Xavier still looked at me with a face like a statue. It was intimidating, but I wouldn’t let it get to me. With one more deep breath, I delivered my final ultimatum. “I need more consistency. I need to know that you want me around, because sometimes you act like you don’t. And if you can’t give me that, or at least the promise of you trying, then I need to be done. I can’t see you anymore.”
I bit the inside of my cheek and fell back in my seat. Delivering the last part was painful, but it had to be done. I watched Xavier, waiting for his answer, and praying he wouldn’t tell me things were now over between us.
Seconds crept by. The coffee shop around us seemed to function at warp speed, voices and noises assaulting my ears while Xavier and I sat in this little bubble. Where we were, one second became one minute and each minute became an hour.
Xavier looked at a spot on the wall next to my head. I could practically see his wheels turning. As he slid his gaze back on mine, though, I saw nothing had changed. There was still distance in those gray pupils. “It sounds to me,” he carefully said, clearly enunciating every word, “like we want different things. And the truth of the matter, Riley, is that I don’t have time for a relationship right now.”
His words cut me like a knife. The use of my name somehow made the pain even worse. Maybe it was because, with my name inserted right in the middle of that sentence, there was no denying that the news was for me. Xavier didn’t want me. He was done.
I pressed my lips together to stop them from quivering. Waves of hurt washed over me, but I held my back straight and kept looking back at Xavier. It was good to find the truth out so soon. Now I could finally move on and start fresh. I was letting a job go, and I was letting a man go. No more pretending the things that didn’t serve me did.
“I see,” I rasped. “Thank you for telling me.”
Xavier twisted sideways in his seat. It looked like he was about to leave, but he ended up perching on the edge of his chair and not going anywhere. “I still would like to see you. Just not as much. It’s clear that we’ve been spending too much time together. It’s not good for either one of us.”
Half of his words were delivered while looking at the wall, and the other half were delivered while looking at my forehead. Again, eye contact seemed to be difficult for him.
“So, you think we’ve spent too much time together?” I asked, just to make sure I had it right.
“Yes.”
My pain twisted and morphed into wild anger. “You’re the one who invited me away for the weekend. You’re the one who showed up at my workplace and asked me to come home with you.”
“I know,” Xavier said through tight teeth. His eyes slid sideways, toward the table next to us. I didn’t care if everyone there knew we were having an argument. This was New York City. We wouldn’t be seeing anyone in this coffee shop ever again.
“I just don’t understand you. You act… I don’t know. You just act different all the time. And I can see that something is bothering you. It’s fine if you won’t tell me about it, but can’t you just admit something is going on?”
Xavier’s lips drew tight together. “Are you trying to push me away? Is that it? Are you just trying to make this conversation as unbearable as you possibly can, so that I’ll be the one to walk away and you’ll end up with no dirt on your hands?”
“What? No. I’m trying to understand you.”
“There… Is… Nothing… To… Understand.” His hand on the table curled into a fist and became sheet white. I held my breath, afraid for the first time around him.
He didn’t freak out, though. Instead, he placed his hands on his lap and looked straight at me. “This is what I’m offering. We see each other occasionally. We keep it casual. I’ve already been clear about the time that I have right now. I’m not interested in starting anything serious with anyone.”
He raised an eyebrow, waiting for my response. But I didn’t have one. This whole relationship had been a whirlwind. It swept me up in a magnificent wind storm, and now it was dropping me off in the middle of a dusty, barren field.
I should have known. The second I felt a pair of eyes on me at Enigma, I should have known trouble was coming my way. I should have turned and run and never looked back.
It was too bad I didn’t.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Xavier
Riley was as pale as a ghost. She looked so small too, sitting there across from me. A part of me itched to reach across the table and pull her into my lap, to tell her I was sorry, that I should have left her alone and never dragged her into my twisted life. But I couldn’t do that because if I did, things would just become harder. It would make putting the space we needed between us ache even worse.
I knew I wasn’t perfect. I wasn’t like a lot of guys out there. I wasn’t looking for a white picket fence and a woman to put a ring on. I’d always been honest with myself about this. Maybe I should have let Riley know what I was like the day we met, but what was done was done. At least I was giving her the straight-up truth now. From here on out, she could make her own decisions with the information I’d provided her.
If she wanted to still get together occasionally, wonderful. If not, I’d live with it. I was used to things not working out. I knew how to pick up the pieces and get on with my life.
Riley finally spoke, her words sounding like nothing more than an echo of her usual voice. “I don’t know what to say.”
She turned those big eyes on me, and my chest started to ache. Damn this woman. She was going to make me do things I’d regret. She was going to turn me into a person I didn’t recognize.
“I need to think about this.” She stood and pressed her hands together.
“What’s to think about?” My own words made me wince. It’s what I wanted to say, but it came out wrong.
Riley looked down at me, and there was something entirely new in her eyes. It was regret… it was pity. “You really think there’s nothing to think about?” She shook her head. “If that’s so, I feel sorry for you, Xavier. I really do.”
With that, she walked away. By the time I turned in my seat, she was going through the front door. I was left by myself, thick balls of heat rolling under my skin. It was a degree of anger I hadn’t felt in a long time. It came in fast explosions, each one making me feel like I was being ripped apart all over again.
I closed my eyes, but there was nothing new to see there. It was the same hard, angry black.
One… Two… Three… Four.
I silently counted away. It was a technique I employed only when I was really close to losing control. If I weren’t in a coffee shop, there’s a good chance the table in front of me would have been turned over.
“What’s up, bro? You meditating?”
No fucking way. My eyes snapped open, and I stared at one of the last people I wanted to see right now. Seth sat in Riley’s vacated seat slurping from a plastic cup. He grinned at me around the straw, every bit the cocky frat boy I didn’t want to be sharing a table with.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”
Seth just grinned even wider. “It’s me. Believe it or not.”
“What are you doing here?”