Delia
I’d started noticing things about Axel Irving that I really wished I hadn’t.
The week after Sunday dinner, after we’d called our truce and stopped existing in silence, my apartment had somehow gotten smaller. Or maybe Axel had gotten bigger somehow. Or maybe I’d just started paying attention to things I’d been deliberately ignoring.
Like the way he read with complete focus, long fingers turning pages with deliberate care.
How his whole face changed when he was concentrating on his laptop—brow furrowed slightly, lips pressed together, like whatever he was reading required his entire attention.
The rare smile that transformed him from marble statue into an actual human being.
I was noticing everything, and it was driving me insane.
Wednesday afternoon, I was supposed to be painting. Instead I was watching him read some report on his tablet, coffee cup in his other hand, completely unaware that I existed.
When had his jaw gotten that defined? Had it always been like that and I’d just refused to notice? And why was I noticing now?
“You’re staring,” he said without looking up.
I jerked my attention back to my canvas. “I’m not staring. I’m thinking.”
“You’re thinking very loudly in my direction.”
“Maybe you’re just in the direction my thoughts happen to go.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“Your face doesn’t make sense. It’s too… organized.”
He looked up then, eyebrow raised. “My face doesn’t make sense?”
“It’s too… organized. Like someone designed it on purpose.”
“As opposed to faces that happen by accident?”
“You know what I mean.”
“I really don’t.”
I threw a paint-stained rag at him. He caught it without dropping his tablet—annoyingly impressive.
Thursday, my mom called.
I knew it was a bad day before she even spoke. I could hear it in the way she said “Hello?” like she wasn’t sure who she’d called or why.
“Hi, Mom. It’s Delia.”
“Oh. Delia.” A pause. “Is Miguel there?”
My heart sank. Miguel. My father. Dead for eight years.
“Mom—”
“I need to talk to him about the anniversary dinner. I want to make sure he got the flowers I asked for. The roses. He always forgets the roses.”
I opened my mouth to correct her. To remind her that Dad was gone, that there was no anniversary dinner, that the roses didn’t matter anymore.
But the hope in her voice stopped me.
Axel looked up from his laptop, his expression shifting the moment he saw my face. He started to stand but I shook my head, mouthing “it’s okay” even though it wasn’t.
“Actually, Mom, Miguel’s right here. Do you want to talk to him?”
“Oh, yes! Put him on!”
I held out the phone to Axel. He looked confused for half a second, then understanding crossed his face. He took the phone without a flicker of hesitation.
“Hello, Elena.” His voice dropped into something warm and gentle. “Yes, I got the roses. Red ones, just like you asked.”
I sat on the couch and listened to Axel pretend to be my dead father. Listened to him tell my mother about flowers and anniversary plans and how much he loved her. His voice stayed steady, patient, while I pressed my hands against my thighs to keep them from shaking.
“The reservation is confirmed,” he was saying. “Seven o’clock, our favorite table by the window. I’m looking forward to it.”
My mother said something I couldn’t hear, and Axel’s face softened. “I love you too. More than anything. I’ll see you soon.”
He handed me back the phone. Mom was crying—happy tears, from the sound of it—saying how lucky she was, how she couldn’t wait for their anniversary.
I talked her through the rest of the call, my voice somehow staying level while everything inside me crumbled. When I finally hung up, the apartment was too quiet.
Axel didn’t say anything. Just stood and walked to the kitchen.
I sat there, holding my phone, trying to remember how to breathe. Trying not to think about how my mother had forgotten her husband was dead. How she’d been so happy talking to him. How I’d lied to her because the truth would have destroyed that happiness.
Axel reappeared with tea, set it on the table in front of me without a word, then went back to his laptop like nothing had happened.
The gesture cracked something small and fragile in my chest.
Not the tea itself—though it was perfect, the exact temperature I liked, with honey the way I preferred. But the fact that he’d done it without being asked. Without making it a thing. Without forcing me to explain or justify or fall apart with an audience.
He’d just… helped.
I picked up the tea and drank it, and tried not to cry.
Friday morning, Axel left for work early.
“Board meeting,” he said, grabbing his coat. “Might run late.”
“Okay.”
“I’ll make sure to—”
“Axel. It’s fine. Go to your meeting.”
He nodded and left, and suddenly the apartment was too quiet.
I tried to paint. Lasted maybe thirty minutes before I noticed the silence getting louder.
The apartment felt wrong without the click of his keyboard, without his occasional phone calls conducted in that low, professional voice that made him sound like someone who had his life very well-put together.
I checked the time and it’s 10 a.m. He’d been gone for an hour.
This was ridiculous. I’d lived alone for years. I’d been fine. I didn’t need Axel Irving’s presence to function like a normal human being.
By noon, I’d checked the time six more times.
By three, I was actively annoyed with myself.
By five, when I heard his key in the lock, my heart did something stupidly eager before I could stop it.
He walked in carrying takeout bags that smelled incredible.
“What’s that?” I asked, trying to sound casual instead of pathetically grateful he was home.
“Dinner.”
“I can see that. Where from?”
“Your favorite place.”
I stared at him. “You went to Hector’s? That’s in Midtown. You don’t work in Midtown. Did you—”
“I left the meeting early. Picked this up on the way back.” He started unpacking containers onto the counter. “It’s still warm if you want to eat now.”
I wanted to ask why. Why he’d left a meeting early—apparently unprecedented, from Mark’s horrified expression in my imagination—just to bring me food from my favorite restaurant.
But the question felt too big, too revealing, too close to something I wasn’t ready to name. So I just said, “Balcony?”
“Balcony.”
We carried everything outside to my fire escape that I’d optimistically designated a balcony. It was barely big enough for two people and a plant that was definitely dying. The sunset was painting Brooklyn in gold and the temperature had finally dropped to tolerable.
I ate and felt something I hadn’t felt in weeks. Not quite happiness. But close. Something warm that filled the empty spaces Jake had left behind.
“You’re making sounds, you enjoy the meal this much?” Axel observed.
“These are appreciation sounds. You wouldn’t understand nuance.”
“Try me.”
I pointed at my plate with my fork. “This chicken? Marinated for twenty-four hours in buttermilk and spices. The potatoes are triple-cooked. First boiled, then chilled, then fried twice. The sauce alone takes three hours and uses seventeen ingredients. This isn’t casual food. This is art masquerading as dinner.”
He looked amused. “You should have been a food critic.”
“I considered it. But then I’d have to eat at bad restaurants and pretend to be objective about it. I’m not that strong.”
“Fair.”
We ate in comfortable silence for a while. The sun was setting properly now, turning everything orange and purple. From here, you could almost forget Brooklyn was part of a massive city. Almost pretend we were somewhere peaceful.
“I still remember the first time my dad took me to that restaurant,” I heard myself say. “Eight years ago. Right after I got into college.”
Axel set down his fork, giving me his full attention.
“It was perfect,” I continued, staring at the sunset instead of at him.
“My whole family was there. Mom was sharp, Dad was healthy, Daniel was still in med school and not completely exhausted all the time. We ate until we couldn’t move.
Dad kept making terrible jokes and Mom kept telling him to stop and then laughing anyway.
I remember thinking—” My voice caught. “I remember thinking this was how it would always be. That we’d always have this. ”
The tears came without permission, hot and fast. I pressed the heels of my hands against my eyes, trying to shove them back in.
“I’m sorry. I don’t know why I’m—”
“You don’t have to apologize.”
I looked at him. His face was different than usual. Open in a way I’d never seen.
“I understand,” he said quietly. “How it feels. To have what’s comfortable ripped away from you.”
Something in his voice made me go still.
“My mother…” He stopped. I could see slight hesitation in his eyes.
“After my father died, she just… disappeared. Not physically, not at first. But she’d look at me like I was a stranger.
Like she couldn’t remember who I was or why I was in her house.
The doctors said it was depression. Grief. But it felt like abandonment.”
His eyes were doing something I’d never seen—going bright and wet, mirroring mine.
“She decided on pills over staying. Chose not dealing with her pain over dealing with her son. And I know it’s more complicated than that.
I know depression doesn’t work that way.
But when you’re twelve and your mother would rather die than remember you exist…
” He swallowed hard. “It destroys something. That feeling of being erased by someone who’s supposed to love you most.”
I couldn’t breathe. My mind processing what he’d just shared. Axel never talked about his parents beyond basic facts. Never showed this kind of rawness.
“Does it ever get easier?” I asked.
“No.” He said it simply. “But you learn to carry it differently. You learn to build a life around the grief instead of waiting for it to go away.”
We sat in silence. At some point our shoulders touched. Neither of us moved away.
The grief felt less suffocating with him beside me. Less like drowning, more like… existing with something heavy.
Then I started crying without meaning to. Quiet tears that kept coming, for my mother and time running out and conversations we’d never have once she forgot how to speak my name.
Axel didn’t tell me to stop. Didn’t offer platitudes or try to fix it. Just shifted closer, his arm coming around my shoulders, solid and warm and steady.
I let myself lean into him. Let myself fall apart in a way I hadn’t let myself do in weeks, while Brooklyn turned dark below us and Axel held me like it didn’t matter that I was a mess.
When the crying finally stopped, I was pressed against his side, his shirt damp from my tears. I pulled away with the intention of apologizing and when I looked up.
He was already looking down.
The air between us changed. Got heavy.
His eyes dropped to my mouth. My breath caught.
I shifted closer. Just an inch. Maybe less.
His hand came to my face, thumb brushing my cheek—gentle, questioning, asking something he wasn’t saying aloud.
I started closing the distance, and his eyes went dark, and I could feel his breath, and—
My phone rang and the moment shattered like glass.
We jerked apart. I grabbed my phone with shaking hands, and saw Daniel’s name.
“Hey.” My voice came out breathless and quick.
“Hey yourself. I’m not interrupting anything, am I?”
I cleared my throat before voicing the lie, “No. Just sitting on the balcony.”
“Is Axel there?”
I looked at Axel, who was looking at the city like it held secrets. “Yeah. He’s here.”
“That’s good, I just wanted to check on you both,”
Daniel kept talking. I kept responding. But I couldn’t focus on anything except the feeling of Axel’s arm around me, the warmth bleeding away as he put careful distance between us, the almost-kiss that hung unfinished in the air.
When I finally hung up, neither of us spoke. The silence felt like a bruise.
“I should—” I started.
“Yeah,” Axel said. “Me too.”
We gathered the containers in silence. Went inside and cleaned up without looking at each other.
“I’m tired,” I said finally. “I’m going to bed.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.”
I escaped to my bedroom, sitting on my bed in the dark. My fingers went to my lips without permission, like they were checking for something that hadn’t happened. Thinking about the expression on Axel’s face—want and hesitation and something deeper I didn’t know how to describe.
He’d almost kissed me.
I’d almost let him. What was that? Was our forced proximity getting to me or was it something else?
Either way, I was so completely, catastrophically screwed.
My phone buzzed.
The unknown number notification caught my eyes.
I opened the message and froze.
Unknown Number
We need to talk. It’s important. -J