Baewatch - Xavier Neal Page 0,61
seems to tear him in one direction; however, he veers in another. “Brooklyn, I’m sorry for how I treated you the other day at the shop. I know I’ll probably never be able to erase the pain or embarrassment I caused, but I want you to know that I understand I fucked up, and I’m willing to do whatever it takes to make it up to you.”
Unsure of what would make me feel better, I simply remain silent.
“Knox knows you’re my girlfriend,” he announces as Houndrix begins to snore in his comfortable state of occupying my lap. “She knew you were the woman I love the moment she saw you.”
“How?”
“According to her, the way she caught me looking at you.”
Not swooning is improbable.
“I’ve never looked at her the way I look at you…” His hands fold tightly together in front of him. “Knox was…an important part of my life.”
“Then why don’t you talk about her?” My head falls curiously to the side. “That’s not to say I’m dying to know all about your adventures together, but if she meant that much, why don’t you bring her up? Why have I only heard about her in passing…like twice? Three times maybe? And it’s obvious she meant something to you by the way you disregarded our relationship like you were subconsciously trying to preserve the chance to have another one with her.”
“That’s exactly what happened.”
His confession doesn’t ignite comfort.
“For so long, that’s how I lived. Every woman I…allowed into my life was Knoxie’s placeholder. I obsessed over someone who obsessed over someone else. Before you, there wasn’t a person I would’ve picked over Knox. I thought she was it for me. I thought someday, the sun would hit the shore just right, and she would come running to me like a weird real-life Little Mermaid scenario where I was Ariel and she was Prince Eric. In reality, it’s exactly what happened, except instead of that moment where they get a happily ever after, it’s that one where he chooses the hot version of Ursula instead, because she’s got Ariel’s voice.”
The choice of comparison isn’t at all surprising; however, his relationship with his ex is sadder than I realized.
“It wasn’t me she loved. It wasn’t me she was ever going to love. And, no matter how many times I was the one who held her when she cried, who went out of his way to be the one to make her smile, who probably would’ve done anything she asked, it wasn’t going to be me she was waving off into the sunset with.”
“Why did you let her lead you on so long?”
“That’s the thing…,” Ax’s thumbs fidget with each other, “she didn’t.”
My brow scrunches in confusion.
“Knox was honest from the first dive. She knew who she loved. She knew who she wanted to be with. She knew she’d rather die sad and alone and at his side than spend her life with…a backup board.” A small shrug leaves him. “I was the stupid one who got his fucking feelings involved.”
“Is that when she ended it?”
“I ended it.”
His statement once more shocks me.
“Madden – the man who is now her husband but at the time was just a selfish prick who needed to get his shit together – had done something to piss her off, so she drove all the way out to see me-”
“Here?!” Jealousy boils to the surface bringing the low ringing to a loud blare. “Did you sleep with her here? Was this place her home away from home? Her escape? Her safe haven?”
“No.” The shaking of his head calms my irritation sails. “Knox never stepped foot here.”
I relax a little more into my seat, hand landing on Houndrix’s tummy to rub.
“She never met Houndrix. Remember, he came after her.”
“Right…”
“She never played a drinking game to Forgetting Sarah Marshall on my couch. She never cooked her grandmother’s macaroni pie in my kitchen or shaved her legs in my bathroom sink.”
“It wasn’t my whole leg! I was just trimming up!”
Ax chuckles at my outburst and hearing the sound soothes the one of stress back to a low murmur.
“She always got a hotel room.”
Gratitude instantly makes a grand appearance.
“I showed up, we had sex, and then she did what she always did. She vented. She yelled and screamed about everything she hated only for that to lead her to cry about all she loved. How she felt unloved. How only his love mattered to her. She said those specific words, and I knew