The Blossoming: XO Trilogy (BWWM) incompleted

Chapter Twenty-three

Julian's windscreen was fixed right there on his driveway. Not long after twelve, two bearded men came in a van and fixed it whilst Julian whizzed up an avocado, strawberry and orange smoothie. I hadn't had those fruits in a smoothie before and I wasn't sure that it would be that nice because I wasn't a huge fan of avocados but surprisingly it worked and it tasted good. I had tried to sheepishly make an excuse to leave Julian's earlier but he called my bluff when I said I had chores to do at home and, very directly, asked me to just stay at his for longer. I asked him if he had work to do and he just shrugged.

"I'm self-employed," he replied flippantly.

"I was always under the impression that self-employed people had less time off," I said back with a raised eyebrow.

"No you're right, I usually am working all the time,"

I frowned slightly. I hadn't meant to. Of course he had to work and that wasn't an issue. I worked too. I was basically unreachable before my afternoon slump after work. But I was starting to like him and all the attention he gave me. I didn't want to get used to something he couldn't sustain. I didn't want to set myself up for failure and end up having panic attacks when he didn't respond to my texts.

"So I guess it'll be like this for now and then in a few weeks you'll be up and down the country and working every weekend."

He sensed my uneasiness because suddenly his eyes were wide and he was searching for the right thing to say without hurting my feelings.

Oh my God, I was ruining it.

"It does get busy," he admitted carefully. "And I've been described as a bit of a workaholic before but the restaurants are my passion you know?"

"Yeah of course! I'm not-" I started, panicking that maybe he had misunderstood my comments. I wasn't meaning to come off as selfish and demanding of all his attention all the time but it worried me. I knew what little or no attention from your partner felt like thanks to Dane and his moods and even Malachi with his ghosting. Being with Dane didn't make me anymore independent or less anxious in fact I think it had the opposite affect. I think I was probably clingier than most girlfriends. With dane, I had become used to the fact that him not being around me all the time usually meant that he was doing something that wasn't good for our relationship. I had become conditioned to believe that time away only meant time to get to know somebody else. It meant time to forget the relationship and become used to a life on my own.

"So, I'll obviously have times where I won't be around as much but I'll communicate that and we'll just work around it. You'll have things to do too,"

"It's so disarming when you talk like that," I finally admitted, trying not to sound too impressed with his answer. When people joke that the bar is literally in hell for straight men, it's really not a joke. Two green flags and I was practically smitten, ready to tattoo his name across my heart.

"Like what? What do you mean?" He asked genuinely confused.

"Like we're already in a relationship," I answered looking into his eyes, hoping that they'd tell me something. Like that I was misreading the situation or something so then I could feel a little less weird at thinking that he thought we were in a relationship already.

"If it was up to me, we'd be in one already."

"Don't you think that's a bit strange though? We don't know each other well."

"You worry a lot," he replied looking into my own eyes.

"I do."

"When I was younger, I didn't quite get death. Like, up until an embarrassing age it never really occurred to me that that's the end you know? And then, when my nan died I was a bit stumped because obviously I hated her but I always kind of thought that she's just always be there? She died kind of young, she wasn't even ill or anything just boom one day she's dead right and when I found out the news I remember thinking, shit...I'm so glad I had nothing to say to her. I'm so glad she knew how I felt towards her when I felt it and I think that feeling has always stuck with me."