Page 56 of Pretend You're Mine
“I just wanted to say it myself,” he said. He had on a little hat that obscured his bald spot, and I could see he had Xander’s eyes almost exactly. His smile was wistful. “You make Xander a better man. I can see that now. And I won’t interfere any longer, I can promise you that. I am truly sorry Naomi. Welcome to our family, we’re lucky to have you.”
“Thank you,” I said, meaning it.
His apology, which I could see was genuine, was the cherry on an already sundae of a day
“Stealing Naomi already?” Xander’s question was light, but when he joined us, his face had a dark expression on it.
“He was just apologizing, actually,” I said.
His father gave a slight incline of his head. “For meddling where I shouldn’t have. Although now that you mention it, I do have a lot more things to apologize for.”
There was no warmth in Xander’s features, as he said, “You do.”
His hand closed over mine. “We have to mingle.”
I broke free, patted his hand. “It’s fine. You talk to your dad.”
His body was still facing me. “You sure?”
I gave his hand a squeeze. “I’m sure.”
I went to dance on the dance floor with some kids and a funny woman named Mia, and a few minutes later, Xander was joining me. He leaned in with a shining kid-like face. “We talked. For the first time in years, we really actually talked.” A broken smile. “You want to know something? I believe him. I forgive him.”
He draped his arms around me and we began to do a two-step. “I still think he’s a bastard for what he did. Cheating on my mom. But that was over a year ago now and Mom forgave him. That doesn’t make what he did okay, far from it. It’s just….”
“He’s your dad,” I said. “And hating him took too much energy anyway.”
Xander’s look grew curious.
“Believe me,” I said, “I had to do a shit-ton of forgiveness work to stop hating Eric so much that I’d wish he’d die in a fiery car crash.”
“Damn.” Xander whistled, but I could see he was half-smiling. “So you don’t anymore?”
“For the most part.” I grinned.
Xander chuckled, then I said, “Seriously though, no. I mean, if something bad happened to him I don’t know if I’d be sad exactly. But I don’t hate him anymore at least. Anyway, want to open the gifts now?”
“Hell yeah,” Xander said.
I was lucky I hadn’t forgotten to bring my bag, which I’d stashed by the door as we came in.
In the lobby, parked on a lush black leather seat, we gave each other our gifts. Xander opened mine first. He laughed at the sight of the dog booties for Walter, saying, “If anyone can get him to wear those, it’ll be you.”
The Dali wallet, however, left him downright grinning for a half-hour. He kept turning it in his hands, taking in the liquefied-looking leather clocks, the same as Dali’s most famous painting, The Persistence of Memory.
“You can actually get ones like this?”
“Yeah, if you try hard enough,” I said.
What I didn’t mention was that I’d had to hound some online custom wallet maker two days ago and offer an exorbitant amount for her to agree to make the Dali wallet last-minute.
Anyway, now it was time for my gift and the way Xander was watching me intently made me feel uneasy.
“It’s not annulment papers is it?” I asked, only half-joking.
“Thanks for having such high expectations of my gift,” Xander said cheerfully. “Now open it,” he barked.
“Okay, grumpy,” I said, although I did as I was told.
The green and red wrapped present was small, about the size of a ring box and for second, I was afraid that was just what Xander had done. As close as we had grown in these last few days, I definitely wasn’t ready to receive a real ring from him.
We’d just gotten to a place where we could admit that we had real feelings for each other, now wasn’t the time to put a ring on it.
Inside though, folded into small squares, there was something much, much better.
“Tickets, to Germany?!” I lifted them in front of my face, staring at the type as if it would change the longer I stared. But there it was, one week from now, tickets to Berlin, flying First Class.
“No pressure,” Xander said, “But I’m pretty sure that Walter would hate Germany.”
I could only laugh. “Guess that’s it then. Although there’s just one thing we have to do first.”
“What?” Xander said.
I kissed him full on the lips, the kiss making its way to his ear. “Take me back to your place.”
“Speaking of,” Xander said. “Forgot to tell you about the other part of your gift.”
“There’s another part?”
He linked his arm through mine and led me towards the elevator. “You’ll see.”
