“NO!” I screamed and he looked at me like I was crazy. “Bill are you okay?”
I tried to pull Xavier’s big body off poor Bill who looked like he was close to pissing his pants. Xavier pulled his arm free of my grasp and grabbed Bill by his collar, pulled him up, and shoved him against the wall.
“What the hell are you doing?” Xavier had him pinned, his hand was at Bill’s throat and he wasn’t listening to a damn thing I was saying. So what do I do? I smacked him in the back of the head. Which did nothing to him. “Damn it Xavier! Let. Him. Go!”
Xavier let go of Bill and stepped back. “Who the fuck is this?” He hissed at me.
“Just go! Get out now! I told you--.” Xavier grabbed me by my elbows, lifted me, walked into the bathroom and kicked the door shut. The force shook the room.
“You’ll be coming back with me.” He growled.
“You’re out of your damn mind!”
“You’re not ready to be here! You’re not ready to be around anyone else but me--.”
“Out!”
His jaw dropped and then he glared at me.
“Out now!”
His mouth snapped shut and then he grabbed my face, licked up the side of my cheek, then spun around and stormed out the door.
“One hand mother fucker.” I heard him growl and I sprinted out of the bathroom. “You put one mother fucking hand on her and I’ll kill--.”
“Get out!”
He huffed and then stepped away from Bill who was still stunned.
“You’re making a mistake Taelyn.” He spat over his shoulder as he walked out of my apartment.
I was completely embarrassed by what my apartment looked like, by what had just happened, by how Xavier left, “I don’t even know how to begin trying to explain what just happened here. Bill, I’m so sorry, are you alright?”
“Aren’t you with Daniel?” He straightened his shirt.
“No, didn’t work out.”
“Did that guy, Xavier, have anything to do with it?”
“He’s my boss and no. I don’t know what to even say- -.”
“Don’t worry about it, just make sure he understands I have no intentions of putting my hands- -.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Okay stop the apologies. He obviously thought I had hurt you. My God look at your place. Did you get robbed?”
I did my best to explain what had happened. I left out the part about Daniel hitting me, and me hitting him. I was ashamed and embarrassed. When he asked about the bruise, I told him I fell. And quickly switched the subject to the reason he was here.
I had planned on asking him if we could try our hand at a local bar’s web page. Yes it was to benefit Forever Four but also for a grade. He was a wiz at the technical part; I knew I would learn a lot from him. I also had no idea if I had just lost my job. What a messed up day.
We worked for three hours on our project. Bill had rebuilt the site, built banners and improved page content. When we felt confident in presenting our idea the next day to our professor we called it a night. We had decided that we would meet in the school’s computer lab next time. My card table slash desk wasn’t all that great of a working space.
It was only about ten minutes after Bill left when I received a text from Xavier saying that he wouldn’t need me tomorrow night. I sat down trying to figure out how to respond and I decided against it.
I cleaned up a little and decided not to reply. If he was going to fire me, he would damn well do it in person. If he was going to fire me because of his outburst he was damn well going to hear what I had to say about it.
I called my mom and we had our normal conversation. Well, as normal as it could be when I didn’t want her to know about Daniel, or Xavier, or the fact that I had no idea if I was with or without a job. A job I didn’t even want to begin with but now, well I wanted my job. I really hated that I wanted my job. I also wanted food. I was starving, and I didn’t want to be here alone. I grabbed my coat and purse and headed out the door.