“Do you like any sports?”
I chuckled. “Motorbike racing.”
Xavi’s eyebrows jerked so far up that I thought they were about to fly off his face. “Really?”
I nodded. “It’s dangerous and thrilling. If the riders get it wrong, they quite literally might die. It’s awful when they do, but the adrenaline rush when they don’t is something else.” Not that I had the chance to watch it often, these days. Races were always shown on weekends on premium channels. I could go to a bar to watch it on a rare occasion that I wasn’t working or with Daisy, but then I’d have to buy a drink. Two dollars, three dollars, four dollars, adding up every time.
“Not tennis?”
I laughed and groaned and covered my face with my hands. “Never tennis. It’s pure luck that I know who Venus and Serena Williams are. You should have guessed football. I told you earlier I knew who Caleb Coleman was.”
There was a pause, a beat where neither of us spoke. With my head forward in my hands, I couldn’t see him or guess what he was thinking.
“How long have we been together?” Xavi asked softly.
I lifted my head from my hands. When I’d slumped forward, I’d brought us unintentionally much closer together. I met his eyes. “We should have figured all that out before we got here,” I pointed out. When he didn’t reply, obviously still waiting for an answer, I thought about it. “A month and a half. Long enough for you to think this is serious and invite me to the wedding, short enough that we’re still getting to know each other and you haven’t told everyone.”
Xavi nodded slowly. He looked up at me again, our eyes captured by one another, his expression more serious than I had ever seen. “What’s your favorite color?”
“White,” I said, gesturing to my suit. “It’s pure and simple.”
“Your favorite childhood movie?”
I shook my head. “I don’t really remember. Daisy’s six years younger than me, so I mostly just remember watching her favorite movies and shows because she was too young to watch stuff for my age group.”
“What would you save from a house fire?”
My lips twitched in wry humor. “I don’t own much worth saving. My parents’ wedding photo album and my cane. I need it more than anything else.”
“What’s your ideal date?”
I thought about it for a long moment. “I don’t know. Maybe for me, it’s more about the person than what we do. Spending time together is important. Maybe it’s just curling up on the sofa with a bucket of popcorn and a cheesy movie on the TV. Something we can turn off if we get distracted.”
Xavi’s mouth dropped open a little at the suggestion. Without meaning to, my eyes dropped to his lips, caught by the movement. When I looked back up again, he was watching me intently.
“What’s your favorite position?” he asked, his voice barely audible.
“Top,” I told him, my mouth dry, wondering why I was saying all of this when he didn’t need to know. “With my partner lying on his back so we can look into each other’s eyes. But I don’t mind trying other things once in a while, too.”
Xavi swallowed hard.
I watched the motion of his Adam’s apple, unable to look away.
He was trying hard to be better. I could see it. It was a new side of him I’d never witnessed before. He’d given up on the snark and the clapbacks. He wasn’t acting like he was better than me anymore, or pretending that he didn’t need me. This was probably the first genuine conversation we had ever had – however ironic it was that we were having it in service of a lie.
And this close up, I could see something else, too: the insecurities, the hunger and need for validation in his eyes, the naked plea for me to forgive and praise him.
He leaned towards me, his lips parted, and for a second I let myself be carried away in the thought of kissing him.
Xavi
I closed my eyes as I leaned up towards Rowe, closing the distance between us, already anticipating the heat of his lips –
But I opened my eyes at the texture of something that, while warm and enticing, was not what I was expecting.
“Xavi,” Rowe said, his hand held up between us, fingers over my lips to stop me from moving any closer. “You’re drunk.”
I blinked at him. “Only a little,” I tried to say, then repeated it when he raised his eyebrow in question and moved his hand out of the way of my mouth.
