42. Wrinley #2
“No. You’re not,” he says sternly. “But you’ll get there. I’m sure of it. Aaaand maybe think about going to see her.” He spits out that last part so quiet and fast, I could have missed it if I wasn’t listening to him so intently.
This is not how I thought tonight was going to go.
By the time Axel came back in, the food was no longer warm enough to be edible, so dad insisted on warming it up. Said we needed to eat and wouldn’t accept no for an answer. He also didn’t bring up mom again and the heaviness in my heart was both grateful and sad that he didn’t.
Axel was… different too. I’m not sure exactly why, but I’m positive my father had something to do with it, since I heard them talking when I came back from the mailbox.
I couldn’t bring myself to fully eavesdrop, but I also didn’t want to interrupt.
I’m intensely curious to know what they had to say to each other, but I won’t ask.
Now we’re back on the road. My arms are woven around Axel’s muscled torso and every time he turns, I can feel his muscles tense underneath his shirt as I lean into it with him.
God, I want to lean into everything else with him too.
We pull into the parking lot and I make an attempt to dismount but he stops me with a firm hand on my thigh.
“No,” he says plainly. “You get off on my back or not at all.”
I rear my head back, slightly appalled. I’m perfectly capable of getting off a bike the normal way.
He regards me over his shoulder with those luscious light brown eyes of his and I melt.
Literal goner. If I want this to work, I’m going to have to choose my battles.
My man forcing me to koala him is probably low on the scale when it comes to worthwhile arguments.
He chuckles quietly when I lift my legs to lock them around his waist.
“Good girl.”
The second he steps foot on the ground and he’s released me and removed our helmets, the sky opens up and rain falls, nearly soaking us.
“Will you stay with me?” I ask softly. "Out here? Just for a few minutes?”
He nods, his hair soaked now as it falls, almost covering his eyes.
I take a second to admire the work of art that is Axel Bradley, with his corded, tatted forearms, the t-shirt now glued to his chest that I know is covering a well defined six-pack… those black-rimmed glasses framing his face and eyes so beautifully. I’m speechless looking at him.
He’s mine.
He watches me closely as I slowly outstretch my arms and twirl, my face tilted to the clouds so I can feel every drop against my skin.
For a long time, I thought the clouds and the rain understood me like no person ever could.
I stop moving and direct my attention back to Axel to find his eyes intent on me like it’s the first time he’s really seeing me, when I’m pretty sure he’s always seen me.
My beautiful, broken man that thinks he doesn’t know what love means.
He runs his hand through his wet locks, pushing them out of his eyes. That’s when I see it. A small tattoo that barely looks like anything on the inside of his left wrist. Squinting, I tip my head at his arm and ask, “When did you get that? It looks new.”
“It’s new enough.”
He closes the distance between us to pull my right arm to eye level.
I eye him curiously as he slowly moves it to meet his left arm, lining them up until I see his tattoo complements mine–the incomplete circle I got tattooed on my wrist years ago. His tattoo completes mine.
I can’t stop my eyes from volleying back and forth between him and the tattoos that now form a full circle.
Dad was right.
He does love me.
He takes up all of the empty space inside of me, like we’re two parts that make up the same whole.
Releasing a shaky breath, I tell him, “I’m pregnant.”
He pulls my face into his wet hands that are somehow warm despite us standing in the cold rain. “I know.” Then his lips land on mine as he claims my mouth in the pouring rain.
When we eventually part, his face twists into an expression that resembles uncertainty, which is admittedly not something I’m used to seeing on him.
“Baby, I–”
Quickly, I place a lone finger against his lips to stop him from ruining this moment.
“I don’t care. Don’t say what you were just about to say.
Maybe someday I’ll want to know, but that time is not now.
” I don’t need to hear him say it. I know this man and if he already knows, it’s because he wanted it to happen.
“The only thing I need to know is, are you in this with me… with us?”
I look down and my hands move to caress my belly as I ask, slightly afraid of his answer.
He may have gotten us here, but is he ready to see this through?
“Look at me,” Axel demands roughly and I do.
That vulnerability I saw in the woods is back and I have to admit, while I love him rough and demanding, this is not a bad look on him.
“I’m scared fucking shitless. I don’t know how to be a father and I sure as fuck don’t know what kind I’ll be, but there is no scenario where I’m not one thousand fucking percent in this with you.
If I haven’t made it perfectly fucking clear that you’re mine and I’m never letting you go…
then I’ve failed you.” Then he pulls me into his chest. “But I promise to spend the rest of my fucking life making it up to you.”