CHAPTER 12: The Little Things

✦ 𝐉𝐔𝐋𝐈𝐀𝐍 𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐓 ✦

When I woke up the next morning, the very first thing in my head wasn't my morning alarm. It was the low sound of Xavier’s voice from the night before, sitting right in the quiet of my bedroom.

*Some things are hard to forget.*

I stared at the ceiling for a long minute, letting the words bounce around my head before I caught myself and let out a dry laugh. "Why are you even overthinking this?" I muttered to the empty room. It was just nostalgia. He remembered a stupid habit from when we were kids, that was all.

I shook my head, swung my legs out of bed, and grabbed my towel to head down the hall.

At the exact same time I pulled my door open, the door down the corridor clicked open too. Xavier stepped out into the hallway, a dark towel slung over his shoulder, wearing sweatpants and a plain grey t-shirt.

We both stopped dead in our tracks, hovering in the middle of the hall.

The silence stretched for a second. I let out a dramatic sigh. "Race you?"

Xavier's gaze dropped to my feet. "...You're wearing socks."

I looked down at my thick, slippery socks on the hardwood floor. "...Details."

"Broken bones aren't details."

I stared at him. "...You're weirdly dramatic before seven in the morning."

"I'm realistic."

The corner of Xavier's mouth twitched into the faintest smile before he stepped back, resting one shoulder against the doorframe. "Go ahead."

"Thanks," I muttered, slipping past him. The space between us was narrow, and for a second, I could smell the faint scent of cedar and soap clinging to him. I won the bathroom, but as I turned on the sink, my heart felt strangely light.

By the time I finished getting dressed and walked downstairs, the kitchen was already full of soft morning light. My mom and Richard were sitting at the dining table, drinking tea and looking over schedule drafts, while Xavier stood by the stove, flipping eggs in a pan.

Without looking up as I walked in, Xavier lifted a second plate from the stack on the counter and set it down next to his. He didn't ask if I was hungry. He just expected me to be there.

I walked over to the coffee maker, grabbing a clean mug from the rack. Without thinking, my hand reached out and grabbed a second mug right beside it, pouring black coffee into both.

I reached across the island for the small milk pitcher. The morning sunlight spilled through the window, catching the front of my messy hair as I leaned forward.

Suddenly, I felt a heavy gaze on me. I paused, looking up from the coffee pot.

Xavier was staring at me. Not just looking—his grey eyes were completely fixed on my face, totally unmoving for one beat too long.

"What?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.

Xavier blinked, his jaw tightening slightly as he immediately looked away, turning his attention back to the stove. "...Nothing."

I slid the second mug toward him anyway. "...Habit," I muttered, feeling a slight heat hit the back of my neck.

Across the kitchen, Richard took a slow sip of his mug, watching us over the rim. "Nice teamwork," he said quietly.

I almost choked on my first sip of coffee, coughing into my hand. "What teamwork?"

"The coffee," Richard said, a mischievous spark in his eye.

My mom tried to hide her smile behind her teacup. I cleared my throat aggressively, staring down at my mug like it was the most fascinating thing in the world.

Desperate to change the subject, I leaned past Xavier toward the overhead cabinet to grab the box of cereal. I didn't think about it—I just reached right over his shoulder. For a split second, my chest was inches from his arm, my oversized sweatshirt brushing against his back.

Xavier froze completely. His hand on the spatula went dead still, his breath catching silently in his throat.

I pulled the cereal box down, completely oblivious, and stepped back to the other side of the counter. "Thanks," I said casually, pouring some into a bowl.

Behind me, Xavier slowly exhaled a long, quiet breath, his knuckles white against the edge of the marble counter before he forced his shoulders to relax.

Before long, Xavier was grabbing his coat and car keys off the hook by the door. Since his office was on the way to campus, Richard had casually suggested we ride together, and neither of us had raised an objection.

We stepped out into the crisp morning air and got into his car, joining the steady stream of morning traffic. Usually, the drive was completely quiet except for the low hum of the radio, but as we stopped at a long red light, Xavier shifted in his seat.

"Finance presentation today?" he asked, his hands resting easily on the steering wheel.

I blinked, turning my head to look at him in surprise. "...Yeah," I said, taking a second to catch my train of thought. "Case study on corporate risk. It's thirty percent of my mid-term grade."

"You'll do fine," he said simply.

That was it. Nothing deep, no long speech. But as I looked back out the passenger window, the realization hit me—that was the very first time Xavier had initiated a conversation himself since we met again. It was a tiny change, but it stayed in my head the entire ride.

When Xavier pulled the car up near the quad, Leo was already leaned up against the concrete pillar near the steps, holding an iced coffee and watching the dropped-off students.

"See you at five," Xavier said, his grey eyes holding mine through the rearview mirror for a beat before I opened the door.

"Yeah. See you," I murmured.

The second I closed the car door and walked up the steps, Leo let out a long, quiet whistle. "Well, well. Look at you."

I rolled my eyes, pulling my backpack higher onto my shoulder. "Don't."

Leo grinned, falling into step beside me as we headed toward the building. "I didn't even say anything!"

"You were about to," I said.

Leo burst out laughing, nudging my shoulder with his. "Look at you, learning to read my mind. I'm just saying, the personal chauffeur service is looking pretty cozy."

"It's practical, Leo," I grunted, but I couldn't stop the slight flush from spreading up my neck as we pushed through the heavy glass doors into the library.

We claimed our usual table in the back corner. I sat down, unzipped my bag to pull out my laptop, and reached into the side pocket for my charger.

My hand hit empty fabric.

I unzipped the main compartment and frantically dug through my notebooks, but it wasn't there. My battery bar was sitting at a painful twelve percent, and I had a four-page outline due for my professor by five o'clock.

"Great. Fantastic," I muttered, slamming my head down onto the wooden table. I pulled out my notepad and started desperately trying to write out my key points by hand before the screen went black.

A little while later, as I was hunched over the table scribbling notes, a shadow fell across my papers.

Someone tapped my shoulder twice.

I looked up, ready to tell whoever it was that the chair was taken, but the words caught in my throat.

Xavier was standing right beside my table. He was wearing his dark coat, looking like he had just come straight from his office, and in his right hand, he was holding out my black laptop charger.

"You left it on the kitchen island," Xavier said softly.

I stared at the charger, then up at his face, completely frozen. "You... you drove all the way back to the house for this? During work?"

Xavier shrugged casually, his hands sliding back into his coat pockets. "I was nearby."

I opened my mouth, but no sound came out. *Nearby?* His office was twenty minutes in the opposite direction. He had definitely driven all the way back to the house and then over to campus just to drop it off.

Before I could say anything else, he reached down, his knuckles lightly grazing my shoulder as he set the charger next to my hand. "Don't lose it again, Julian."

He turned around and walked out through the heavy doors. I looked down at the charger on the table, and without even realizing it, a small, genuine smile tugged at the corners of my mouth.

Across the table, Leo’s eyes narrowed. "You're smiling."

I immediately snapped my face flat, taking my hand off the charger. "I'm not."

"You literally were," Leo said, leaning forward with a massive grin. "You had the little soft smile and everything."

"It's called relief, Leo. My battery is at four percent."

Leo pointed a French fry in my direction, his smirk widening. "Would a guy like that abandon his work schedule and drive across the city to deliver a charger for literally anyone else on this earth?"

I opened my mouth to give him a logical answer. I wanted to say it was just because we lived together, or because Richard asked him to, or because he was just being polite.

Nothing came out.

Leo chuckled, leaning back in his chair. "Interesting," he murmured. "Very, very interesting."

The rest of the afternoon passed in a blur, and before I knew it, five o'clock hit and Xavier's car was waiting by the curb. The drive back was quiet, but it wasn't the cold, tense quiet from a few weeks ago—it felt comfortable.

By seven that evening, the whole house was settled into its usual routine. Dinner was easy and warm, filled with Richard talking about his upcoming business trips and my mom laughing over a disaster she had with her new garden setup.

When dinner finished, I stood up from the table to refill everyone's drinks before we moved to the living room. I grabbed the pitcher from the counter, automatically walking over to the fridge to grab the lemon slices.

Without looking back at the table, I automatically called out, "Xavier?"

Xavier looked up from his phone, his grey eyes tracking me.

Before he could answer, I had already grabbed the specific tall glass he liked, poured cold water to the brim, and dropped two ice cubes inside—exactly the way he used to take it when we were kids.

I walked over and set the glass down in front of him.

Both of us stopped, staring at the glass for a long second. His eyes shifted from the water up to my face, holding my gaze just long enough to make my heart skip a beat. Neither of us had asked. Neither of us had explained. It was just an instinct that had survived twelve years of complete silence.

By midnight, the house was pitch black and completely quiet.

I lay in bed for two hours, tossing and turning, my mind refusing to shut off. Giving up on sleep, I threw off the blanket, grabbed an empty glass, and padded downstairs barefoot to get some water.

When I reached the bottom of the stairs, I noticed a warm sliver of light spilling out from the kitchen doorway.

I stepped into the archway and stopped. Xavier was sitting at the marble island alone, a single low lamp turned on behind him, reading through a thick hardcover book. He had his reading glasses on, his dark hair slightly messy from running his hands through it.

Neither of us expected the other to be up.

"Can't sleep?" I asked softly, stepping inside.

Xavier didn't jump. He just turned a page, his voice quiet in the late-night stillness. "Working."

I walked over to the tap, filled my glass with cold water, and leaned back against the counter opposite him, resting my hip against the marble. Five minutes passed in total silence. It wasn't awkward or forced; it was just quiet. The sound of the clock ticking on the wall and the soft rustle of paper as he turned pages.

Neither of us made a move to leave.

Finally, Xavier closed his book with a soft thud, taking off his glasses and looking across the counter at me. His eyes were heavy, searching my face in the dim lighting. "Sleep?"

I let out a quiet sigh, looking down at my glass. "No."

Xavier nodded once, his grey eyes holding mine in the dim light, the space between us suddenly feeling a lot smaller than it really was. "Me neither."

That was all we said. We just stood there in the quiet kitchen for another ten minutes, sharing the late-night air until the tiredness finally caught up with us and we walked back upstairs together.

Back in my room, I lay on my back, staring up at the dark ceiling.

Nothing crazy had happened today. There were no arguments, no big dramatic moments, and no heavy speeches. Just breakfast, coffee, a forgotten charger, and a quiet conversation in the middle of the night.

But for some reason, as I closed my eyes and pulled the blanket over my shoulders, those tiny moments felt heavier than anything else.

One last thought slipped into my he

ad right before sleep finally took over.

"Maybe living here won't be so difficult after all"…..