Defenseman No. 9 - Xavier Neal Page 0,63

one time?”

“Never heard that complaint before,” I tease between chews. “Guess there’s a first time for everything, though.”

Redness instantly breaks out across his face. “That’s not what I meant.”

“It’s how I’m taking it.”

My laughter is proceeded by another question, “Why do you like those things so much?”

“It’s like tasting the rainbow.” The wink he’s shot receives another blush. “And, who, in their right mind, could pass on that?”

There’s a small head shake attached to his snicker. “What am I gonna do with you?”

“Watch me eat candy, finish the opera with my parents, then take me to your place to fuck me crazy?”

I expect the comment to receive chastising – after all, we are in public where anyone who could afford a ticket could hear – yet I’m given a playful grin instead. “I can handle that.”

Another wink is shot his direction prior to me emptying more of the box’s contents into my hand.

Honestly, I don’t think there’s anything my best friend can’t handle, and lord knows I keep pushing the high heel.

Some of it consciously.

Some of it…unconsciously.

Things have been far from a smooth transition from friends to a couple, and I’ll say it, only because I know no one can hear it, most of the weight belongs on my ballerina-loving shoulders. Hugo doesn’t, exactly, ask for much, but what he does ask for seems like too much to someone who is not used to being asked for the shit he’s asking for. I didn’t realize it was such a big deal to have dinner together every night, considering most of my previous hookups happened well after that meal. It never occurred to me that, maybe, someone wouldn’t mind me leaving little shit like my nail polish out on their coffee table rather than keeping it stuffed away in my bag. And, the thought of consulting someone about changes in social plans involving me is hardly something I can fathom at all. Like, I’m gonna do my shit, you’re gonna do your shit, and we’ll do couple shit when we do couple shit.

But, that’s wrong.

And, after an ugly argument that I swore was going to end with Hugo saying this shit is over, I realized that he had a valid point.

Things have been a little one-sided.

I flake and don’t think twice.

I make other plans and don’t consult him.

I flip out when he’s alone with Leif in his apartment for even five fucking minutes yet expect him to just be okay with the amount of dicksucking DMs I get on a daily – including the ones from some of my exes, like Jevin.

Having Hugo quietly verbalize what’s, apparently, been bothering him since he stamped my ass with the boyfriend label had me squeaking and shrieking and, eventually, trying not to cry over how right he was.

How wrong I’ve been.

How hard it is to be a boyfriend instead of just a fuck boy.

After our big fight, really our first fight, we came to a couple of agreements. He would work on not keeping his feelings bottled up, and I would work on being a little less selfish, something I know I look tonight since we didn’t do the cooking class it was obvious he had his heart set on. It’d be a lie to say I wanted to go to that shit instead of this, but it’s not a lie that it did hurt to see him trying to hide his sadness.

To mask that being here isn’t, at all, what he wanted.

I offered to let us do shit separately tonight.

Him to go to whatever health nut event and me to do this with my parents, yet he refused.

Insisted he’d come with if they could score him a ticket.

That being with me on a Saturday night was what mattered most.

A little fun fact he proved by, unexpectedly, buying a tux to wear for tonight, eating over-priced crab cakes, and pretending to enjoy the style of music, as well as dance, I highly doubt he’s into.

I bought him a fancy, new mixing bowl and some really expensive whisk that I let the sales clerk convince me would make all his cooking dreams come true, kind of like a consolation prize, for not getting to go to the class he wanted, but after all the extra he’s putting into tonight, I think I’m gonna have to go back to the store and get more shit to make him smile – the same way he always makes me smile.

“You know these are fat free,” the jovial nature