He chuckles and then stares down at me while I wait for him to speak again, his eyes moving back and forth between mine. After the way he’s behaved toward me this week, I’m not sure how to take him or why he even came over to say hello in the first place.
“Is that all I get from you today? A laugh? Well, I guess it’s better than the silent treatment.” I twist back around and grab one of my samples, throwing back the remaining liquid in the glass.
“The silent treatment?” His head tilts to the side and then his brow furrows.
“Yeah. I’m not sure which is worse. That or the animosity you’ve been so gracious to show me since we bumped into each other.”
“I only reserve all of my animosity for you, Princess,” he jokes, but that confession makes me curious.
“Why? I don’t get why you act like that toward me. And quite frankly, I’m sick of it.” That anger from before comes back to the forefront as I find a clear culprit standing in front of me. “Did I do something to you back in high school I’m not aware of or something?”
He huffs before taking the vacant seat beside me, holding his soda in his hand. “Not intentionally. But I’m guessing you put two and two together about how we know each other.”
“Actually, Ally did. She remembered you saying something that night at The Jameson, alluding to the fact we went to school together. We looked you up in the yearbook. Seems you’ve changed quite a bit since then.”
“I think everyone has. I’m not the same person I was back then at all.”
“Well, neither am I,” I declare as Javier spins in his seat so he’s facing me. “So whatever it is that I did or didn’t do, maybe you could consider your own experiences and see that they pertain to me too.”
He pulls his drink to his lips as his eyes narrow. “There’s no way you and I have ever experienced the same things in life, Princess.”
“You don’t know that. You don’t know anything about me.”
“I know that we come from two completely different worlds,” he counters.
“Does that mean you have to be an ass to me then? Because that’s not a good enough reason. If you want me to leave the class, just say so, Javi. You want me to leave the brewery right now, let me know. But deep down, I don’t think that’s the truth.”
“Oh, really? Then what’s the truth?” He sits up taller on his stool, staring me down.
I take a deep breath and figure what do I have to lose at this point? My day and night have both been shit, but Javier has had a tongue-lashing coming for a while. “I think my presence stirs something up in you that makes you feel some sort of way, whether that’s transporting you back in time to a point in your youth you want to forget, or now by making you feel the need to keep me at arm’s length to protect yourself from actually caring about someone. I know you don’t just teach that self-defense class for the hell of it. I know that you picking me up on the side of the road and rescuing me from the rain is because you have a heart somewhere in that hollow chest you try to convince everyone you have. There has to be a reason why you take your job so seriously, why you encourage us each week to channel the reason why we showed up. I just can’t figure out what it is.”
“It’s none of your business.”
“Fine. But stop taking out your issues on me. I think if you’d take the time to get to know me, you might actually find that you and I aren’t that different.”
He huffs and then drains the rest of his soda, licking his lips as he sets his glass down on the table. “What are you even doing here tonight, Sydney? Shouldn’t you be at the country club with a sweater tied around your shoulders or at some fundraiser for underprivileged kids to make you feel better about the gobs of money your family has?”
“Wow. That’s what you think of me, huh? That everything comes down to money?”
“I know that money makes a world of difference between two people and how they think.”
“Well, get ready for a lesson in privilege, Javi. I’m here tonight because I escaped the Chamber of Commerce meeting at the country club because my father is trying to set me up with a man he thinks I should marry.” His eyebrows pop up but I keep going. “He’s adamant that because our families run in the same circle, we’d be perfect for each other. Did you know that he also almost forbade me from training at your gym too?”
“It’s Andre’s gym,” he corrects me.
I wave my hand through the air, realizing the beer is taking affect now. “Well, you work there, so it’s your gym for the sake of the argument. He thought his security team was more qualified to teach me how to defend myself. He means well, but I also feel like he doesn’t trust me to make decisions for myself.”
“That’s …”
“It’s bullshit, right? I’m twenty-eight years old and survived law school, yet somehow my father thinks I’m incompetent.” I laugh as Javi studies the table for a minute. Then those gold eyes lock back on me and I see a determination in them that’s he’s rarely shown me before. “The person I was back in high school? Well, you might think you knew who I was—the perfect student, cheerleader, class president, and valedictorian—but deep down I was a nervous wreck, always afraid of letting him down, making him regret taking me in, not living up to his expectations …”
Javi narrows his
