october 30th
london, england
WE BAKED HALLOWEEN CAKES. Yes, you're hearing it correctly – Xavier Montgomery and Autumn Morris baked fucking Halloween cakes and cookies. He kept avoiding the question why we were doing it, but it was okay, because we were having so much fun. As immature as he was, he fucked up all the cookies by making most of them dick-shaped, but at least they were edible.
"Maybe we should bake some edibles," Xavier suggested, "space cake will do."
"Perfect plan. I brought some marijuana in my suitcase, just in case." I wiggled my brows at him and he started laughing.
"How do you do that?" he asked.
"What? Wiggling my brows like this?" I did it again and he nodded.
"I can't do that." Instead of wiggling his eyebrows, he accidentally wiggled his ears, enlarged his nostrils and moved his eyeballs in all directions. I burst out in laughter and tried to hide it by covering my mouth with my hands.
"Oh, sod off!" he pushed my shoulder, but laughed about it as well.
"I'm sorry, I just-" I tried to catch my breath, but that was hard especially since he tried to wiggle his eyebrows again, "you look so fucking ugly when you do that. Like, everything moves except your eyebrows."
"You have no right to say that, because you're always ugly."
"So your fetish is having sex with ugly women?"
"Fuck you." He grabbed the bag of flour and ominously started walking towards me, so I backed off immediately and hid behind the counter in kitchen of his apartment.
He tried to grab and shower me with flour, but I was too fast for him. At one point, I was standing across from him on the other side of the counter. When he suddenly jumped over it and grabbed me, there was no way to go.
"Please, don't do it," I begged him as he pushed me to the wall.
"And why wouldn't I?"
"Because... I'm sweet?"
"You insulted me so now you need to be punished."
"You really are Christian Grey, aren't you?"
"I told you I'm more like Anastasia."
There we stood against the wall, the wall where we kissed the night we had sex. The only difference was that he didn't have a pack of flour in his hand back then. His eyes got darker the longer he looked at me. This man was so intimidating that I didn't know what to say. All I could do was stare at him and admire every feature that caught my eye. Even from this close distance he looked perfect.
He dropped the flour onto the floor and put both his hands beside my head against the wall. His breathing pace started getting faster and his eyes appeared almost completely black, except for the gold specks. Those never disappeared and made sure there would always be this liveliness in his eyes when they got very dark.
"Xavier," I mumbled.
"Autumn," he said with his raspy voice, "would you rather be Anastasia?"
"I would rather be Christian."
"Prove it."
I turned the tables, so that Xavier was the one standing against the wall. He grabbed my ass and pulled me closer, but I pushed myself out of his grip and turned around to stand with my butt against his crotch.
"Hmm," he said when I got low. Little did he know that I did it to grab some flour off the ground and splash it into his face.
His face was so priceless, that I couldn't help but die.
"You are unbelievable, Summer Morris." He coughed a couple of times as he tried to swipe the flour off his face.
"I'm amazing, should've filmed it," I said as I handed him a napkin, "you're so easy when it's about sex."
"I'm a man!" he exclaimed as he threw his hands into the air, "you can't blame my manhood."
"Our deal doesn't include having sex, Xavier."
"You're the only woman around me, what do you expect me to do?"
"I'm not always horny either, am I?"
"My balls are going to explode if I don't ejaculate soon."
"Then find someone else."
I didn't know why I said that.
"Oh yeah?" he raised his brows, "You'd get mad if I fucked another girl."
"You've probably already done that."
"I didn't. I couldn't have another woman leaving my apartment, the media would think I'd be cheating on you."
"Smart."
"Pity, otherwise I would've fucked another fifty."
I rolled my eyes and cleaned up the mess I had made.
"Don't bother, my maid will do that," Xavier said as he took off his apron.
"I made this mess, so I'm going to clean it up."
"But I fucking pay her to clean up rubbish."
"I feel sorry that she has to work for you."
"Why are you acting so angry?"
"I'm not acting angry."
"You are."
"I'm not."
"You are. You're almost breaking my floor."
I stopped cleaning up and sighed deeply.
"Fuck off."
"No, you fuck off. Why would you get angry with me because I said that I'd fuck fifty girls if you weren't here? Do you care about me or something?"
"Why are you putting it as if caring is something bad?"
"I don't want you to fucking care about me, Autumn. Caring isn't part of our deal either."
I stood up and faced him.
"You think spending all day with you isn't going to make me care about you? I don't know what cold person you are if you don't feel the same."
"Then I must be very fucking cold."
Xavier held my gaze for a couple of seconds, showing nothing but nothing. When he left the kitchen, I closed my eyes and breathed out loudly. I hated myself for being such a fool to believe that Xavier cared about me too. We were able to have fun and make jokes all day long, but he did not consider me as a friend, because friends were useless. He must've only seen me as someone who entertained him, made him feel less lonely maybe. The thing was that I didn't know anything about him – only that he was cold and unable to care. He also was a good actor, he could easily make up lies and convince people. A manipulator for his own goods and he even succeeded to manipulate me.
What if he was afraid and suffered from a fear of commitment.
"Stupid, stupid deal," I said to myself as I cleaned up the kitchen and baked the rest of the cookies and cakes.
When I took a look at the clock, half an hour had passed. I sat down on the edge of the counter and checked my phone. I scrolled through some headlines about Xavier and me, looked at the photos of us acting like a perfect couple and then focused on the reactions. Overall, people seemed to like us together and there were some negative comments too, but I didn't care about them. I checked my bank account and the amount of money on it was close to scary. Never had I been so rich in my life...
My mom's name popped up in the center of my screen and I read her message.
mom
When will you be coming home?
I don't know yet
Oh. How is London?
beautiful, but cold
It's cold in Dallas too.
Tom wants to know if you'll be celebrating Christmas with us this year.
I'll probably come by during Christmas
No Christmas eve together? 😢
I'll feel like the third wheel with you and Tom 😛
Ok. I'll call you soon.
Suddenly, Xavier's phone lightened up on the counter beside me. Me, a curious creature, couldn't help but look at who was calling him.
Heather Greinfield.
"Xavier!" I yelled as I grabbed the ringing phone and headed towards the living room, "Xavier, someone's calling you!"
He came out of his bedroom and grasped the phone out of my hand. He looked at the screen for a second with a frown and then picked up the phone.
"Hi, Heather." He scratched the side of his head and let his hand slid through his hair. "Yes, I'm home. Why? Eh- I don't... No, I'm not busy. Sure? Alright, bye for now."
He put his phone is his pocket and looked at me.
"Do you know Heather Greinfield?" he asked.
"Yes."
"She's coming over to have a little talk with me. Don't ask me about what, because I don't know either."
"Oh," I said, "Then I'll go get myself a coffee."
"Okay."
I turned around to grab my coat, scarf and gloves and walked to the elevator. When I pushed the button, I heard Xavier's voice behind me.
"Autumn?"
"Yes?" I looked at him over my shoulder, but he gestured that it was nothing. I shrugged and got into the elevator.
I wondered what Heather wanted to discuss with Xavier. I didn't know anything about her or what their past relationship had been like, but I had nothing to worry about. It was none of my business after all.
When I got my Starbucks coffee and sat by the window, I received an incoming call from Valentina.
"Hey, Val."
"Autumn, hi. I want to apologize for being such a bitch the other day."
"You were already forgiven, I didn't take it personally."
"Thank God."
"What's up though?"
"Not very much. The girls and I hung out together, we missed ya."
"Ah, I miss you too. I'm so sad that I can't be with you during Halloween."
"Well, I heard they gave amazing parties in London."
"I have no friends here."
"You have Montgomery."
"He's not really a party person. We did bake Halloween cake and cookies though, ended up in a quarrel."
"Ha, you two are like a married couple."
"Gross. That would be my death."
"You like him."
"Get out of here."
"Why the fuck you lying, why you always lying, oh my god."
"Shut the fuck up."
"Make me. You and Xavier would make a good couple – you two really share the same traits. Being annoying is one of them."
"Xav and I? A good couple?"
"Xav?"
"What?"
"You said Xav."
"Did I..."
"Oh my god, you have a nickname for him! Have you guys already kissed?"
"No!"
"Yeaaah, sure..."
"I swear."
A weird feeling of being stared at transported itself through my body. I looked around until I found someone's gaze. They stared right into my eyes and distracted me from listening to Valentina going on and on about Xavier and what we might had done.
The person's eyes felt so notorious, but I was having a hard time trying to identify the person. She looked at me the same way I was looking at her, she recognized me too. Then she raised her hand, doubting, and waved at me. When she exposed a little smile, I knew exactly who it was.
"Autumn?" I heard Valentina's voice through the speaker of my phone.
The woman turned around to talk to a man and pointed at me.
"Val..." I gasped.
"What's going on? Do you see Harry Styles or something?"
"Blanche and my dad..."
"What?"
When my dad saw me from across the room, he covered his mouth with his coated in gloves hands. I grabbed my stuff, quickly put on my coat and held the phone closely to my ear.
"I don't know what do to," I mumbled quietly.
"Just- eh... Calm down? Maybe talk to them?"
"I haven't seen them since I was eleven."
Blanche grew up to be a beautiful woman. She had colored her hair blonde, but kept the natural curls to still be like the Blanche I remembered. Her face didn't change much which was scary. I could still see her smile when we used to play with dolls or when she helped me do my homework. She looked as caring as ever, as sweet as ever, as everything I would never be as ever.
Seeing her in that moment made me realize how much I missed her. How much I missed being around someone just like me, someone who would fight me, but help me whenever I needed that. I never understood why they left my mother and me like that. I never understood why my very own sister left me like that and never contacted me again. They were my family.
"Autumn," my dad walked up to me and when he was close enough he touched my arm, "you got so-"
"Big," I said.
"Yes. I've read so much about you in the papers, you are so beautiful just like always. You deserve better than a Montgomery."
I shook my head and bit my lip to hold back tears.
"What are you doing here in London?" he continued.
"You left me," I spit out as my eyes started tearing up and my voice broke a little, "you left us."
My father blinked a couple of times while Blanche joined us. She looked regretful and couldn't look at me.
"Both of you," I said.
You could hear the pain in my voice. Every feeling I had been hiding suddenly escaped my mind and heart. I thought I was doing just fine all that time, but facing them showed me that I wasn't doing fine. I would never be able to get over being abandoned by my very own sister and father – they were supposed to always have my back and of course my mother's.
"You betrayed your own mother," I said to Blanche in anger, "she was in so much pain and you couldn't care less. She's your mother too! She cared for you too, she was there whenever you needed it!"
Blanche looked at the ground as she awkwardly shuffled her feet. My father seemed to be surprised that I was so angry.
"You guys never took the effort of giving us a single call, a fucking call to ask us how we were doing. Never. I remember waking up and you were gone. My mother and I were devastated and grandma told us you ran off to England. You told us nothing. And now you have the audacity to come up to me and tell me how big I got and- and tell me that Xavier is no good for me? Sick. Sick is what you both are!"
My sight was blurry due to all the tears coming out of my eyes.
"I grew up without you. I only need my mother. I will never need you."
"Your mother is out of her mind, she isn't able to care for herself," Blanche stated.
"Our mother is the most loving person in this whole world. I can't believe that sick fuck beside you convinced you to think that. Don't. Ever. Talk. To. Me. Again."