close to my dialling heart

9🌹beneath the surface

🎶not sayin' I'm the best at what I do. I'm just sayin' that it's me versus whoever wanna lose🎶

XAVIER 🥀

I received a text from the chairman informing me that there were parcels waiting for me, so I headed out to investigate. Miles joined me along the way, bouncing up to me with a cheerful "Hey, man!" I maintained a straight face, prompting him to tease, "You've been spending a lot of time with the ice cream girl..."

I corrected him with a sidelong glance, "Her name is Dove." Miles looked taken aback but raised his hands in surrender. "She has a lovely name, indeed. What are your intentions with her, hmm? I know you, man; you can't just hang out with a girl like that?" He playfully punched my arm.

"What's wrong with her?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Nothing's wrong with her; she's just too innocent," Miles clarified.

"Who says I intend to corrupt her innocence with my sin?" I retorted, prompting Miles to squint skeptically.

"X?" he said, his tone laced with doubt. He knew my reputation for using girls for my own gain, but I only took it so far. I had slept with a select few and merely toyed with the emotions of others. But Dove was different. At least, I hoped so.

"Even if I had wild plans for her, I wouldn't share them with you," I said with a smirk, prompting Miles to laugh.

Miles was the only person I considered a friend, despite his foolishness. Our personalities clashed, but we shared some common interests. "You want to fuck her," he said with a grin. I frowned, denying it. "Oh, come on, you do," he teased, poking my shoulder with his fingertips. I warned him, "Do that again, and I'll fucking break your fingers. All of them." He stopped immediately, knowing my threats were never empty.

I had put him in difficult situations before, and he feared me enough to heed my warnings. Not that I was excessively cruel, but enough to earn his respect. "You sure about not wanting to fuck her? Man, I know you," he chuckled, referencing my notorious reputation at Harrington College. He knew most of my secrets, but not my involvement with the mafia. "I'm not... god, Miles, shut the fuck up."

"She's damn pretty, though," Miles added, releasing a throaty sigh. "If you don't want to fuck her... can I?"

I glared at him, my expression unyielding. "You shouldn't even have that fucking thought in your disgusting mind." I kept my voice calm and detached. "Okay... do you like her? I'm starting to think you do." "I don't," I replied, staring ahead blankly. "Are you sure?" Miles pressed on. "Dude... shut up." "Okay, okay," he laughed, holding up his hands in surrender.

That was Miles, always babbling and doing silly things, yet somehow managing to charm a bunch of girls into swooning over him. "You sure you..." He started to say, but I cut him off with a groan. "What the fuck, Miles?" He just laughed again, knowing he was getting under my skin. "Where are you headed?" he asked, changing the subject. "Mr. Cassano's office," I replied.

"Uuuh, what did you do this time?" Miles asked, poking me again. He was... peculiar at times. That's why I said he had a drop of fear for me - he was too much of a jokester to truly fear me.

"I fucked his wife," I deadpanned, and Miles immediately caught the joke, laughing. "Fuck man, you're sick!" "I'll see you around, I've got a couple of girls on my to-do list," he said with a smirk. "What?" I scoffed, shaking my head. "How unlucky they must be."

"Come on, what's not to like about a dark-skinned guy as handsome as me?" He pushed his dread locs back and made a weird face, squinting his eyes, raising his brows, and sucking in his bottom lip while rubbing the corners of his mouth. It made me cringe. "Get the fuck off my face, Miles." "Okay, I'll see you later, man," he said, teetering as he spoke. "Oh, and some boujee ass girl named Noelle was asking about you."