Page 46 of Enjoying the Band in Lockdown

“Ignore the competition. This is you and me.”

“I can’t.”

“Do you really think I give a damn about the clock?” If I said it often enough, he’d have to hear me, believe me, trust me.

“But that’s the point.”

“No, it’s not the point,” I cried, needing him to listen. Really listen. “The point is you and me. Everything else—”

“I know you keep saying, everything else is icing on our cake,” he spat, no longer believing.

“Xav, we are the cake. You and me. All the other bullshit doesn’t matter.”

“It matters to me. I’m never gonna live it down if I can’t make my girl come.”

I needed to save Xavier from his own demons. The other guys, I could shut them down easy enough. It was Xav I needed to protect. Curling up on the edge of the bed, I patted the clean sheet. Willing him to take a step back so we could move forward.

“Xav, I think they’ve heard me scream your name often enough. They’ve heard me scream it on the bus. They heard me scream it out from the bedroom, from the beer garden, from the cellar,” I ran out of fingers, “From behind the pool table. If we think back, they’ve heard me scream out your name from just about every blade of grass on the property. You don’t have anything to prove.”

“Well, maybe I need to prove it to myself.”

I kept reaching for his hands until he stopped slapping them away. Next step was to get him to sit next to me. Whatever magic my eyes still had, they finally worked their charm.

“Xav, please talk to me.”

“I see the way they look at you. They all want you. They’re all just waiting for me to fuck up. My brother’s waiting for me to fuck up while the world is watching, and the whole world is waiting for me to come crashing down on my ass and prove I’m nothing but a worthless piece of shit.”

“You’re not.” My words fell flat. I wanted to reassure him that I couldn’t love a useless piece of shit, but that wasn’t us. What the fuck did love mean, anyway? What I felt for Xavier was intense, powerful and more than I’d felt for a man before, but I had incredible chemistry and connections with the others. After today, even Trent.

Love.

A fool’s game.

I selected my words carefully, leaning back to give him space. He had to come back to me, and I had to trust he would. “What you and I have is not up for negotiation. It’s not up for contest. What you and I have is unexpected, unprecedented. It’s something I wasn’t looking for.”

“What’s your real name?” He asked out of the blue. Catching me by such surprise, I almost answered.

“Really, you’re going to hold that over my head right now?”

“You say that what we’ve got is special but—”

“Xav, I’ve told you more than I’d ever share with the others.” At least when I lay back, he lay next to me. Our bodies almost touching, but he wasn’t there, not yet. “You know about my pet dog that kept stealing ice creams and swallowing the sticks when I was growing up. You know where I grew up. You know I can out-surf most people but I don’t like it. You know that I hate playing sports, but love watching them. Live, not recorded or replays.”

I rolled to my side, and he turned to face me.

Yes.

We could do this.

“You know my taste in music. You know my taste in men, and that’s you.”

“And a few of my friends,” he whispered. A sign of regret?

“Only with you.”

“Wasn’t this whole competition about them carving out time to have you to themselves.”

“They’re fun, I wouldn’t be doing it if I wasn’t having fun. But the only relationship that matters is us.”

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