“Have a seat at the counter while I make us something to eat. What are you in the mood for?”
“You don’t have to do that, Connor. Maisie’s gonna be here around ten, and I need to get some things together.”
“Then how about a muffin? I baked a bunch of them yesterday, and Annabeth convinced me to bring some back to the cabin and then refused to eat any of them,” he explained with amusement. “I’ve got cinnamon crumb, banana nut, blueberry, and chocolate chip.”
“I’ll take the cinnamon one. Thanks.”
He sat down on one of the stools and within minutes, Connor was sitting opposite him with his own coffee and muffin. “On a scale of one to ten, how pissed at me are you?”
Axel couldn’t help but laugh. “Yesterday it was an eleven. Now it’s around five.”
Grinning, Connor nodded. “Okay, then I’m heading in the right direction.”
“Maisie explained everything to me so you don’t have to, but…you and I have been friends since we were five. Your loyalty should have been to me.”
“It always has been, but…when she told me her story, it was like Lexi all over again.”
Damn. He’d forgotten about that.
“It was all so damn similar. My parents were obsessed with me marrying someone appropriate. Appropriate by whose standards, right? I mean, I knew I wanted to marry Lexi from the time we were fifteen, but…she wasn’t from the right side of the tracks, and I was forced to break up with her.”
“I remember that summer. It was brutal,” Axel said quietly. “Lexi was a great girl.”
Connor stared down into his coffee. “Lexi was the best girl, and I had to break her heart. It was awful. I was so depressed, but my parents didn’t care. The next thing I knew, Rachel was being thrown at me, and they badgered me about how she was the perfect wife material. The harder I pushed back, the more things were being taken away.”
There wasn’t anything he could say to that.
“So, I completely understood how helpless Maisie was feeling. I suffered for years, and I just couldn’t let her go through the same thing. And as for keeping her secret, well…I get why you’re mad at me, but it wasn’t my secret to tell. I had no idea how the whole thing was going to turn out or what kind of information I was going to find. We just didn’t expect everything to explode the way it did yesterday.”
It was hard to stay mad when everything Connor was saying made sense.
“It’s just a crappy situation no matter how you look at it,” Axel admitted.
“Exactly.”
They ate in silence for a few minutes before Connor spoke again.
“So the two of you talked things out?”
He nodded. “We did. There are still things we need to discuss, but I’m going to the city with her today and to dinner with her and her parents tonight.”
Connor’s entire face lit up. “Seriously? That’s awesome! Have you talked to Milo yet?”
“Um…no. Why?”
“He was doing a little digging on Maisie’s father for her. He’s got a file.”
As much as he wanted to ask what was in it, he didn’t. “I’m sure she’ll be glad to hear that.”
“Don’t you want to know what he found?”
Axel shook his head. “Maisie deserves to hear it first, and if she wants me to know, she’ll tell me.”
His friend studied him for a long moment. “You’re in love with her.”
“I am.”
“Good. You’re good for her.”
