Branch One Hundred and Twenty Six
“Me? Never” Xavier said with her hands still in his.
“Oh well, you’ve got some moves. Maybe you have them naturally but I believe a man would only know how to do the things you do if he has had prior experience” she blurts out.Text © 2024 NôvelDrama.Org.
“What things?” he asked leaving her hand.
The warmth she had felt was gone but she was glad. She did not like the feeling she was getting from his hand over hers and at the same time, she did not want it to end.
“These things you do. You seem to flirt a lot” She blinked and faced the road.
“I do?” he said as if he was contemplating what she had said.
“Yes you do and quite a lot these days”
“Am I not supposed to?”
If she was being honest she did not know the right answer to the question. These days she was confused about even her own feelings. She knew that having them flirt can make them develop feelings for each other. She was not sure about him but she knew for sure it would make it easier for her to develop romantic feelings for him.
But she did not want the flirting to stop. She loved the sound of it and wanted it to go on but she did not want to be the one to say it. It will make her sound desperate.
“I do not have a say on that, you can do whatever you want to do,” she said finally.
“Well, you can flirt back I don’t mind”
“I don’t know how to flirt”
Xavier hummed as he nodded his head and tapped his fingers slightly on the edge of the steering wheel. She looked at his reaction and was curious as to why he reacted that way.
“What?” she asked feeling something was off as she watched him.
“You don’t know how to flirt but you can identify one when see one?” he asked a smirk forming on the corner of his lips.
“It’s just like how you can identify a thief if you see one even if you aren’t one,” she told him and realized how wrong that sounded when it came out.
“It seems like today isn’t my day at all. I keep making mistakes I should be sorry about. I sincerely apologize” she said bowing her head.
“You did not make a mistake. I actually do like your analogy. It makes sense to me at least”
She sighed in relief as she heard that. She was afraid she would have to explain what she meant by it. A thought dropped in her mind at that moment.
“Dawson told me that your birthday is next week. Is there anything you would like to do for yourself?” she asked.
“Why? Do you want to do it with me?” he asked back.
“Sure I would love to. As long as it is something I can and that is if you let me do it” she told him.
He got flustered and thrown aback. It was the first he experienced her being open. These days the only reason he teased her was because he felt a tad bit closer to her than the first time they met.
“You would now?” he asked shocked she was willing to do something she might not be interested in with him.
“Yeah sure”
“Well I don’t actually like celebrating my birthday,” he told her.
“Why?” she asked confused.
Yes, birthdays might be a time to spend money unnecessarily but it was a once in a year event.
“Don’t get me wrong, I am not ungrateful for the day. I just like keeping things on a low”
“Hmm Okay then”
“What?”
“Anything you say”
Now that she knew that he did not want to do anything special for his birthday she had to have the party Dawson wanted. She was going to put Jason and Brian in charge of getting him to the venue.
She was thinking of using the magnificent courthouse of the mansion but she was not sure yet. She has been sitting on her and recently and she needed to move faster than she could imagine herself doing.
“Let’s grab a late dinner”
“Roselle would have prepared something for us, we can just have that” she explained. She did not know how the house ran before she came to stay there but for the past few days, she had been busy Roselle had been doing a good job to ensure everyone for around to get three square meals no matter what.
“I just meant something light that we won’t have trouble digesting”
“Oh, I’m just worried that the food would go to waste”
“The house staff can always have it if we don’t”
“Then something extremely light”
Jessica liked the idea of having something else than home-cooked meals. She had always been an advocate for home-cooked meals but at this point, she too wanted to have some carbs.
“Let’s have some carbs then if we aren’t going for the food prepared at home,” Jessica said.
“Carbs it is,” he said accelerating a bit.
“Oh, I feel so sore. I think I will need to take a break next week to rest before the opening. I never knew it was this stressful to open up a restaurant of my own” she said a yawn escaping her lips.
“Why wait till next week to rest? I can take you to the beach tomorrow so you unwind” he suggested.
Tomorrow was Friday and she had her plate filled with a lot of activities. Her reason for choosing next week was because of his birthday. She would be able to plan it well without him getting suspicious.
Xavier hoped she would get the hint he dropped about going on a date with him. He did not want to say it out rightly but he wanted to go to the beach.
He remembered his last visit and the one they had while at Aurora Haven. Sitting on the beach and talking quietly to each other always left him at peace. He loved that and how she responded.
“I have a lot lined up tomorrow and it’s too late to cancel,” she said with a sigh of relief as her eyes darted to the dashboard clock in the car. She said it was late without being sure of the time but it was late.
“It is late” Xavier murmured back. “And I have a full schedule next week”
“I am sure sometime in the future you can clear a little time and we can to the beach”
The car dropped to dead silence and both of them looked away into the deadness of the road. The usual busy city road was now deserted as closing hours were long gone and it was workaholics and night crawlers who were available now.
“Anything would do right?” Xavier asked as he turned into a one lane road.
“Sure,” she said as she watched the road.