Page 44 of Xavier

He sighed at me. “Nothing, Xavier. Drop it.”

How the hell was I supposed to drop it when there was obviously a gigantic cloud of tension looming over us?

We never did this—we weren’t like this. Ever since this afternoon, we’d been in this weird spot that I had no fucking clue how we even got into in the first place.

If I did, I would’ve fixed it by now.

“Baby,” I tried again, reaching for him.

He dodged me, moving around to the other side of the trash to toss the last of the plate scrapings into it. “It’s fine. Just forget about it.”

“I can’t when you’re upset with me.”

“I’m not.”

“You are. Unless I’m fucking blind and there’s a third person in this kitchen right now.” I furrowed my brows, setting my lips into a thin line.

He lifted his gaze up from the trash to give me a look. “Funny.”

There had to be more to this than just the party. There was no way he’d be getting this upset that I couldn’t come to a work function.

Disappointed?

Sure.

But upset?

No way.

Gage was way more levelheaded than that.

Hewas the one to get me to actually get in touch with my own emotions and begin to untangle the absolute fucking mess that was my trauma.Heconvinced me to take my sobriety seriously because it was either that or lose my kid.

Gage wasn’t the kind of guy to let his emotions run rampant and wild. He was one of the most regulated people I knew.

A little anxious at times?

Who wasn’t these days?

We had stressful jobs that were constantly putting us in life or death situations.

Anxiety kind of came with the territory.

This was something way bigger than that. It had to be, or else I was going fucking crazy.

Clearly, he wasn’t up to talking about it, no matter how many times I could try weaseling it out of him.

But was this the kind of situation that I let drop and forget about it?

Or did I give him the space he needed to figure out his own emotions before he could actually talk to me about them?

I wasn’t sure. Not without asking him, but that was obviously out of the question. Right now, the best that I could offer was a listening ear when he was ready. Until then, I was going to have to suck it up and wait it out until he came to me.

Whenever the fuck that happened.

Bridging the distance between us, I wrapped my arms around him from behind and pressed a soft kiss to his neck. “Come find me later, okay?”

So we can talk.

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