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Xavi set down his drink and splashed into the water, disappearing for a moment alone. He did that. Ran in the Kane family. They liked to use the water as a stalling tactic to muffle the world and shut everything off.
I was almost grateful he did it because I was the one who needed to settle down and regroup. If Andrea told him I had something to tell him, it was the whole ‘me wanting him and being obvious enough about it that she caught on’ thing. Perceptive bitch. Shit, she was the furthest thing from a bitch.
I wasn’t ready to admit that to Xavi yet. Not because I didn’t trust him, but because I was afraid. Really afraid. Devon gave me all this advice about being careful to protect our friendship, and I kept telling him that our friendship was solid, but I didn’t know how deeply I believed myself about that. Yeah, our friendship was a tanker of a thing, and so far, nothing had penetrated it. But what if I blew us up from the inside by admitting something that would completely shift our dynamic? I’d handled a lot of rejection in my life, but I didn’t know if I’d survive his rejection.
When he surfaced, shaking his dark hair, I tried not to watch the water droplets drip down his chest. Since when did I find him so goddamn attractive? It just came at me all aggressive and complicated, and I hadn’t been able to sort it out since.
Xavi swam over to me, reaching for his drink. “Madd said you weren’t even that into Kaylee. Is he right?”
I pressed my foot to his chest and kicked him away, but he laughed and splashed me, so at least he was back to his happy-drunk ways. I hated feet, so I made mine disappear underwater again. “I did at the beginning, but then, I dunno, man. I just wasn’t really feeling it. Like it was all hot and awesome until she wanted… more.” More than I was willing to give her, but what I wished I could have with Xavi.Ugh, nervous sweating.I pushed up my sunglasses again.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because you were into her! And I’m into this.” I motioned between us.
“Neegs, I love you, and you’re my best friend, but fucking spell it out for me because I’m too drunk to know what you mean.”
I laughed. “This. Us. The hookup shit we’ve got going on. I wanted to stay with you… uh, with her and you. I didn’t want to go out and have to pick up on my own again.” Terrible reason, but there it was.
Xavi looked away, buying himself time with a drink.
“What’s that for?” I asked, nodding at him. “Moody to shy in one evening? I’ve never seen these sides of you!”
He scoffed while climbing out to sit next to me. All that dripping water was mesmerizing. All. The. Dripping. Water. “I dunno. I just got a flash of something when you said that.”
“Xavi, I love you, and you’re my best friend, but stop being cryptic as fuck.” I smirked. “A flash of something?”
“Jealousy, you know?” he barked at me, adding a laugh. “Like, of you going off on your own. I’m in this with you, and it’d kill me if you left me now. That’s why I made the death threat the other night.”
I smiled because I loved that he wanted me there. “Yeah, that was funny.”
“Not funny! I’m serious.” He pouted out his lip. “Can I add pouty to my new personalities?”
Uh, hard yes.Do not get a hard dick. “You really wanna keep this going even though we fuck it up every time now?”
He nodded. “Yeah, I do. But it’s also on my mind that we’re getting older, you know? We can’t do this shit forever. Hence the thinking juice.” He held up his rum. “What are we even doing with our lives?”
“Living them.” I put out my smoke and dropped the butt into an empty cup. I’d never had a problem with how we lived our lives until recently. Still didn’t know if I had an issue or if I was just feeding off some outside force making me think I needed to change my lifestyle. Xavi was the outside force because he was the one thinking about it, making me consider it. “What do you want?”
“Out of life?” he asked. I nodded. “To be happy. That’s about it. Is that enough?”
“Hell yeah, it is. Fuck anyone who says otherwise. What makes you happy?”
“You.” He laughed. “The shop… mostly. Wasn’t my dream or anything, but I like it well enough, I think. Most of the time. Our brothers. Sometimes my parents. Just us and the shit we do together. Knowing you always have my back and I have yours. You know?”
Fucking loved that. “Yeah, Xav. I’m the same, minus the parents. What about a kid?”
He groaned. “I dunno. Probably not, but you never know. It’s like, I want the kid but not the mom.” He chuckled. “I don’t even fully want the kid. I just wanna be important to someone, but I can’t think of anyone I’d trust to do it with. Like, who the actual fuck could I trust more than you? I don’t even trust my own brother as much as I trust you.” He looked at me. “You know?”
“You know? You know? You know?” I mocked him for tacking that on the end of every sentence. “Well, you better find a kid at the pound then, bud. Probably a fuck ton of angry teens who need someone important.”
“See?” He nodded. “Now that’s something I could do. I’d take in a stray kid. Fuck knows we were almost strays, so it’d be like paying it forward. Kids need homes. We have… oh, well, we don’t really have a home, but I could find a home and bring a kid there! Or at least have a door a kid could knock on.”
I believed in him.
“Let’s adopt a teen, Nate.”
“You are a teen,” I scoffed.
