Off Her Rockers (Loving All Wrong #3.5) (42 page)

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY

I
WAS CURLED UP IN THE ANTIQUE CHAISE
in the guest room, gaze directed out the low, frosty window on the opposite side of the room, watching the snow drift down to the earth, clouding around the windowsill, gaining momentum, and with momentum came heights of white.

Out of nowhere it had begun snowing hard, straddling the border of blizzard territory.

There was an old-school wood-burning fireplace here in the guest bedroom, crackling and huffing and puffing to keep us warm, as the electronic heater wasn’t enough to fight off the sudden blast of chills we were getting. A soothing aroma of fire-kissed wood permeated the air, making the moment of peaceful silence one I would yearn for in times of stress and anxiety in the future.

Jacob was asleep under a thick blanket on the bed, butt pointed to ceiling, face planted in the mattress. He’d been sleeping in that position ever since he learned how to creep. I still didn’t understand it.

After I’d showered him and tucked him in, he’d asked for his “Ian”—Davian—and “Dev”—his grandfather Dave—and “Dada”—JK. I promised him I would take him home to see them soon. He had no choice but to believe me. But I knew it was selfish of me to have kept him from his family for so long.

Speaking of, Davian was currently boiling with justified rage. It was wrong of me, I admit it, but I couldn’t leave yet without knowing where Xavier and I stood. I came to France on a mission, and I wasn’t leaving until that mission was completed.

Xavier hadn’t spoken to me since we left the plantation this morning, but it wasn’t a resentful or brooding silence. More of an I-just-need-some-time-to-think kind of silence. A silence I more than understood, so I gave him the space he needed and spent the rest of the day in my room with Jacob.

As I predicted, Mick had checked out about an hour after we got back, so Chloe and Xavier had been monitoring him. After living with the man for the last two months, I knew he would be good as gold by morning.

I skipped dinner again, but this time I really wasn’t hungry. The only thing on my mind was getting an answer from Xavier. Put me out of my misery already.

The plantation and my inheritance was no light matter. I get it; it was a lot for him to digest. Anyone who would just jump and said yes to pretty, shiny things without thinking long and hard about it, were reckless opportunists to beware of.

I could’ve given him the plantation ranch free, but I didn’t want to lock him into choosing me in order to get the plantation. If I had done that, I wouldn’t know for sure if he truly wanted me back, or simply taking me back because he wanted the plantation, not
me
.

Selling
him the plantation ranch separated me from the equation. He could choose not to take me back and proceed with purchasing the place from me.

I didn’t come with it. There was the plantation ranch, and then there was me. Two separate entities.

But God
, I hoped he chose me, too.

On the heel of that thought, my door creaked open, and my gaze shifted toward the door.

Xavier.
Speak of an angel
.

His eyes went immediately to a sleeping Jacob on the bed, and as though that’s what he was hoping for, he pushed the door further open and came in.

Hair tied back in a damp knot. Freshly showered. An old Nirvana T-shirt and sports shorts.

For both mine and his sake, I kept my eyes above his waist.

“Poor Chloe is going to die of blushes seeing you walk about like this,” I teased as he came over to me. I drew up to a sitting position in the chaise to make room for him.

“Good to know I can still make chicks blush,” he said in a quiet voice, lowering down beside me.

“Even when you’re long gone you’ll still be making women blush,” I told him. “You are, and will always be,
Xavier Xander
.”

His response was a shrug, as if he didn’t believe it. Then, he leaned forward and began removing his prosthetic leg.

Afraid of getting a repeat of this morning, I kept my mouth shut and watched him do it. Though I wasn’t sure why he was taking it off.

Setting the leg aside, he smoothed his palm over his stump a few times and cocked his head to look at me, “This is me now, Chino.”

Jesus
.

Drawing close to him on the chaise, I leaned over to touch his stump. I paused, hand hovering, and looked back at him for permission.

A slight nod of the head.

With two fingers, I traced the stitch-like scars that circled his thigh. They resembled stitches around a baseball. I touched them, adored them, accepted them, and loved them. Loved this newness to him. These beautiful scars told half his story. Because if there’s one fact we knew about life, there were more scars to come.

I leaned down and touched my lips to the raised skin. “And you’re more beautiful now than you were before.”
Kiss
. “Now you have character.”
Kiss
. “You’re unique.”
Kiss.
“You are a story.”
Kiss
. “And I would be proud to call you mine…if you would have me again.”

His hand covered over mine on his thigh. “You claim you want me back, so why’d you buy the plantation
here
?”

“Because ‘here’ is where your heart is.”

“But your life’s in L.A.,” he pointed out. “How’d that work?”

Wasn’t it obvious
? I straightened back to a sitting position. “Xavi, my life is with
you
. Wherever you are, that is where I’ll be. Even if you don’t take me back, trust that I’ll buy the nearest house to you and live there. Not to stalk you. Just to be near you.”

His brows furrowed then, and I saw the moment he
got
it. “You wanna move here?”

Yup, he got it. “
Duh
.”

“And Jacob?” he pushed, skeptical. “Know Davi won’t be up for that.”

“He will have to be.” I shrugged. “We’ll work something out. Either he goes to school here and Davi gets him on holidays, or he goes to school in L.A. and I get him on holidays. If we go to court, this time the odds will be in my favor because I’ll prove to be more stable here, while Davi will be traveling a lot for work.”

“Want him with us,” he demanded. “Davi gets holidays.”

I fought back a smile. He just indirectly agreed to take me back. “Then that’s what I’ll fight for.”

Dropping his head back on the chaise, he let out an audible sigh. “Well, this makes it all a shit of a lot easier.”

“What?”

To meet my eyes, his neck rolled on the edge of the chaise in my direction. “Was hesitant…didn’t wanna keep sharing you with him. Long as we’re in the same place, running in the same circles, sharing the same friends, I’d always be sharing you with him. Pointless not to admit you two share something I’m jealous of, and it makes me feel powerless.

“Tried to brave through it the best I could before, ‘cause I wanted you regardless, but, just don’t got it in me anymore to keep competing with him. Not with one leg. Perspectives changed. Decided letting you go was best.”

I made a lamenting noise in my throat, but he squeezed my hand to let me know he wasn’t done. “Now I know you wanna move here, with me…makes me breathe easier knowing you’ll be
here,
with me
.
”

I sought for a direct answer this time. “Does that mean you still want me?”

His fingers slid through mine. “Was never a time, and never will be a time, when I don’t want you, Chino. You know, sometimes I think that ‘fake’ story was actually the real story. Think I really did fall for you from seeing those pictures, and I used breaking Jess and Davi up as an excuse to get to you. In retrospect, think all I really ever wanted was you. The lie was the truth. And every other truth was a lie.”

My stare dropped to our fingers making love with each other. “We can start over here.”

“Would like that.” He leaned close and bumped his forehead to mine. “Very much.”

We breathed each other’s air, brushed noses, swallowed each other’s sighs, but didn’t kiss.

An eon passed before he asked, “Can I rest my head in your lap?”

The request seemed odd and kind of random, but I nodded and shifted across to the other end of the chaise, allowing him enough space to twist and lay on his side, resting his head in my lap.

My fingers automatically went to his hair, smoothing down the baby hairs curling over his forehead.

We stayed like that, in comfortable silence, for a time and half a time. Until he broke it. “Dad did this a lot when Mom was alive. Think it calmed him. He’d call Mom away from whatever she was doing, and somehow she’d just know what he wanted, ‘cause without a word she would just sit down on the living room couch and wait for him to lay his head in her lap. Would sit like that for forever, neither saying a thing. Sometimes he fell asleep. Sometimes she asked me to go fetch one of her Mills Boon books.

“Used to wonder—when I was much younger—what it felt like for him. You know, what was he feeling lying there like that? What did it do for him? Told myself that when I got older, I’d find a wife as beautiful as Mom, and I’d lay my head in her lap just like Dad did. And then I would know what he felt, what it did for him.”

Listening to his stories about Mick and Aline always made me choke up. I wish I’d known her. I wish I’d known them both when they were young and in love. I prayed and hoped I would be able to make Xavier even half as happy as Aline made Mick. “I know I’m not your
wife
,” I rasped out, “but…is the feeling anything like you imagined?”

One beat. Two beats. Three beats. Four. “It was the evening after we fought at the Rappers vs Rockers event at the gymnasium.”

Thrown for a loop from his totally disjointed response, I mumbled, “Huh?”

“First time I realized I’m in love with you,” he explained.

I almost forgot to breathe.

I remembered that evening. He’d acted like a possessive jerkface because I sat in Jake’s lap, and when he didn’t get his way he’d acted like an even jerkier jerk by avoiding me.

“Kinda surprised no one told you this, but after I got over my shit and came looking for you and found out you left, I got so mad I upturned the Gatorade table. Had thought that was it. Thought you were done with me.

“That’s when I started asking myself why I’d acted the way I did. Never been stupidly jealous over a chick before. Never been
jealous over a chick
period
. I mean, it was Jake.
Jake,
for shit’s sake. I embarrassed you in front of everyone. Couldn’t think straight after that. Couldn’t breathe knowing you were no longer in the room.” Pausing, he rubbed his palm over my left knee. “When I got in that night, found you in my bed...touched you, felt you, and realized you hadn’t left me…knew it then as well as I know it now: You’re
her
. The woman whose lap I would lay my head in.”

I didn’t know what my heart was doing. It was doing something, but beating wasn’t it. I loved this man so much, so differently, so madly, that it made me stronger instead of weaker. Unbreakable instead of vulnerable.

The love I had with Davian made me weak, foolish, and dependent. But
after experiencing Xavier, I was convinced that that was the wrong kind of love.

Love was supposed to empower you, give you strength, give you confidence, give you will, make you excited for the future, make you want to
love
everyone around you, make you want to be better, make you see clearer. That’s what I had with Xavier; the right kind of love.

“You saw everything that was in the chest?” his voice broke through my reveries. The whole time his eyes had been closed, as I smoothed my fingers back in his hair.

“Mhhmhm.”

“
Everything
?”

I stilled at his tone.
The ring
. He wanted to know if I saw the ring. “Yes.”

“It was already yours.”

My voice was a wisp when I asked, “What?”

“Remember out in the garden when I gave you the ‘choose me’ ring?”

I thought I replied
yeah
, but realized after a few seconds that nothing came out and tried again, “Yeah.”

“Well, wasn’t really a ‘choose me’ ring. Made that up. Was more of a ‘just in case’ ring.” He opened his eyes and flipped over so he was facing me instead of away from me. “Had Mom’s ring in my pocket, too. Was gonna ask you to choose me right there and then. Say yes. But, just in case the thought scared you, freaked you out, I had the other ring.”

Oh my God. Oh my God. He really was going to propose that day?
“I freaked out,” I whispered hoarsely.

His smile was forlorn. “So I gave you the ‘just in case’ ring.”