Axel shifted. “You realize that’s the beginning of this whole fucked up mess. The day Mason and I were born started all the fuckery.”
Evidently, I didn’t possess the same truth serum effect on him as he had on me. “Okay, new subject. Let’s see…” A soft knock sounded on the door, prompting Axel to ease me off his shoulder before he leaped off the sofa for our food delivery. After tipping the delivery guy, he closed the door and held up the bags. “Let’s eat.”
Once we had settled at the table outside on the terrace, Axel finally started talking. I was one bite into a greasy bacon and egg breakfast sandwich when he shared his first bit of information. “Do you remember asking me why I stepped in when Richard fired you?”
I nodded my head.
“You told that prick you’d just placed someone with Alzheimer’s.”
I wiped my mouth and took a drink of my coffee. “I remember. It had been a stellar day until that happened.”
“I could tell. It was written all over your face outside the bar.” His eyes drifted over my face as if seeing me for the first time. “His response flipped a switch in me because my mother has Alzheimer’s. It takes a special person to truly care for others, especially people like her. She’s becoming more difficult to deal with. The last time I saw her, she didn’t recognize me.”
I reached out and put my hand on his arm. “It’s not you. It’s part of the disease.”
“I know,” he said. “But I have so much hate inside me, Luca, that it frightens me. Our parents chose to separate us so that they could see each other. He took Mason to Connecticut, and she kept me. They assumed his rich new wife in America would finally give him a divorce so he could return to my mother. Butthat didn’t happen. He allowed that woman to take her anger out on my innocent twin brother.”
I squeezed his hand to let him know I was there. “When he walked away from us, my mother was never the same. She went into a mental spiral that she was never able to recover from. I had to make excuses for why she never showed up at school for anything. When I played soccer, she never came to one single match. But there always seemed to be plenty of fucking money available. And as soon as hockey became an option, I took it. If Perry hadn’t come along during the year she finally got herself together, I’d still be in that fucking flat, taking care of everything. Now my role is to pay for her living, but I washed my hands of being there every day.”
“It’s okay. You did an amazing job with what you had to work with. Look at where you are and what you’ve made of your life.”
Axel was crying but didn’t seem to notice. “I’m so dead inside that I don’t feel one bit of remorse for anything.” His eyes found mine. “What does that say about me? I’ll never have a normal life because no one will ever want the fucked up man I’ve become.”
I got up and went to him. Pulling him from the chair, I took him in my arms and held him close. Axel’s arms wrapped around me as his body shook. He cried in my arms, and I was thankful I could be there for him. When he stopped, I took his face between my palms. “Listen to me. You were a child who had to be a grown-up well before you should have been. That’s solely on them. You have nothing to feel guilty about. Your feelings are justified. They are valid.”
His eyes hung onto mine as I wiped his tears away. I wanted to tell him I wanted him. “You’re not fucked up, Axel. You’re hurt. And when it comes at the hands of people who are supposed to love you unconditionally, it’s almost unbearable. They let both of you down in the worst way. But the fact that you did all of that proves the opposite of what you think. It proveswhat a good man you are. Your heart is not dark, it’s just badly bruised and needs some tender loving care.”
“I don’t deserve you,” he whispered.
“Yes, you do. And a whole lot more.” Placing kisses on his forehead, just like he’d done to me, I held him in my arms, grateful he’d shared his pain with me.
We stayed wrapped around each other until Axel took my hand and pulled me inside. Without a word, he turned on the TV and pulled me back down on the sofa with him. “What are we doing?” I asked as we stretched out in the position we’d been in earlier.
“We’re spending the day on the sofa, and I’m going to hold you until I feel better.”
Some crazy form of happiness filled me as I leaned in to kiss his chest, then closed my eyes. I still didn’t know what we were to each other, but for the first time in a long while, I was willing to take the chance.
Chapter 18
Axel
Two big things happened the last week of August. The first was when I closed on my new home. The second, I was a jealous fool and staked my claim on him. He would probably say I made an unnecessary ass of myself. I chose to look at it as romantic until we ended up on social media. The Nighthawks hadn’t played our first game, so it was ridiculous that kissing him was news. I ignored all of it.
Leaning against my car, I watched the door, waiting for him to exit his office building. He’d taken the subway into work this morning, and it had been an agonizing thirty-six hours since I’d last seen him. That’s why my heart did a thing in my chest the second he walked out with his female co-worker. My jealousy flared when he freely gave her the smile he’d only given me. Sunglasses firmly in place and flowers in hand, I was a man on a mission to stake my claim. But the minute he turned my way and saw me, an even wider grin spread across his handsome face.
“Hey, what are you…”
I cut off his words with a kiss that drew a gratifying whimper. I loved that sound more every time he made it, so I pressed my tongue into his mouth for good measure. Satisfied with myself, I pulled back and kissed his forehead. “Hello, darling.”
Luca looked momentarily dazed with wet, kiss-swollen lips as I handed him his flowers. I was quite proud of myself until his expression changed. He glanced at his friend, who was openly enjoying the spectacle.
“This must be the hockey player,” she said.
I smirked, wrapped my arm around his waist, and held out my hand. “Yes, that’s me. I’m Axel Hughes. Nice to meet you…”
“Susanna,” she replied. “I’m Luca’s friend.”
“Yes. Nice to meet you. I’m the boyfriend.”
