Page 27 of All That We Are Together

Axel

I climbed the steps of the dorm two at a time and knocked on the door of her room. I waited nervously. Leah had answered my text and said we could meet in her free period between classes on Monday. Obviously, she didn’t want the encounter to stretch on too long. And I agreed, because I would have said yes to whatever she asked. That’s how fucked up I was.

Leah opened up, looked at me, stepped back.

I walked in and examined every corner of the room while she closed the door behind me. I’d hoped I’d see a print of her work, but the walls were empty. Her desk was full of books and art materials. I walked over to it to get a better look at a drawing sticking out of a pile of paper, but she grabbed it and pulled it away as soon as my fingers reached it.

“Don’t touch anything!” she whispered.

I saw the movement in her throat, and I wanted to kiss her there, in that hollow of skin that I always felt was made to measure for my lips.

“All right. But you know, touching is one of my specialties…”

She stared daggers at me. I grinned, because I liked that better than indifference. Awakening something in her, even anger, was enough.

“I don’t have much time, Axel.”

“Fine.”

30

Leah

I forced myself to swallow to try and soften the knot in my throat as he sat on the bed and opened the folder. He passed me two stapled contracts.

“One for me, one for you.”

“Sure. Can I look at it?”

“Of course. I’m not the one who’s in a rush.”

I almost rolled my eyes, but at the last minute, I stopped myself, because I knew Axel and what he was after: provoking me, knocking me off balance. I sat at the chair in front of the desk and read in silence. I only looked up when I saw him from the corner of my eye lying back on my bed. The thought that my sheets would smell like him later was more than I could stand. I tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, feeling the room shrink with every second that passed, as if Axel’s mere presence caused the walls to close in, while his masculine aroma enveloped me and transported me elsewhere: to the sea, the sun, the salt breeze…

I finished turning the pages, barely able to read them, and signed the last one to keep the moment from stretching on any further.

“Done. Here.” I handed him his copy.

“See? It wasn’t that hard…”

The wordsshut updanced on the tip of my tongue, but I managed to swallow them down to keep him from getting what he wanted. I was pissed. What the hell did he know about difficult decisions? About all the nights I’d lain in that very same bed crying my eyes out? What did he know about feelings, about being true to them, about fighting for something no matter how hard it was?

“I need to go,” I said dryly.

“To class?” he asked.

“Yeah.” I locked the door behind me.

“I’ll walk you there,” he said.

I stopped halfway down the steps and grabbed the handrail before looking over my shoulder. He was grinning at me. I tried to ignore it.

“You can’t do this.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t want you to.”

I continued walking downstairs to the landing. I was happy the wind was blowing when I got outside, because before, Axel had seemed to suck up all the air and all the space around me too. I headed off, but he got in front of me, stopping me with his hands on my shoulders.