“Your nails. They look like crap.”
“Jesus, enough – get out or we’re not coming over, and delete that picture.”
“Okay, okay, I’m going. But I’m not deleting it!”
“Lexi!”
But it’s too late, she skips out of the bathroom, through to the bedroom and the hallway and out the door before Bianca can catch her.
“Fucking sisters.”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“Shit!”
Xavier, he’s still here. In her kitchen. Making breakfast?
“Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you.”
“Did you cook?”
He shrugs. “Just some eggs and toast.” Then he clears his throat roughly. “Your, um . . .” He trails off, lifting the spatula he’s used to move the scrambled eggs from the pan to plates to gesture at her, back and forth.
Glancing down, Bianca lets out a squeak. Her robe . . . wasn’t completely open, but there’d been quite a bit of her on display. She fumbles to hold it closed.
“Can we just pretend like the last fifteen minutes never happened?” she pleads. “I’m so sorry about my sister and literally whatever she said to you.”
He shrugs, as if Lexi hadn’t probably interrogated him to within an inch of his life in whatever time she had with him alone. “She was fine. Sorry if I, uh, overstepped with the breakfast thing. I just know that I do better after a night of drinking if I have a decent breakfast.”
“No, it’s fine – great, actually.” She’s not the kind of hungover where the thought of eating makes her want to throw up; instead she needs something to get her body running again.
His face lights up in the brightest smile she’s ever seen, and something about it just makes her even more aware of the weight of that ring on her finger.
“Did you, uh, tell her the truth?” he asks, putting their plates down at her kitchen table and sitting.
“No, I . . .” She trails off, sitting just like he did. “I was going to, but then she just pissed me off again, and before I knew it, I was just making more shit up about how you proposed when we got back last night.”
“That part’s kind of true,” he says with a rueful grin.
Letting out a soft laugh, Bianca agrees. “Yeah, but now she invited us over to her house for dinner to celebrate and I said I’d talk to you about it, but you definitely don’t have to go. I’ll figure something else out and then tell her it was just a stupid prank.”
“I mean, we can do that if you want, but I don’t mind going to dinner. Not gonna lie, I kind of want to see her face when you tell her. She clearly loves you, but you shouldn’t take people you love for granted and that’s what she did last night.”
The firm way he says it makes it sound completely rational. And he’s right. Lexicouldhave come last night, but she chose not to.
“My sister is a great cook, but I’ll ask her to make moussaka because there’s like a billion steps and that’ll be sufficient penance.”
“Revenge served hot?”
Bianca snorts. “Exactly. Okay, I’ll text her.”
It’s weirdly incredibly easy to just sit and have breakfast with him. It’s been . . . a really long time since she’s had a man in her apartment, but he seems to fit in her space. He’s sitting in front of the kitchen wall, which has a few plants lining the shelves, greenery hanging down. His hair is damp from the shower and that scruff is still there, his Indiana Jones-vibe going strong.
They talk about his upcoming thesis defense, which she’s absolutely sure he’s going to ace. He’s prepared and ready, just like she was. And when they finish the eggs and toast and she teases him about the gross combination he made when he fished some peanut butter out of her cabinets to make a peanut butter and egg sandwich, he says he’s going to head back to his place to do some prepping for next week.
“Should I just meet you there tonight or I could pick you up and drive?” he asks, as she walks him to the door.
“Oh, yeah, sure, that’d be great. I’ll text you when Lexi lets me know what time and . . .”
