“Goodnight, Ashley,” he whispered into the darkness of our cave.
“Goodnight, Axon,” I whispered back with a smile on my face.
Not long after that, I was lulled into a deep sleep.
Chapter 14
Axon
I don’t think I’ve ever been happier in my entire life. I watched as Ashley’s chest rose and fell in the darkness. I should close my eyes and sleep, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do so, not when I had such a beautiful creature right here next to me holding my hand while she slept.
Eventually, sleep did overtake me, and when it did my night was full of dreams, dreams of Ashley and I together in every way imaginable.
The next day I woke feeling more well rested than I had in a very long time. Usually I was a light sleeper, but there was something about Ashley’s touch that was so soothing to me, so relaxing, that I actually slept in.
I opened my eyes to find Ashley propped up on one elbow staring down at me with a smile.
“You must have been really tired. I can’t believe I woke up before you did.”
I had the overwhelming urge to pull Ashley to my chest and hold her while I slept just a little bit longer, but I knew that wouldn’t end well. Maybetoday we’ll be able to do more than just hold hands.We’ll find a way, I assured myself. I could stand in the rain again to see if our touching could extend past our hands.
“Axon?” Ashley’s voice drew me back out of my thoughts.
“Oh sorry, yeah I must have been pretty tired,” I smiled up at her.
“You ready to get up?” She asked as she shivered in the cold morning air.
“Yeah, let’s start the fire to warm you up.”
I would much prefer to warm her up myself, but if a fire was all I could provide, it would be the best fire I could make.
As soon as we stood up, my tail wrapped around her leg and she halted a moment in surprise.
“Oh right, I forgot about that.”
“You still don’t mind?” I checked in with her.
“I don’t mind,” she smiled as she ran her thumb over the top of my hand in reassurance. It was a lovely sensation to feel her physical reassurance instead of just relying on her facial expressions or words. Touch added a whole new layer to our relationship, a layer that I was quickly growing addicted to.
Unfortunately, as soon as we reached the wood pile, I found most of the bigger logs had been burned already. We would undoubtedly burn through the wood by noon at the latest.
Ashley shivered again, so I went ahead andstarted a fire with the largest logs I had on hand.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Hmm?”
“You’re doing that thing you do when you’re nervous.” She pointed in my general direction.
“What thing?”
“The humming. You always hum when you’re either in a tense situation or seem uncomfortable.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, whenever someone’s having an argument or when Tarak talks about our food shortage, you start humming. You hummed a lot on our way to the mountain when we first met too, like you were nervous that we were going to get attacked.”
It seemed I wasn’t the only one who noticed the little things. It felt good to be noticed by Ashley, really good.
