Chapter Nine #2
I glanced over my shoulder to look at Patrick and he nodded. “Yeah. I had these foam bath letters, and I’d ask my mum to give me words to spell on the tiles. Trust my mum to turn bathtime into an English lesson.” He chuckled fondly before looking sadly at me. “How old were you when your mum died?”
“Three,” I whispered.
“Surely your mom… ?”
I shook my head. “Not that I can remember. She told me off once. I’d run myself a bath, but I hadn’t put enough cold water in it.
I couldn’t figure out how to add more without the bath overflowing so I just got in anyway.
Mom saw me climbing out and I was bright red all over and she asked why I’d do something so stupid like sit in a boiling hot bath. ” I sniffled.
Patrick reached for me and wrapped an arm around my chest, pulling me back and pressing his face into my neck.
“I’m so, so sorry, baby,” he said simply.
“It wasn’t her fault, she was str-stressed and grieving…”
“She, was still your mom. It was her job to take care of you. Her job to bathe you. You were grieving, too. You were a baby, Cooper.”
I nodded because it was all true, I just wished it wasn’t.
I’d watched my mom suffer through the pain of grief, putting on a brave face to take care of Dylan but not really me.
“She would run the bath for Dylan and stay with him. So, I started getting in with him, but if I did, she’d leave and I’d just get us both cleaned up.”
Patrick kissed the back of my head. “You deserved to be taken care of. It hurts my heart a little to think of you having to be so independent so young. But you know that your mom’s lack of care doesn’t say anything about you? You never did anything wrong.”
I stole his words and stuffed them into the gaps of my heart like they could plug the open wounds, or at least slow the bleeding.
“Sorry for just offloading on you.”
“Thank you for trusting me.”
Patrick leaned over my shoulder, and I twisted to face him where he kissed me softly on the lips. “Shall I carry on, or do you want me to stop?” he asked quietly.
“Keep going, please,” I whispered.
For the first time in my life, I let someone take care of me, and it was both foreign and wonderful.
Patrick bathed me with more thoroughness than I usually did for myself, and afterwards, he made us breakfast and cuddled me on the sofa until it was time for me to leave.
It was the greatest morning of my whole life.
Axel flung his glass-polishing cloth over his shoulder. “I need to ask you a favour, but I don’t want it to be weird.”
I finished my sip of beer before raising an eyebrow at him.
“Ugh. What is it?” I asked.
The pub was quiet since it was a Monday afternoon, and Dylan hadn’t turned up yet.
“So, you know how den-building season is coming up?” he asked like he hadn’t already requested my help on the electrics for three dens in the next fortnight.
When Axel’s dad died, he’d inherited his den-building business.
Axel had been building dens since he was fifteen, and when I’d finished my qualifications, I’d begun providing the lighting and electrics to the more sophisticated den commissions.
They’d become so popular, in fact, I took two weeks off during both den-making seasons to take full advantage of the side hustle.
“You’re right, this is going to be weird. Of course I know den-building season is coming up.”
“Right. Of course you do. You see, the thing is. There’s one more den at the end of the season I need your help with,” Axel sputtered.
“Okay? That’s fine. I’m sure I can fit it in. What’s the issue?” I asked.
“I’m-building-a-den-for-Dylan-and-I’m-gonna-ask-him-to-be-my-den-mate,” Axel blurted without pausing for breath.
Holy shit.
“Wow. Big step, Ax.”
“You think it’s too soon?”
“I mean… it is soon. But if you asked Dyl, I’m pretty sure he’d say you were well overdue, so if you’re sure, then you’re sure. Go for it.” I smiled because I could see that Axel was certain, and he’d never really been certain about anything before.
As a teenager, Axel had ended up with Lauren because she’d wanted him, and he’d been happy to go with it.
He’d played rugby in school because he was good at it, and the coach had pestered him to play.
He’d taken over his dad’s business because it’d been easier than making the decision to sell.
He’d even agreed to run the pub when his grandparents had left town because then he’d never have really needed to make any big career decisions; it’d just been there, so he’d done it.
But Dylan hadn’t been a simple choice for him. Being with Dylan had risked his relationship with me and my family, which I knew meant the world to him. Axel had known that there was no dithering with Dylan; it’d been all in or not at all, and Axel had gone all in.
For the first time in his life, Axel was certain about a decision, and it had brought out a side of him I’d never seen before.
“I’m nervous, Coop.” He blew out a deep breath.
“You should be. Expect a lot of tears.” I grinned.
“I keep tissues on me now, like all the time,” Axel chuckled.
I clambered into my work van with a cup of coffee and yawned. I’d spent the last week and a half helping Axel with the dens, and today we were hopefully finishing off his and Dylan’s.
Patrick got up super early for work, so I already had a voice note from him. I clicked play.
“Morning, little fox. Tonight is going to be a choose your own adventure scene as a reward for working so hard this last week.”
I wasn’t sure that having to make decisions was a reward, but it depended on what was on offer.
“We can either do spanking and play with that foxtail plug I got you…” I blushed deeply as I recalled that particular item.
“Or we can see how many times I can make you come until you beg me to stop.” Tempting, but I was fucking exhausted, and I didn’t think it would take much for me to break.
“Or the final option, which is the one I think you’ll probably go for—cockwarming. ”
I had to adjust myself in my work trousers as my brain conjured up too many dirty images of me and Patrick.
Clearing my throat, I held down the voice note button. “Morning, Sir. Um… Thank you. You’re right, I’ll go with the last one. The… erm… cockwarming. But, maybe the tail too? See you tonight.”
What is my life?
Despite inevitable failure, I attempted to not think about what Patrick had planned for us tonight and turned on the engine to head out towards Axel’s dad’s old property. When I got there, I found my best friend in the back garden, entirely caked in mud.
“You look like a mole,” I said by way of greeting.
“Good morning to you too,” he practically grunted.
“How long have you been working on this?” I asked.
“I did all day yesterday, then got here at five. I needed to have it cleared enough for you to get in and do your bit, and I’m just kind of dying for this den-making season to be over. I’m knackered.”
“Ouch. You know what I’m gonna tell you.”
Axel rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. Get an apprentice. Who am I gonna hire?”
We’d had this conversation a lot over the last two years. It was too much work for one person.
“I might have someone for you, actually.”
“Who? I know everyone in this town already.” Axel eyed me skeptically.
“You don’t, actually. There’s a new alpha at work, Ingrid. She just moved here with her little brother, Viggo. He’s eighteen and looking for a job. I said he should ask around at the pub since you also need a new hire there, but he could be good for this too. She said he’s a hard worker.”
“Since when am I hiring at the pub? I already hired Soraya.”
“Since Dylan is starting his teacher training in September.”
Axel grumbled something unintelligible before lifting the trap door to the den and climbing inside. I passed my toolboxes down before joining him.
“Wow, this is huge, Ax. Is it even stable at this size?”
Axel nodded. “I got Charley to check it out for me.”
Charley Burrows was a guy we’d gone to school with. He was a structural engineer in the city now, but he came back to Foxwood Hollow pretty frequently.
The den was one open space but with curves to the walls that created little nooks and crannies which I already knew Dylan would have the best time filling with all the soft things he collected and made.
Axel making this space would mean the absolute world to my little brother, who’d been dreaming of this moment for his whole life.
We worked in silence for a while as Axel began laying out some wooden flooring, and I got to work installing the ceiling lights I’d designed for the dens last year.
It took forever, but the end result was like looking up into a starry night from within the safety of a warm, cosy den, and Dylan would love it.
“You seem… different lately,” Axel said out of nowhere.
“Different how?”
“Dunno. Like calmer, maybe? You keep smiling to yourself like you’re thinking about someone.”
I was glad it was dark because my cheeks heated immediately.
“It’s nothing,” I tried.
Axel kneel-walked over to where I was working, the space not quite tall enough for him to stand.
He frowned down at me. “You said things would be okay with us even though I’m with Dylan, but you don’t tell me anything anymore.”
I gulped. “I just… I just don’t want to put you in a position where you either tell Dylan personal things I don’t want him to know and piss me off, or keep secrets from him and cause a rift between the two of you that way.”
“So, what? After like twenty years of friendship, we’re just going to become people who talk about the weather? That’s bullshit, Coop.”
It surprised me how annoyed he sounded. Axel was generally quite laid-back, and I could rarely recall a time in our lives he’d confronted me about anything.
When we were twelve, he’d yelled at me and threatened bodily harm if I didn’t stop calling myself stupid and dumb, but that had really been his only outburst of note.
I almost smiled at the memory because Patrick would probably have said something similar to me, minus the bodily harm. Spanking, though… I digress.
“I can’t just magically pretend I’m okay with Dylan knowing things I don’t mind you knowing. We don’t have that kind of relationship,” I huffed.
“I’m not asking that of you! I’m saying that maybe after two fucking decades of being your friend, you should know you can trust me to understand what I can and should never share with your little brother.
Who, by the way, would never expect me to.
He knows you’re private, Coop. Beyond wanting the occasional bit of reassurance that I know you’re okay, he wouldn’t push it. ”
I sighed. Since Dylan had come home, I’d never quite adjusted to the fact he’d grown up while he’d been gone.
He wasn’t the nosey little shit who’d always tried to get in my business to find out stuff about Axel.
He wasn’t even the kid I’d envied because Mom had seemed to care for him in a way she hadn’t cared about me.
In the years he’d been at uni, Mom hadn’t even bothered to go and visit him, and I suspected I’d spoken to him a lot more frequently than she ever had.
Maybe I wasn’t ready to tell Axel everything, but I could give him something.
“I’m sort of, kind of, in a very complicated way… seeing someone.”
“Would you like to be more vague about that?” Axel laughed.
“Before I tell you any more, this is ‘take to your grave’ shit, okay? And I do not want you, like, sharing anything in return because you bang my brother, and I don’t need to know anything about that. Right?”
“Oh wow. This is gonna be good shit, isn’t it?” Axel grinned, and I rolled my eyes.
“The alpha I’m seeing… it isn’t a like a… a boyfriend thing.” My hands began to sweat, and I had to put my pliers down. I blew out a deep breath. “He’s my… Dom.”
Axel sort of stared at me, dumbfounded. “Dom… like… you’re a… sub?”
My face was on actual fire. I’m pretty certain I radiated enough heat to raise the temperature of the den by several degrees.
“Yes. That.”
“Oh.” Axel picked up his flask of coffee and took a large sip. “So, who’s the guy?”
“That’s… I’m not telling you. It’s not serious anyway, but it’s… good. Been good for me, I think. I’ve not really had… um… any great experiences with alphas before, and he’s… different,” I tried to explain, not very coherently.
“So, he’s a good shag, then?” Axel asked, causing us both to break out into laughter.
I picked up my pliers and returned to adjusting the light fitting above me. “A fucking great shag.”