Page 46 of Xavier

A whole week?!

I’d get Xavier for longer than just these measly three days that could barely even count as an extended weekend since he’d be traveling back home on the third day of it.

Could Kate really be so generous?

Did she have any of those bones left in her body?

I couldn’t imagine her calling Dexter up to tell him that she’d done some soul searching and realized that keeping a son from his father was wrong and for them to take their time in getting back to California.

All of it was too good to be true.

Where was the catch?

“If that’s okay with you,” Xavier was saying, his gaze darting from me, over to the twins. “All of you. I don’t want us imposing on anything.”

The urge to tell him to shut up and kiss him stupid was itching me right on the back of the neck, hard to ignore while my mind raced with the possibility that my wish of bringing him to the Christmas party would be coming true after all if I could convince Ellie to move the date up.

Sure, they’d be leavingrightbefore Christmas day, but I was still getting them for the week leading up to it. That was counting as a win in my book. Even if I couldn’t have Xavier for the entire holiday stretch like I selfishly wanted to.

Oh shit, I needed to go out and buy them both gifts.

What was Dexter into?

I could probably get the boys to weasel some info out of him in order to give me an idea on what to go off of. Xavier was easy—my issue was blowing him out of the water with what I got him, and not just buying him something that he’d tot on for a few days before forgetting altogether in a few months.

A strong hand gripped my shoulder, ripping me out of my thoughts. “Are you okay with this, Gage?”

My gaze snapped to Xavier’s, the wariness in them not lost on me.

Our earlier tiff was still hanging in the air between us and not as easily forgotten as I would’ve liked for it to be. While I wasn’t exactly sure why getting so triggered lately by our relationship had been happening, there was still that nagging feeling in me that was telling me something needed to be done.

What that was, I had no fucking clue.

If I dug down deep enough, I was positive that the answer would most likely have something to do with this long distance. Havinghim so far away from me the vast majority of the time was beginning to wear on me more than I initially suspected, causing these weird rifts that I couldn’t seem to stop myself from falling into, and taking him down with me.

Beating out my frustrations on Xavier wasn’t fair, especially since he had very limited time with me left—even with the extended few days Kate had apparently granted us with. He was, unfortunately, the closest punching bag that I had and all my brain wanted to do was scream ‘fire!’ and swing wildly.

The hand tightened on my shoulder once more.

Shaking my head, I said, “Yeah, sorry. It’s all good with me.”

“You sure?” he asked.

He seemed to be fishing for something—some kind of reassurance that I wasn’t simply giving in by being put on the spot. Even with my mood still in a weird place, that was very much appreciated. Getting pressured into doing things for the sake of keeping the peace annoyed me to no end.

“I’m sure. We can work on getting your return tickets sorted out tonight.”

Thankfully, he seemed to pick up on the hidden meaning underneath my nicely dressed words. “Why don’t we go to that now? Don’t need the seats to fill up on us.”

“Laptop’s in my room.” I nodded toward the hallway.

While I dreaded having any kind of conversation that would bring us right back to where we were at in the kitchen, there was also a part of me that needed to purge this toxic shit from my system. Getting it all out in the open—whatever it really was—would get us back on the same page again.

Hopefully.

Xavier smiled at me slightly, his hand dropping back down to his side. “Guess we won’t be needing to cram our entire itinerary into tomorrow after all.”

At that, Dexter turned to the twins and said, “That means I get to stay up until the sun rises.”

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