Page 26 of Quiet as Kept
She was still talking, telling me all of the positives about the island, while I sat there staring at her. I heard her talking, but I wasn’t listening. I was too busy watching her mouth move, her eyes blink, her lips form letters, and her hands gesture. She talked with her hands—animatedly. Her gestures gave her a youthfulness, a lightness. As I watched her, I categorized in my mind how she looked to me.
She looked like lazy Saturday afternoons spent on picnic blankets. She looked like easy conversations on long road trips. She looked like peaceful weekday mornings, getting the girls ready for school. She looked like passionate nights in my bed.
She cocked her head to the side.
“Why are you shaking your head? You don’t agree that Jackson Island is like a magical fairyland?”
“Nah. Nah.” I shook my head and tried to wade through the confusion of coming back to the present in the middle of her conversation. “It’s definitely a special place. My mind drifted and?—”
“I’m talking too much. I’m going to shut up now.”
“Nah, don’t do that. Keep talking.”
“Kept, you’re not even paying any attention.”
“I’m paying attention. I got distracted watching your lips move.” I hadn’t meant to say that aloud. “Sorry. What I meant—” Before I could finish my thought and correct myself, Destin was demanding my attention.
Once I dealt with Destin, the waitress was at the table asking about our orders.
“You zoning out while I was talking definitely means that I’m talking too much.”
“You’re cool,” I assured her.
“I’m just going to say this one last thing, then I’ll hush.”
I smiled at her terminology.
“After seeing your homes, I’m not surprised that you’re so successful. Your homes really are spectacular, Kept. I mean, I’m awed by the house you built for yourself. But I realize that you built that home for yourself and for your girls. To see you put that same care and concern into the homes you build for strangers . . . it says a lot about the type of person you are.”
“What does it say, Xarielle?” I wasn’t fishing for compliments. I was genuinely curious about what she thought of me.
She pushed a few of the braids she wore away from her face, tucking them behind her ear.
“To me it says that you’re a man who strives for excellence. You don’t see others as being unworthy of having the same things you have. You have integrity.” Her cheeks blushed red, and she quickly looked down at the table.
I tried not to let my chest puff with the pride I felt from her assessment, but I did allow myself to silently bask in her approval.
“You’re really out here building dream homes, Kept,” Xarielle told me later that night as we chilled on the back deck once the girls were asleep.
She’d been sitting on the sofa, her legs stretched out on it, when I came outside. I’d lifted her feet, placing them in my lap.
“I mean, a lot of these people on Jackson Island seem wealthy, so they probably don’tdreamof homes the way I do. They can probably have any home they can envision.”
“I like that you like them.”
“I do.”
Silence fell over the two of us.
“I never really saw this,” she gestured between the two of us, “for us. Sitting here talking like this.”
“Yeah. I have a tendency to not talk to too many people.”
“You’re sociable with who you want to be sociable with. When we were growing up, you talked to Nehemiah nonstop. I’m sure you talk to the people who work for you. There’s no way your properties would be as beautiful as they are if you didn’t talk to the painter or the floor guy or the landscaper or the designer. Apparently, you talked to the girls’ mother. You had to say something to get her to engage with you. To give you children.”
I couldn’t help the chortle that slipped out.
“Anyway, you’re doing a great job with Dakota and Destin. They’re the sweetest girls. They’re so kind and so loving. I love them to pieces. They’ve stolen my entire heart.”