Page 81 of Sweeper
I retrieve a couple of bottles of water, and as I close the refrigerator, I spot the cookie I took out of the freezer earlier today. I had planned to give it to him tonight after he got back from his match and nearly forgot.
“To keep the tradition alive,” I announce as I hold the cookie in front of his face.
“Oh,” Zander exclaims with a bit more volume than seems necessary. “You really didn’t have to.”
“Of course I did,” I reply with a huff as I sit down on the other side of the sofa. “You’re on a winning streak, and you don’t want to mess it up.” His face looks a bit odd as I sit and wait for him to eat it. “Well, go on then.”
“Aren’t you going to have one with me?” he asks, his eyes looking somewhat nervous for some peculiar reason. Maybe it’s just the dim lighting in here from my twinkle lights.
“No, I can’t stand raisins.” I scrunch my nose up and shake my head. “That one’s all yours. Enjoy.”
He nods and smiles as he takes a tentative bite. His lips purse together as he makes a noise in the back of his throat.
“Good?” I ask excitedly.
“Mm-hmm,” he mumbles and then points at his mouth, indicating he can’t talk since his mouth is full. After a long bit of chewing for such a small bite, he finally swallows and says, “Very kind of you,” before he hurries to uncap his water and take a large drink. “Makes me thirsty.”
“Well, you played an amazing game, so you deserve it.”
He exhales and puts the rest of the cookie back into the container, then sets it on the arm of the sofa behind him. It’s quiet for a moment, neither of us saying anything and both of us focusing on our water bottles far more than is necessary.
“Well, this is awkward,” I say to break the tension.
“Why is it awkward?” He frowns back at me.
I huff out a laugh. “Maybe because we still have our clothes on?”
Zander smiles and shakes his head. “We could sit here naked if you’d like. I’m a giver like that.”
He winks back at me, and it causes my insides to flutter. “Thanks, but I’ll pass.”
He wipes a few cookie crumbs off his thigh before asking, “Do you want to tell me what that was all about at Old George?”
My body tenses with embarrassment because I wish I wouldn’t have gotten so upset earlier. It was childish and stupid and not the direction I wanted tonight to go.
It’s infuriating that my past is trying to overshadow my present. Especially because, as it turns out, I like my present circumstances! I have a cute footballer stretched out on my sofa. He’s sexy and big and brawny, and he’s looking at me with concern and offering me some form of comfort. What do I have to be upset about, really?
I shrug. “You basically know already.”
“I do?”
“Well, I told you before about my ex that stole from me,” I begin because I’d rather tell Zander the full story than have him think I was being dramatic down at the pub.
“Yeah…” He watches me thoughtfully.
“Well, it was my music that he stole.”
Zander blinks back at me, his face the picture of serious as he waits for me to continue.
“I started writing my own songs when I was sixteen. I had fourteen fully produced tracks by the time I was twenty. I’d recorded them all in my sound booth back home. Just an acoustic album. Nothing fancy or professional. But I had these wild dreams of selling my stuff to a record company and hearing them performed by like Florence + The Machine or Tove Lo turning it into an ethereal pop song or even something really moody and haunting by Birdy.”
“That sounds amazing,” Zander says, his eyes alight with so much genuine excitement, it kind of breaks my heart to know I’m going to let him down with what comes next.
“Well, I was twenty-three and performing a few of my songs at local pubs. I really hate being on stage, and that will never change, but it’s the best way to get noticed if you want to sell your music to a label.”
“Okay…”
“Then I met Rex,” I state flatly, leaving no room for interpretation. “Or Rex the Hex as Phoebe and I refer to him now. He was at a pub where I was performing, said he loved my music, and we just hit it off. Honestly, I fell head over heels for him. I think it was the first bloke I really dated that felt like a proper grown-up relationship. He even said he had friends in the music industry he could share my tracks with, so I felt like I’d really hit the jackpot with him.
