“Hazel?” he mumbles, and I sense, more than see his movement from the bed. “Is everything okay?”
With a click, the bedside lamp turns on, and I see Xavier squint against the light he’s not acclimated to.
He’s sitting up, the covers around his waist but his chest and torso bare, and I’m struck, for a moment, at the sight of his body. His thick, defined muscles, tanned skin, and the dark hair over his chest and forearms. He’s so masculine, so strong, and noticing this gives me a kind of pride. He’s my daddy. And he’s the best daddy.
It’s a childish thought, and I’m suddenly self-conscious about the fact that I’m standing in his room in my sleep shorts, holding a stuffed bunny by its ears, waking him up in the night because I need something. Because I’m scared. It’s a position I’ve been in many times before, but usually my mother was lying in the bed beside him, trying to sleep through my intrusion.
This time, her side of the bed is empty.
“Can I sleep with you?” I ask impulsively. I want to be near him. More than anything, I want us to move past everything that’s happened and just be close again. I want my dad.
“What’s wrong?” he asks, but I persist.
“Please, Dad? Can I sleep with you?”
“Of course.” He frowns, confused and concerned, as I walk around to my mother’s side of the bed and slide under the covers. “What’s going on, sweetheart?”
He turns on his side to face me, worried eyebrows pinched together.
“I just…feel sad,” I whisper, afraid to speak the words out loud. “I know some fucked up things happened, but can we please just go back to the way we used to be? Can we just forget it and go back to the way things were before?”
“Oh, honey.” His face collapses into sympathy, and he reaches a hand out to tuck a lock of hair behind my ear. “Oh, sweetheart. Of course. Please don’t feel sad.”
His words are a relief. His soft gaze, his finger as it grazes my cheek and runs behind my ear, his attention-it’s everything I want.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
He lifts himself up on his elbow, eyebrows raised. “Baby, you have nothing to feel sorry for. I’m the one who’s sorry. I’m sorry if I’ve made you feel alone. I’m just trying to give you space is all. I don’t want you to feel anything less than safe around me, do you understand? You’ll always be safe with me, I promise.”
Not safe? That’s the last thing I could ever feel around Xavier. My eyes trail down the arm at his side-his thick bicep and powerful forearm. It’s unusual to see him without his watch on. The skin is lighter around his wrist, where he’s developed a tan line. “Why wouldn’t I feel safe around you?” I ask in surprise.
“Because of…the kiss.” He hesitates. “And what happened after. Because of what you saw in the shower. It’s not appropriate, the way I’ve acted with you.” He lifts a hand to his eyebrows and pinches the skin above his nose, like he has a headache. “I’m so sorry, sweetheart.”
He’s avoiding me because of things I did? To make me feel safe? “But that was me, Dad,” I say in surprise. “I’m the one who did those things.”
“No, honey.” He lifts dark brown eyes up to me. Beautiful eyes-soulful eyes. The way he looks at me, as if he’s trying to read the slightest fleeting expression on my face, it’s what I love about Xavier. He can make you feel like the most important person in the world.
He reaches a hand around me and bends down to kiss my forehead. I’m exquisitely aware of the way his arm lies just under the swell of my breasts, the intimacy buffered somewhat by Bunners, who lies on my chest between us. The bare skin of his chest brushes against my shoulder.
“You’re not responsible for anything. You’re the kiddo. It’s my job to protect you, and that includes acting appropriately.”
I’m having an involuntary physical response to the proximity of his body-the warm, sleepy smell of his skin, the heavy muscle of his arm, his soft breath on my ear. My heartbeat increases and that yearning, aching sensation starts up again between my legs. It’s all so impossible. I want Xavier to love me as my dad, but I’m afraid of how much I want him in a different way.
It’s overwhelming, and to my own surprise, I feel tears well up and suddenly spill over.
“Baby?” Sounding distressed, Xavier lifts his arm up and moves away. “Sweetheart! What is it? Do you need me to give you some space?”
“No,” I blubber, squeezing my eyes together and crossing my arms tightly over my stuffy. “It’s not that. It’s, like, the opposite of that. It’s something bad, but I don’t know what to do about it.”
“You can tell me anything,” he says gently.
“There’s something wrong with me.”
“What is it?” His voice has a prying edge. “Tell me.”
I lift a hand to wipe my tears and raise my eyes to the ceiling. I can’t look at him. My voice, when it comes out, is a whisper.
“I think I’m in love with you.”
There.
I said it.
I don’t know what he’ll do with that information, but hopefully he’ll understand that I never wanted him to stay away from me, and that none of this is his fault. It’s all my fault.
I turn on my side away from him and weep with shame, curling my body around the stuffed rabbit I’ve been clinging to for years; that first soft talisman of Xavier’s love. Maybe I’ve always loved him. Who’s to say? I don’t know where on the spectrum love turns to lust, or what it means when it does.
He’s unmoving and silent behind me, and I can’t imagine what he’s thinking, or what happens next. Will he ask me to leave his bed? His house? But only a beat passes before I feel him shift closer to me, and pull me in against him.
“Sweetie,” he whispers in my ear, and his voice sounds hot and passionate-an emotional Xavier that’s unfamiliar to me. “Oh, sweetheart…”
He says nothing more, and neither do I. He just holds me close, and kisses my temple in a way that makes me ache for him, before burying his nose in my hair. My tears slow down and soon the storm passes. However depraved the revelation, the way he holds me shows me that he still loves me. Neither of us say anything else-there’s nothing else to say-but the way he holds me makes me feel like everything will be okay.