I nod but stay quiet. I don’t really want to talk about it. There is only one thing I want to talk about, and I have felt that I can’t these last few months. As if by magick Xane senses where I want the topic to head and he asks, “Have you made any progress?”
“Yes,” I say quickly and then curse my eagerness.
“Oh?” he asks, sitting up. “I thought you hit a wall?”
“Err,” I say, looking away and fiddling with my rings.
“Xerxei?” he asks me. “What did you do?”
Geez, he knows me about as well as CK does.
“Nothing,” I lie, but he takes my face in his hands and turns me towards him.
“Whatever it is, you can tell me. I won’t judge you, Xerxei. I love you,” he says.
“If I tell you, do you swear you will keep it between us? The others won’t understand,” I say. I miss Lincoln even more in this moment. He was always the one that I went to with issues such as these.
“Of course,” he says. “I will always support you.”
I smile at him and I feel a rush of love go through me for him. I cup his face and lean forward to kiss him and then say, “I saw him.”
His eyes widen in surprise, but then he says suspiciously, “What happened?”
“We spoke and I made some progress with him,” I say.
“You spoke? About what?” he asks.
“Stuff,” I say evasively, and he rolls his eyes at me.
“Really? You are g
oing to try and blow me off with ‘stuff’?” he asks.
I shrug. “Okay, we did more than speak. I had to show him with actions what I have been trying to tell him for months but failing miserably because I couldn’t say the actual words,” I blurt out, kind of relieved to have said it out loud.
“What?” he snaps at me. “What are you saying exactly?”
“Hey, you said you wouldn’t judge,” I pout at him.
He straightens his furious features and says innocently, “I’m not judging.”
“Yes, you are,” I accuse him.
“I don’t even know what you did, Xerxei,” he says, reminding me that I haven’t actually said it yet.
“If you need it spelled out for you, we had sex,” I say, looking him dead in the eye.
“You had what?” he splutters.
“Sex, Xane. You know, when a man puts his…”
“Yes, I get it,” he snaps at me again. “No need for sarcasm.”
He chews his lip as I just watch him and then he says, “You fucked him in an attempt to get him to trust you?”
I open my mouth to blast him for his coarse words–he makes it sound so dirty–but then close it when he adds, “It’s genius. Why did you not do it months ago?”
“So glad you approve,” I mutter. “It didn’t occur to me because it is so distasteful.”