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My cheeks redden. He’s right and I know it. I’ve just been scared to raise my prices, worried that my customers will think I’m greedy and yell at me like Mama used to yell at me for eating too much and spending too much money and watching too much TV and not marrying Patrick Kieran the Third.
Now the tension starts to creep back, but Xavier’s next words distract me.
“It’ll take a couple of months for the lower costs and higher prices to fix your financials,” he says like he’s a freshly graduated accountant and not a recently escaped convict. “But I’ve got a few hundred grand stashed away, so we’ll be all right. We’ll make your payments just fine.”
I almost swerve into a semi-truck. “Did you just say you have a few hundred grand stashed away? Do I even want to know why and how?”
Xavier says nothing at first, then takes a breath and sighs it out. “Guess I should probably tell you what I did for a living before getting busted on a murder charge.”
“Guess you should.” My voice is soft, my tummy twisting when I realize this is the moment of truth—both literal and metaphorical.
The truth not just about Xavier, but about myself.
Because no matter what he’s done, I know I’m his.
And so I hope to heaven that he’s not a monster who murders kittens and eats children.
“Started off murdering kittens and eating children,” Xavier deadpans, gazing at me with wickedly sparkling eyes. “Then moved on to torturing puppies and burning down orphanages.”
A helpless giggle bursts out of me. “Actually, I don’t think orphanages are a thing anymore,” I manage to say with impressively fake seriousness. “So whatever you were burning weren’t orphanages.”
Xavier shrugs out a disinterested grunt. “Whatever. It’s so hard to tell when all the bodies are burned crispy like bacon,” he says before losing his deadpan frame and cracking a wicked grin.
“Ohmygod, we are sick,” I gasp through a gush of giggles. “We are so going to hell for making jokes like that.”
Xavier chuckles darkly, his big palm caressing my thigh roughly, then sliding between my legs and rubbing my pussy with a possessive familiarity that makes me beam with excitement, glow with pleasure. I turn my head towards him just in time to get kissed full on the mouth. Then I push him away and press my thighs together so I don’t miss our exit to Boston and drive us straight to hell instead.
“Hell is where all the ovens in the afterlife are located,” Xavier informs me as I get off the Turnpike and merge into Boston morning traffic, which isn’t at rush-hour levels yet but is getting there. “I’m sure a cookie-monster like yourself will do just fine there, baby.”
I do my best Cookie Monster impression, then gaze happily at Xavier’s grinning bearded face. My heart is suddenly full, overflowing without emptying. There’s a happiness surging in my core, something I’ve never felt before. It’s warm and wonderful, and when we stop at a red light and our gazes meet again, I’m struck by the loving familiarity of our bond, like in just a few hours we’ve learned more about each other than other couples learn in years, maybe decades, perhaps forever.
But I still need to learn what Xavier did, and I sense that he needs to tell me.
“Drugs,” says Xavier softly as the light turns green and we start to move again. “My business was drugs.”
My heart sinks so fast I almost black out. I’ve always hated those awful street-drugs and what they do to people unlucky enough to get addicted. I say nothing for a long time, feeling Xavier’s gaze studying my expression. I don’t look at him for a while, then sigh and glance into his eyes.
And see them dancing with that wicked playfulness.
“Not selling them,” Xavier says through a sideways grin. “Burning them.”
My heart thumps to life again. I raise a curious, hopeful eyebrow. “You mean burning them as in smokingthem to get high?”
Xavier shakes his head, that grin breaking full for a moment, then tightening as his gaze narrows. “Burning them as in destroying them to get them off the streets. Drugs killed both my parents, Connie. Mom died of a heroin overdose when I was five. Two weeks later Dad took a bunch of Fentanyl and never woke up. They died broke and deep in debt. No family, so I went into the foster care system.” Xavier’s face brightens now, but not with happiness. “I was a firebug as a kid. And after my folks died, burning shit down became my release, you know? Got a bit out of control. It’s why no foster family wanted to keep me. I was in and out of juvenile detention centers throughout my teenage years.” He shrugs, gazes out the window, then looks back at me. “Then I aged out of the system, joined up with some small-time street gang in Southie. They did some street-dealing for the bigger drug gangs, and one night I went along for a ride to one of the drug stash-houses.” He grins now, his tongue licking out like a flame. “Came back later that night and burned it down. Got it smoking nice and thick first, waited for the dealers and thugs to rush out coughing and blinded. Then I snuck in, took all the cash I could carry, got out before the fire trucks got there.” He sighs dreamily, like he’s reliving a happy childhood memory. “And just like that I’d found my calling. I could make my money doing something that was also deeply satisfying. Filled a void. Scratched an itch. Fuck, it felt so good to watch that poison burn before it could destroy any more lives, take another kid’s parents away from him.”
Tears well in my eyes when I see the happiness on Xavier’s grizzled face, feel the boyish delight that still burns bright in this man who had his childhood stolen from him. “Oh, Xavier,” I whisper, curling my fingers inside his big paw. “That’s . . . that’sillegal and dangerous, but it doesn’t feel . . . wrong. In fact it feels perfect, almost poetic.”
Xavier chuckles grimly. “It was, until I fucked up. Set fire to a drug warehouse in Newton, but put too much accelerant or maybe the wooden building was just old and dry. It went up too fast, and three of the drug dealers got trapped inside.” He takes a breath, rubs the back of his head. “Tried to pull the guys out, but couldn’t save them.” He sighs. “Couldn’t get away in time and the cops nabbed me. Turned out one of the drug dealers was a DEA snitch, and his death screwed up their case or something. Either way, they were pissed and so they made sure the Federal Prosecutors charged me with felony-murder instead of just manslaughter for the unintentional deaths.”
“But you tried to save those drug dealers who deserved to burn in hell!” I’m livid, my jaw tightening as I almost run a red-light. “That’s not fair! That isn’t justice!”
Xavier shrugs, then winks. “Guess that’s just how the cookie crumbles sometimes, baby. You know what I mean?”
“OK, now you’re making fun of me,” I say with a pouty frown. “I’m defending your criminal actions and all I get is mockery. See if I give you any free cookies when we get to the store.”
“It’s not cookies that I’m going to be munching when I get you behind the counter,” Xavier growls, creeping his hand towards that forbidden space between my legs. “My greedy fingers are going to be deep in that cookie-jar. My stir-stick churning that muffin-batter. My rolling-pin kneading that cookie-dough.”
I cackle out a laugh as we pull onto Logan Avenue, driving past my cute little standalone storefront so I can get to the alley near the back door. “That’s my store. Connie’s Confections.”
