“I’ll, um,” I said awkwardly, waving the packet towards the bedroom. “I should go get my clean clothes.”
“Okay,” Xavi nodded. His face gave nothing away under all that red paint, but he had already thrown his tie onto the pile and he showed no signs of slowing down. Maybe it was a good idea for me to change out there. My pants weren’t exactly dripping with paint, so there was no problem with containing the mess.
I looked at the packet in my hand and my mouth went dry.
I turned my head, looking over my shoulder at the open door of the bathroom. Xavi couldn’t see me from here. I thought about calling out to him. Telling him to keep the other half of the payment. All of the money, even. Maybe he could just buy me that new suit after all and we’d call it quits. This weekend hadn’t been as bad as I’d thought.
Actually, I’d had fun.
But even as I thought it, that hopeful feeling of building something from this instead of taking payment shriveled inside my head. The money…
I needed it.
Daisy needed it.
If I didn’t walk away with this envelope in my hand, then not only would I be out of a suit, but I’d have missed three weekend shifts – lost out on pay as well as gaining the bad favor of my bosses. All for nothing. No reward.
We needed this money, and shame rose up like bile in my throat as I realized the truth.
No matter how bad I wanted to – I couldn’t afford to give it back.
I walked over to the safe and stashed it inside with a horrible taste in the back of my mouth, and then grabbed my clothes from the dresser on my side of the room. I heard running water as I quickly changed my shirt and pants, and when Xavi emerged in just his shirt and underwear, I saw he had cleaned all of the paint off his face.
“I’m done in the bathroom,” he said, his voice faltering slightly when he looked at my face.
It must have reflected what I was feeling. I nodded awkwardly and ducked inside, moving past him with my eyes steadfastly up and away from his lack of clothing, into the safety of the bathroom with my clean clothes clutched in my hands. I closed the door behind me for good measure. I fell short of actually locking it, but for a second my hand hovered there until I convinced myself not to.
Maybe some part of me wanted to leave room for Xavi to come back in.
I changed slowly, sitting on the edge of the bathtub to rest as I pulled my clean pants up my legs one side at a time. I had to rest for a moment before I could stand and finish putting them on, reaching for the sink to steady myself. I was tired, and we still had the evening to go. By the end of it, I was sure I would be exhausted.
But I couldn’t give the money back, and I was here at a wedding and I might as well enjoy it as well as working hard, and so I pushed the door back open and stepped outside to join Xavi again.
He was newly changed, into an outfit not far unlike my own. He had his suit from last night – he could have worn it again. But I had the feeling he was dressing down to stop me from feeling singled out, and that tugged at my heart in a way that I just couldn’t let it. Not with the money sitting between us and the reality of everything else.
Xavi looked at me and laughed, making me frown and stare at him.
“You missed a spot,” he said. He brushed past me and emerged again with a wet towel, and I had no idea what he was talking about until he dabbed it against my face. It came back red. The paint from where he had kissed me.
“Thanks,” I murmured, and dropped my eyes to the floor and grabbed my cane before I could let any other part of me react to the way he was looking at me. We hadn’t talked about the kiss, and for the sake of my sanity, I hoped we wouldn’t have to. “We should head back. We’ve missed so much already.”
But when Xavi reached out his hand for mine, I took it, and I was glad for the support all the way back down to the bar where everyone else was dancing and having a good time.
“You sit,” Xavi said to me over the sound of the music. “I’ll get us a drink.”
I looked at the chairs at the side of the room around tiny tables, at the older relatives and young kids and bored-looking lonely teens sitting there. And I was tired. So tired. Not fatigued, though I was that as well – but tired of always being the one who had to sit down, rest, be sensible for tomorrow, save that one last bit of energy if I could. I was tired of doing everything right and still being tired and in pain at the end of it, of missing out on half the fun of whatever I did, of having people treat me strangely because I was a young man with a cane and they didn’t know how to parse it.
“No,” I said, a flash of inspiration coming from somewhere and fueling me despite all the exertion of the last hour. “Let’s dance a bit first.”
“I thought you said you didn’t dance?” Xavi replied, looking at me oddly.
I had said that, hadn’t I? It had been one of my rules. More a setting of expectations, really. But I didn’t want to hold myself back anymore.
“Well, today, I do,” I told him firmly.
Even if it was only a song or two before I had to concede defeat and sit down, I wanted to live tonight – really live. And if there were consequences tomorrow? Well, it was Xavi’s time. He’d paid for me – so, he could deal with me as I came.
Xavi flashed a grin at me, a look so genuine and rare that I almost stopped in my tracks, and rushed over to join the group of guests dancing in the middle of the bar. We’d obviously missed the first dance, but it didn’t matter. The music was lively and the atmosphere was infectious, and I could dance as well as anyone with one hand on my cane.
