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“We’re talking shit out.”
“I’m not feeling that at this particular moment.”
“You don’t let messy shit like this fester.”
“Okay, how about making an appointment with me so we can sort this out in order to be able to carry on without any of our friends being sucked into our messy stuff. But that can’t be now. I have plans this morning.”
“At five o’clock?”
“Yes,” I snapped.
“You don’t go to work until eleven.”
“So?” I asked sharply. “I have a morning ritual. I never break my morning ritual.”
“And what’s this ritual that’s more important than working shit out?”
When he said that, he sounded a hint less bossy, but he added more than a hint of curiosity.
“I need to journal.” About you being a big meanie, I did not share. “Make a smoothie. Hit my Pilates class. Come home, have breakfast, shower and get ready to go to work.”
“None of that is important except the last part, babe.”
“To you,” I retorted. “It is to me.”
“Today, you’re making an exception.”
“I am not,” I refuted. “Rituals are important. They’re grounding. The very definition of a ritual is not making an exception to the ritual.”
He let out a big sigh, and even if it sounded, as well as felt frustrated, the feeling part of that also felt awesome.
Because everything about Javi was awesome.
Ugh!
Why me?
“I was a dick last night,” he started (okay, well, that wasn’t awesome).
You were.
“You were being real,” I amended.
“Harlow—”
“And that’s okay.”
“Babe—”
“Well, not okay, because what you said wasn’t nice. But it was honest.”
“Woman—”
“And it hurt. I didn’t like it. But it’s out there now so we just have to figure out how to be around each other without anyone else knowing how much you don’t like me.”
When I finished speaking, my stomach bottomed out because I sensed everything about him change. Get gentle. He didn’t move a muscle, but even his weight felt lighter.
All this before he whispered, “I don’t?—”