Sweet warmth radiated into my core. I threw my head back.
“Say yes,” he urged, his fingers still moving on my skin.
“Axel,” I managed.
He dragged one hand down my torso, easing between my legs.
I moaned, letting his touch drive me to a frenzy.
His lips were at my ear. “Stay with me.”
I struggled to catch my breath. “Yes,” I whispered. “Yes.”
He made a satisfied noise in the back of his throat. “They’re all going to hate it, you know. None of them like me.”
“I don’t care,” I gasped. “I like you.”
“I love you,” he growled.
“I love you too.” I kissed him.
And he tugged me back to his bedroom, where he tore at my clothes and sighed and gasped his way back inside me.
Later, I lay there, basking in the aftermath of our pleasure, his skin warm on my own, and I felt something stronger than I’d ever known. I belonged here.
* * *
Axel was right. No one was particularly happy the next day when I told them that I was staying in Boston instead of flying back with them. But, to their credit, no one really tried to talk me out of it. Silas made a lot of grudging noises about just wanting me to be happy and left it at that. Griffin said it was none of his business but told me to call him if I ever needed anything, and he’d come get me. Leigh just watched Axel with a puzzled expression. She didn’t say much, but she gave me a hug and told me she really wanted everything to work out.
We took them to the airport, and I hugged everyone goodbye.
And then Axel and I went back to his place and basically didn’t get out of bed for a week.
After having sex constantly for days on end, we finally emerged from our little bubble to try to reassemble our lives.
I managed to work things out with all my professors back home, claiming that my grandmother had died. So, I got to take all my finals late, and I graduated.
I didn’t sell the house back in Morgantown right away, though. I was happy staying with Axel, but I wanted to keep it there—just in case. Things were going well, but, from what I’d seen of relationships, things always went well at the beginning. Those first few months were blissful and amazing, but there was also a hint of stress underneath it. I was waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Axel stopped managing The Golden Key, but he didn’t sell it, because he was really proud of his first profitable business. He hired some hotshot guy to take over the place, and it ended up being a good move, because the profits doubled in just a couple months. Axel grudgingly admitted that maybe he’d spent too much of his time there fucked up to be very good at running the place.
He started working on real estate investments instead, not that he really worked many hours a day or anything. And it was hard to call it working, at least to my mind, because mostly it looked like having drinks with people and complementing them and stuff. If it came down to it, I guess I was “working” too, because he liked to have me along with them on a lot of his business meetings.
Which meant that my “job” mostly consisted of having lively conversations with people and wearing awesome clothes.
Axel and I even began working on finding ways to legitimize the money that I’d gotten when Op Wraith had been destroyed, so that I could use it to do my own investing. It was important to him that I never felt trapped with him, he said. He didn’t want me to feel like I had to stay with him if I wanted to keep up my lifestyle. He was very worried about our relationship turning into his parents’ relationship.
I had to admit that it was liberating to be able to use my money without fear that it would draw unwanted (and possibly dangerous) attention to me.
Mostly, everything between us went perfectly. It was as if we fit together, and that our lives came together seamlessly. I had never considered that I’d be good at this lifestyle, but it seemed that my previous experiences actually served me well. I’d spent most of my time as a sniper, staying back, watching the action unfold. I was always alert to danger, and I was always making a plan to counter it. That turned out to be a very beneficial talent in investment.
And getting to wear pretty dresses and having people look at me all the time?
I never thought I’d like that. But I realized that I’d spent too much of my life hiding. I actually really enjoyed being noticeable. Axel brought that out of me. He showed me that I was beautiful and polished. He made me feel regal. Sophisticated. It was… fun.
There was never any problem with Axel and other women. Sure, he was a charming guy, and maybe another woman wouldn’t have liked how easy it was for him to disarm the opposite sex. But Axel looked at me and spoke to me and touched me in a very different way than the way he interacted with other women. And I was never even the slightest bit insecure.
The cocaine, however?
Well, the cocaine was not an easy issue.
There were two problems. One was that Axel had a very bad problem, and it was hard for him to stop. He cut back immediately, and he never used it day in, day out ever again, but he still felt the need to use it occasionally when he was celebrating.
And the second problem was that I… I did too.
Cocaine was disturbingly seductive. I found that I had a hard time turning it down. And I couldn’t deny that it made parties more fun.
So, we were always making excuses for the other one, telling each other that it was only sometimes, and it was only for fun, and that if we only did it once and while, it wouldn’t be a big deal.
It was only after Axel ended up in the hospital with heart palpitations that we got really serious about it. The boy had been using coke on a daily basis since he was a teenager, so it was possible he’d done a ridiculous amount of damage to his body. It turned out that he was fine, and he wasn’t in any serious trouble.
But the trip to the hospital scared us both, and it was the only thing that made us stop. Really stop. Completely.
After that happened, well, I guess that was the other shoe that I’d been waiting for. It had dropped, and we’d gotten through it, and we’d come out stronger and even more committed to each other.
So, that was when I really got all of my stuff out of Morgantown and was officially full time in Boston with Axel. I stopped worrying that things weren’t going to work out between us, and I accepted my new life.
We were happy. Very happy. We belonged with each other, and we both knew it.
EPILOGUE
two years later…
Axel made a rueful face at me as I started to knock on the door of Silas’ and Christa’s apartment in Austin.
I dropped my hand. “What?”
“Why am I even here?” he said.
“Because they invited you,” I said.
“But you know they don’t want me around.”
I knocked on the door. “It’s going to be different this time.” I bit my lip. “Maybe.”
He chuckled, shaking his head.
“And if it’s not different, we won’t stay very long,” I said.
Axel and I hadn’t spent a lot of quality time with the others in a while. There had been a particularly disastrous Christmas celebration the first year that Axel and I had been together. I’d invited everyone to Boston, thinking it would be wonderful to have everyone there, and knowing that Axel and I had more room than everyone else did.
But Axel and I had still been using cocaine at that point, and we might have taken the idea of letting it snow a little bit too literally.
Leigh had freaked out. She’d gone on a big tangent about how this was exactly what she thought Axel was going to do to me, and how I was screwing up my life. And I’d yelled back, and we’d both ended up in tears.
And Silas had been livid. He’d demanded to know how I could be messing with drugs, after everything that had happened with our parents. And, of course, I’d felt stupid and guilty. But I’d also been coked out of my mind, so I’d screamed at him too.
Anyway, it hadn’t gone well, and we hadn’t all spent a holiday together since, even though they all knew that Axel and I were clean now.
Silas opened the door. “Sloane!” He yanked me in and gave me a huge hug. “I’m so glad you came.”
I hugged him back. “Good to see you too.”
Axel sidled in behind me.
Silas and Axel eyed each other warily before settling on a stiff handshake.
Then I grabbed Axel by the hand and resolved not to let go of him until everyone was being more friendly.
Luckily, Christa ran in tackled him with a huge hug right away, gushing over how glad she was to see him and how much she liked his suit (which was peach).
I was glad that she made a point of greeting him first. She understood how awkward it must be for him, and her enthusiasm helped a lot.
The apartment was full of overstuffed furniture and smelled strongly of scented candles. It looked as if it had been recently vacuumed.
Christa hugged me next. “Sloane! Thank you so much for coming to my graduation party.”
“Wouldn’t miss it,” I said.
She released me. “All the Austin people aren’t going to show up until later. I wanted it just to be family for dinner. Griffin and Leigh are in the kitchen helping my mom put stuff together, and I’m running around crazy, freaking out.”
“Don’t freak out,” I said. “It’s your party. Is there something Axel and I can do to help out?”
She shook her head. “Oh, no, don’t be silly. You guys sit down over there.” She pointed at the couch. She turned to Silas. “And you. Where is the beer?”
Silas spread his hands. “I thought you wanted me to work on setting the table.”
“No,” she said as if he were particularly idiotic, “I want you to bring the beer up, because everybody’s here.”
He glared at her. “All right, I’m going to go, but then I’ll get halfway there, and you’re going to change your mind and want me to do something else.”
“I am not,” said Christa. To Axel and me, “Silas brewed a special beer just for my graduation. It’s called ‘Cherry Smart,’ because it’s a cherry wheat beer, and he won’t let me taste it yet, and I really want him to get it.”
“I’m going,” said Silas.
“Thank you,” she called after him. As an afterthought, “I love you.”
He grinned over his shoulder at her.
Christa pointed at the couch. “Seriously, guys, sit. I mean it.”
Axel and I sat.
Christa turned in a circle, as if she couldn’t remember what she was doing. “I’ll be back,” she said, and she scampered off.
I squeezed Axel’s hand. “So, it’s not bad so far, right?”
“So far,” he said.
“The only thing that was bad last time was the coke,” I said. “And we don’t even do that anymore, so it’s going to be fine. I mean, they can’t still think that you’re a womanizing jerk who won’t commit to me. We’ve been together for two years.”
He kissed me on the cheek. “I don’t care what they think.”
“I know.” I took a deep breath. “I don’t either.”
Someone cleared his throat.
We looked up to see that Griffin and Leigh were shuffling into the living room. They looked a little uncomfortable.
I stood up. “Hi,” I said brightly.
Leigh took a step towards me. “Hi.” There was an awkward moment, and then we hugged. “Good to see you,” she whispered.
And then she surprised me by hugging Axel too.
So I gave Griffin a hug.
And Leigh and Axel were still hugging. She was whispering something in his ear, and she was crying.
I heard Axel’s deep rumble. “No, Leigh. I’m the one who should apologize.”
She broke away, wiping her eyes. “I don’t want there to be any more bad feelings between us.” She included me in that. “You’re my two best friends, and now it’s like we hardly speak. That doesn’t make any sense.”
I grinned at Axel.
He looked more relaxed now than he had since the moment we got on the plane to come here.
Griffin offered Axel his hand, and they shook. He started to say something, but he was interrupted when Silas barreled back into the room with a wooden box full of glass bottles.
Silas set them down on the coffee table. “Christa!” he yelled. “Can I let people have beer?”
“Wait till I get there,” came her voice.
“Fine,” said Silas. “You guys wait. I’m going to get glassware and Christa.” He ducked out of the room.
We all stared at each other.
“So,” said Griffin. “How you been?”
“Good,” I said.
“Good,” said Axel.
It was quiet. We might not all be angry at each other, but it still didn’t seem like we had much to talk about.
Silas came back in with his arms full of glasses. Christa trailed after him. She had glasses as well. And behind them came Christa’s and Griffin’s mother Beverly.
“All right,” said Silas, distributing glasses to all of us. “Now, it’s very important that you don’t try to drink this out of the bottle, okay? Just watch me.” Once we all had glasses, he picked up one of the bottles. “Okay, see, you’re going to need to really gently get all the good flavoring from the bottom up into the beer.” He turned the bottle on its side and began to roll it in his hands. “And see, then, when you pour it…” He turned to Christa. “Where’s the bottle opener?”
She handed it to him.
He popped open the bottle and then picked up a glass and, tilting it sideways, began to pour the beer into it. “Then, when you pour it, it’s going to be perfect, okay? And…” He finished filling the glass. “First glass is for you, Christa.”
She clapped her hands together. “Thank you, thank you.”
He grinned at her.
She took the glass, closed her eyes, and stuck her nose inside. “It smells amazing.”
“Thattagirl,” he said. “She’s totally drinking it the right way. You guys take note.”
Christa took a sip. “Mmm… it’s so good. Thank you for making this beer for me, baby.”
“You are welcome,” he said. “And congratulations on graduating from college.” He turned to us. “Who’s next? Leigh?”
“Oh.” She shook her head. “No, that’s okay.”
Silas furrowed his brow. “Are you turning down my beer? Seriously? I think I might be offended.”
Leigh looked up at Griffin. “Um…” She looked back at us. “Well, we were going to wait to tell, but since I don’t want to be offensive, um…” She grinned. “I’m pregnant.”
There was an eruption of happy squealing from Christa and her mom, who both started hugging Leigh.
“Oh my God, I’m going to be an aunt.” Christa hugged Griffin. “This is crazy.”
But I just looked at both of them, feeling worried.
Leigh let go of Beverly and turned to see my expression.
“Um,” I said. “Is it okay? Are you okay?”
Leigh took a deep breath. “Well, we weren’t going to get into that yet, either. It’s kind of a long story, and I don’t want to step on Christa’s graduation celebration.”
“Are you kidding?” said Christa. “Talk. I love long stories.”
“Well,” said Leigh, “I guess some of you guys know that we’d been trying to get a surrogate.”
“You were?” I said. I hadn’t known any of this. We really hadn’t been keeping in touch.
Leigh nodded. “Yeah, it was a nightmare.” She looked at Griffin.
“At first, no place would let us even get the egg extraction done from Leigh if we couldn’t prove that she was infertile, or that there was some reason that she couldn’t carry the baby medically,” said Griffin.
“Yeah, they were assholes about it.” Leigh made a face. “And so, I went to a therapist, and I got diagnosed with acute t
okophobia—which is a fear of pregnancy. And I was deemed a pregnancy risk, because I’d already terminated one pregnancy. So, we thought that would work, and with that, they’d let us go ahead with the procedure.”
“But they wouldn’t,” said Griffin. “Because then it was a mental health issue, and they made it seem like Leigh was mentally unstable and shouldn’t have children, and all this crap. It was just…”
“We were tearing out hair out,” said Leigh. “The annoying thing was that we’d talked to surrogates who were willing to help us out, but we couldn’t get anyone to actually do the medical procedure that would put our fertilized embryo into a surrogate. So, it was really demoralizing.”
“And we started looking into adoption,” said Griffin, “but since we have so much buried crap because of Op Wraith and our pasts, that was getting really hard because we were going to have to forge documents and stuff. Because, you know, both of us are legally dead because of the way we were given the serum to save our lives.”
“So,” said Leigh, “it was just becoming ridiculous. And I remembered that the therapist that I went to see to get the tokophobia diagnosis had told me that with treatment, a lot of women actually who have tokophobia can get through their pregnancies and have the baby. And at this point, it was just…”
“We were both so frustrated,” said Griffin.
“Right,” said Leigh. “Well, it seemed like we were putting so much effort into having the baby in some other way that I wondered if I just applied that much effort to trying to combat my phobia if I couldn’t… you know, just have a freaking baby.” She laughed. “So… that’s what we’re doing.”
“Wow,” I said. “And it’s okay. You’re really okay with it?”
She considered. “I’m not saying it’s sunshine and roses every day. It’s only been about… two months, right?” She looked at Griffin.
He nodded.
“At first I didn’t want to tell anyone,” she said. “Because in the back of my head, I kept thinking that I might just go and get an abortion and stop the whole thing.”
“Seriously?” said Griffin.
She laughed. “Oh, I didn’t tell you that?”
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