The Blossoming: XO Trilogy (BWWM) incompleted

Chapter Twenty-Six

Alex

Receiving an 'I miss you text' from an old flame can illicit a great deal of emotions. Happiness, contempt, validation, anger, guilt whatever. When I received that text from Malachi, a lot of emotions were felt but unfortunately none of them were felt by myself. It was the beginning of my weekend with Julian. He had spent the whole day working from 5AM so I knew that he was a bit tired but he was still eager to have me over so I went straight after work. He greeted me with strained, red eyes and so I told him that I would shower and we could nap together but he declined telling me that he had had too much coffee to sleep. I went to have a shower anyways because I felt sticky and very much expected him to be dozed off on the sofa once I was out. Instead, I found him with my phone in his hand and a very deep scowl on his face.

"What's wrong?" I asked immediately. Had he been going through my phone? I hadn't told him my passcode so if he was, how the hell did he get in? Why? 

"Malachi says he misses you-" He started but was then interrupted by phone buzzing. "Oh look, he wants to see you again." 

"Wha-what?" 

I knew I hadn't done anything wrong but still that didn't stop my heart from thumping hard in my chest like I had done something.

"Malachi wants to see you, he misses you," he repeated, staring at me. Julian had a very good poker face, one that made my anxiety fly through the roof.

"That's strange, I haven't even spoken to him in ages..."

"Really?" He asked in a tone that was difficult to read into. 

"Yes, the last time we spoke we-" I started, then stopped realising that I perhaps was about to make things worse. 

"You what?" He asked quickly with a raised eyebrow.

"Okay - full transparency we were seeing each other, like casually dating for a short while and the last time I spoke to him we decided to end things."

"So you've fucked?" 

I winced at his words. They weren't inaccurate but the way he said them made me feel uncomfortable because although yes, Malachi and I did have a lot of sex it wasn't just that or at least it didn't feel to be. "I mean, well yeah but we were actual friends."

"Friends that always wanted to fuck each other?" His words were sharp and they felt like they were piercing through me. It hurt. "Is this the fucking guy that your ex was apparently insecure over?"

"Julian," I said shocked. This was the first time hearing him talk to me like that and I didn't appreciate it at all. "Malachi was always respectful of my relationship and I am very confident in my ability to set boundaries."

"So why is he texting you that? Why haven't you set a boundary then?"

"I haven't spoken to him in ages! This text is literally out of the blue you can look through my phone if you don't believe me!"

"I'm not doing that," he scoffed.

"So then what?" I asked trying my hardest not to sound as irritated as I was. 

"Does anybody know I'm in your life? Because this," he said gesturing at my phone. "Is uncomfortable."

"Julian, if a guy wants me then that's on him - why are you bothered? I've told  you that this is out of the blue. An old flame has popped up without my knowledge and you're getting mad at me? I haven't done anything!"

"That's not what I asked," He replied sternly. "I thought we wanted the same things - I've made it clear to the people in my life that you're the person I'm seeing."