he could. Or that he was ready to hear Xavi’s reply. So, instead of repeating his question, he asked something else, something which felt a little safer, even though it probably wasn’t.
“Do you think my mother is still alive somewhere?”
Xavi continued to rub between Lulu’s brows, but something shifted in his posture, and his eyes widened just slightly.
“What makes you ask that?”
“It’s just something that’s been on my mind since we left.” It was strange because just as Lulu spoke the words, he realized it was true. “You know, driving through the country, not knowing if she’s out there somewhere, living her life. Fuck, for all I know, I could stand next to her in a line at a gas station and not know. I’d never know,oso.” Sadness suddenly built in his chest. The more he thought about it, the more he felt like something was missing. Notherexactly, but something. Closure, perhaps.
“Yeah, I can see that.” A sad smile formed at the corner of Xavi’s mouth. “You ever thought about looking for her?”
“No. I mean, not really.”
“You could, you know? I’d help you. You know that, right?”
He knew. Of course, he knew.
“Are you scared of what you’d find if you found her?” As always, Xavi seemed to know exactly what was in Lulu’s heart.
“Yeah. That’s exactly it. I mean, if I never find out what happened to her, I can, at least in my mind, give her the kind of life I want her to have, you know?”
“Like what?”
“Like a good life.” Xavi’s hand trailed down his face, stroking past his cheek, then came to cradle his chin. “I hope she has a good life, you know? Like me and Manu. We have a good life, don’t you think?” He saw Xavi nodding through a curtain oftears, and Lulu realized he was crying. He didn’t know when he’d started, but he was.
“You do. You’ve made a good life for yourself,mano. She’d be proud of you.”
“You think?”
“Of course. What kind of mother wouldn’t be?”
Lulu didn’t know. He didn’t know his mother anymore, so he couldn’t know if she’d be proud of him or not. If she were that type of mother.
“I hope she’s clean,” Lulu admitted. “Wherever she is, I hope she’s turned her life around.”
