The rest of the drive passed in silence, which was probably a good thing. Elena wasn’t sure that she trusted herself not to say anything incriminating right now. She nearly had - or maybe not - she couldn’t say for sure. As much as her friends, namely Elodie and Dahlia, had encouraged her to tell Xavi how she felt, Elena figured that no matter how tempted she might ever be to do just that, her own sense of self-preservation would chase the words back down her throat, making it easier for her to swallow them. She wasn’t good at facing rejection from anyone, but Xavi would be a special sort of torture. Even though she knew he’d be kind about it.
She thought that her heart and her head were working in tandem together on that front, both of them understanding that her stupid, unrequited crush on Xavi shouldn’t be given any more thought at all.
Then, they got in the elevator together, Elena tucked securely into Xavi’s side. She spotted her reflection in the mirror, under the harsh lighting that did nobody any favours. Well, except Xavi, who looked frustratingly handsome as always.
Elena peered at her own face, frowning as she lifted a hand to rub at the mascara smudges under her eyes, scrutinising the wayward mess of her hair. She didn’t like how little she recognised herself right now, and was almost glad when Xavi pulled her attention away from her unfamiliar reflection.
“You can say that again,” she joked softly when Xavi said it had been a shitty night. She was hard-pressed to remember any that had been shittier recently, and then wondered again if she was blowing this out of proportion. People had bad sex. They didn’t create theatrics out of it like Elena was right now, surely.
When Xavi spoke again, Elena stared up at him. Part of her wanted to squint against the glare of the overhead light, but she didn’t. She looked up at Xavi, her expression opening up into something she wasn’t sure there was a name for. Maybe Xavi would know. He was better at recognising feelings than she was.
A sudden warmth filled her chest, the first good emotion that had touched her that night, bar the relief she’d felt seeing Xavi’s car pull up. She continued to stare up at him, mouth parted as he talked her up. He called her beautiful. It was enough to turn her head offline and let her heart commandeer the steering wheel.
“Xavi, I….” she began, before realising she didn’t have the words. Instead she swayed forward a little, catching herself by gripping onto his arm. Eyes still trained on him, taking note of his curls, his warm brown eyes, and the sincere look on his face, Elena acted on instinct over anything else.
She pushed herself up onto her tiptoes as the elevator carried them upwards. Reason had been left on the ground floor. Slowly, she tipped her head towards Xavi.
Ding!
As soon as they reached their floor, her boots thudded on the ground again as she stumbled back, her hip catching the railing on the wall. She stared unseeingly into thin air for a moment before collecting herself, just as the doors trundled open.
“Um. Yeah. Sorry, I was just… Thank you. For saying that, Xavi. That’s really nice,” she rambled, nearly tripping over her feet in her haste to get out of the tiny enclosed space.
She stumbled into the hallway, and turned, pressing her back against the wall and sandwiching both her hands in between her tailbone and the wallpaper, not trusting them to be allowed to roam free right now as Xavi searched for his keys.
For, like, the craziest second, Xavi had thought Elena was going to kiss him.
As she’d looked up at him, her brown eyes wide and adoring, he’d felt something shift in his chest, a warmth stirring in the pit of his stomach. He and Elena had kissed before, more than once, but it had always been on the fly, a little spur of the moment fun at a club or a party. It was always sweet and a little playful and muddled in with shots and cocktails or whatever their preferred drink of the night was. It usually didn’t last, and they both fell away from it giggling before Xavi took her hand and spun her onto the dancefloor, the two of them sweaty and warm and enjoying the warm press of each other as their friends bounced alongside them.
But there was something different in the air tonight, in the low buzz that seemed to be settling beneath his skin, the electricity in his veins. He didn’t know if he wanted to encourage her or push her away, a wave of caution washing over him as he thought about the awful night she’d had. Would Elena even be kissing him if she wasn’t so upset? He wasn’t sure, but he would hate to be another cog in her already torturous night, adding an extra layer of discontent. Selfishly, though, the thought of her kissing him made his head spin and his heart flutter in his chest, like he’d be gifted the opportunity to prove that he’d treat her better than that asshole had.
His hand moved to lazily settle against her hip, as though egging her on and inviting her in, only for his best friend to pull away abruptly as the elevator doors slammed open behind her. Xavi blinked, watching as she rushed out onto the landing, and crashed into the wall outside his apartment. He felt so confused right now that it made his head hurt.
“Oh, um. Yeah, I mean... You don’t gotta, like, thank me or anything,” Xavi told her, his gaze distractingly flitting back and forth between her and the collection of keys in his hand.
He frowned, nose scrunching and forehead wrinkling, just as he always did when he fumbled to unlock his front door. His set of keys held his apartment keys, Mac’s apartment, his car key, his mom’s key, and a key to the locker room down at the rink. It also had, like, twelve keychains on it. All super important and rad enough that he didn’t wanna take them off, meaning he sometimes struggled to find his own key. His tongue poked out between his teeth as he searched for it, and finally he held it up above his head in victory with a hearty and celebratory aha! He made much quicker work of turning it in the lock and nudged his door open, before finally turning back to face Elena again.
His heart was still beating, like, really fast, and she looked a little shamefaced over whatever had happened just moments before, but none of that mattered. Tonight was about making sure she was okay and cheering her up, and he wasn’t about to leave her in the corridor looking sad or feeling lost.
“C’mon, babe. Last one inside gets dibs on all the best hoodies and the ice cream,” Xavi grinned. He was a bit of a dummy, but even he knew Elena would get the pick of the lot. He extended his arm to her, fingers wriggling in the hopes that she’d take his hand and let him pull her inside.
