Page 3 of Xavier

Leaning back in my seat, I slipped my hand into my pocket and pulled out my chip. It made a rough sound as I slid it across the table toward him, the light overhead catching the gold plating that made the thing shine nicely.

He stared down at it, his eyes widening a little bit.

“I was at my meeting to accept my chip,” I explained, smiling. “I wanted to get it before our dinner to give it to you.”

“Me?” he said, incredulously.

“Yeah, Dex. I want you to know how serious I am about all of this. I know that I wasn’t… I haven’t been there for you in the past, and trust me, I regret every single second of it, but this is hopefully a small step in proving to you that I’m going to do everything I can to make it up to you. I want tobethere for you.”

He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing while he carefully picked up the chip. He rotated it in his hand a few times, much like I had back at the meeting. “One year, huh…”

“Yup.”

He was quiet for another moment. “That’s pretty impressive.”

Grinning, I said, “Just wait until I get my ten year one. I hear that it’srealgold.”

He glanced up at me. “Ten years?”

I could tell by the way that he said that it was laced with hope and mixed with a little bit of skepticism. I could work with that, though. I could prove to him that I was going to keep this thing going. We had the rest of our lives together, and like hell I was going to screw it up any further.

When Dexter slowly set the chip down, he pulled in a deep breath. “Can I talk to you about something?”

My heart stuttered in my chest. “Yeah, of course. Anything.”

I hoped it was about whatever had happened to him that he’d been refusing to talk about. While I didn’t want my kid to have to relive any kind of trauma that he might have endured, I knew from experience that getting it out was the first step in recovering from it.

Talking about horrible experiences, even through therapy, had taken a lot out of me. But now with nine months under my belt, that weight that had been settled on my shoulders for so long was slowly beginning to get lighter and lighter as the days passed.

I wanted that for Dexter, too. He deserved that. Suffering with whatever he was keeping locked inside himself would eventually eat away at him like it had me. We Cruz boys had been cursed with that prideful sense of self that made it almost impossible to open up about our deepest darkest secrets.

Even to our own family.

“So, I’ve been applying to colleges,” he said, focusing his gaze back down at the chip on the table.

Okay, not exactly what I was expecting. But hey, at least he was opening up to me about something.

“And,” he went on. “I got accepted into one for an early admissions.”

My jaw dropped. “Dex, that’s amazing! Congratulations!”

His smile was a little worn when he finally looked at me again. “The problem is that it’s kind of far away.”

Oh fuck.

“How far away are we talking?”

Please don’t say on the other side of the damn world.

I’d only just gotten him back. Having to say goodbye after only a year would fucking wreck me.

“Louisiana,” he said slowly.

My body all but collapsed back into my booth, relief practically jello-ifying my damn bones. Oh thank fuck. I could handle Louisiana. “Where abouts?”

“Baton Rouge.”

That’s near Gage.

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