CHAPTER 6 — BELLE
I flop down on Ajax’s bed, exhausted, satisfied, and feeling like I’m on cloud nine. I look over at him, and he has a dopey grin on his face. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen him like that.
“Come here,” he says, wrapping an arm around my shoulders and pulling me into his chest.
I snuggle up against him and sigh, releasing all of the tension and falling into his chest. I breathe in and then out, feeling more at peace than I ever have.
He pulls the white duvet over us, and I somehow snuggle even closer to him.
“You know you’re perfect, right?” Ajax asks, looking at me.
I almost laugh out loud when I see his expression. He looks serious, like he’s asking an important research question, as if he’s deeply invested in my answer. You’d think he was proposing a new physics theorem with the way he said it.
I shrug my shoulders, and he stills, raising his eyebrows.
“Don’t play games with me, Belle,” he says.
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“Don’t pretend like you’re not gorgeous. You don’t need to do that fake humility bullshit with me. You can level with me.”
I pause, biting my lip. It’s tough, because I think I’m pretty, but the way Ajax talks about me, well, you’d think he was describing a Victoria’s Secret model.
“I swear, I’m not trying to be humble,” I say.
He looks at me. “You’re serious,” he says.
I shrug my shoulders. “I mean, I think I’m pretty. But you’re being a bit dramatic, aren’t you?”
He looks at me, shocked, like I’m a flat earther.
“We’re going to have to change that,” he says. “ASAP.”
“What does that mean?” I ask.
He shakes his head and just pulls me closer to him. “Don’t you worry about that,” he says. “I’ll figure it out.”