"Yeah, I'm surprised he didn't add that too," Axel quips. "And I know you'll want the backstory so… Axel is because of Guns-n-Roses of course, with my mom being the former rock band groupie. She wanted it spelled without the e, exactly like lead singer Axl Rose, but Dad insisted on Axel with an E. Jericho is because I was conceived in Vancouver, Canada, while my father was filming a movie, and they were staying in a house on Jericho Beach. Maximus is his favorite character in his favorite movie, that he didn't make."
“Gladiator?” Axel nods and I laugh. “Your driver’s license and passport must be seven lines long.”
“Look who is talking Gabriel Louis Joseph Charles Allard.”
"You know my full name?" I am, quite frankly, gobsmacked. It's not an appropriate response considering I've been tabloid fodder since birth.
"Since New Year's when I googled you," Axel confesses, leaning closer like it's a conspiratorial whisper about torrid things. "I fell down a rabbit hole like a teenage girl with a crush."
I feel the heat building in me crank up a notch. “You have a crush?”
Axel smiles shyly. It’s a good look on him. He should do it more often. But then he pulls back a little, tucking back into his half of the seat. His knee no longer bumping mine softly. “Of course Ihada crush.”
His use of past tense is intentional and disheartening. But being the petulant bastard I am, I ignore it. “So why did you ghost me?”
He shakes his head and shifts his gaze out the window. I feel like I'm popping this nice intimate bubble we're floating in, and I hate it, but I have to know. "I didn't ghost you. I wasn't going to be the guy who gets all Mooney-eyed over a random hook-up and tries to make it something it wasn't."
I open my mouth, trying to find the words to explain to him that it wouldn't have been out of line. That I would have gladly accepted him into my life and welcomed the chance to see if he could be more than a random hook-up. Sure I would have gotten him naked that night but I also would have gotten his phone number and kept in touch had he not run off like Cinderella at midnight. But before I can explain that to him he adds a fact that has me swallowing my words. "And also, I got back together with my ex later that week."
Oh.
Now it’s my turn to pull back a little, both emotionally and physically. I lean against my door and rub my fingers across my pants. “The guy who made you think so badly about yourself?”
“Yeah,” Axel sighs, his eyes moving from my face to the window next to me. “It was a mistake. That wasn’t our first break-up. Or our last. Our relationship made Johnny Depp and Amber Heard look stable and healthy.”
“Well, you aren’t selling me on the whole dating men thing.” It’s a joke. A bad one, but I don’t know what else to do.
At least it gets Axel to focus on me again, this time with a trite smile. “You would never let someone fuck you over, repeatedly, the way I let him fuck me over. You’re… smarter.”
“I’m not,” I insist. “I just not a bloody heart.”
Axel huffs out another hard laugh, as this bloody heart thing becomes our inside joke. Then SUV pulls into the drive of the hotel, and he puts on his business voice and turns to me before the car comes to a stop. "We might have been followed here and there'll likely be paps outside the hotel just because it's a race weekend so…"
He holds out his hand. I want to refuse it because that authentic intimacy between us is gone and this feels like a job again. I mean, it always was, but now itfeelslike one. But I know he’s right and so I drop my hand in his and lace our fingers together. The heat ignites inside me again at the feel of his skin pressed to mine.
A Four Season's staff member pulls open the door on Axel's side at the same time someone opens mine, but I follow Axel out his side of the SUV, our hands still joined. We walk leisurely into the lobby, both of us thanking the doorman who opens the door for us. I don't look to see if we're being photographed, but I'm sure Axel is right and we are. So I stop just inside the doors, and his forward motion yanks my arm a little until he turns to see what the delay is.
Without a word, he takes two small steps so he’s right there in front of me, so close I have to tip my head up a bit to maintain eye contact. “Thanks for tonight,” I whisper, my voice rough with candidness. “I’m glad you were my first date. Even if, you know… it wasn’t real.”
And then I lean forward and press my lips to his cheek. I'm trying to be respectful and maintain a boundary. I've kissed a million people on the cheek. I'm fucking French. That's what we do. So to me, this is platonic. But then, before I can pull away, I feel his free hand cup my jaw as his fingers hold my face still. He moves his face. The stubble on his cheek gently rubs against my lips, until it doesn't. Until there's nothing against my lips except his.
The kiss is soft and teasing, his tongue sliding out to touch mine so lightly I almost think I dreamed it. And it’s perfect. And I know, with a clarity that warms my soul, thatthisis our first kiss. Our first real one, where Axel knows me, and I know him, and we both want this. For real. This is real.
15AXEL
The awful truth was,I was supposed to remain professional, but I didn’t want to. So I kissed him. Because I could claim it was for the cameras, and I would, if anyone asked. But my heart knew it wasn’t.
He kisses me back as gently as I’m kissing him, which I know isn’t his nature. He’s rough and dominant, passionate not subtle. So he’s trying here, now, to restrain himself and somehow that makes it hotter. I can feel the quiver in his spine as I let go of his hand and press my palm to his back.
Finally, I take a step back and start to the elevator, he falls in line beside me. The doors open. We step in, just the two of us. He punches the button for our floor. We both retreat to lean against the back wall of the small square compartment as it glides upward. I fix my stare on the numbers above the door as they climb, like my blood pressure.
“That was… it was well played, and a smart move, and subtle but on brand,” Gabriel says, and I hear him exhale. “And so fucking hot I’ve got a throbbing dick in my pants.”
“Me too,” I admit.
“Shame you won’t let me do anything about it,” Gabriel murmurs just as the doors slide open.
I follow behind him as we make our way down the long, straight hall. He stops at his door. I should stop at my own, but instead, I move past my door and stop behind him, like my feet just hit Krazy-Glu. I hear the softest click as his key card taps the door, releasing the lock. I watch his hand turn the handle and push the door like he's going to step inside and leave me there. But then he says, "Fuck it."
