I shrugged, trying not to stare at Axel’s cheekbones. “I like cupcakes. Who doesn’t like cupcakes?”
“It depends how much they cost,” Axel said reasonably. “If our cost is too high, with a markup they’ll be very expensive cupcakes.”
“Good point,” I said. “And you have to have vegan and gluten-free options.”
“Both of you are so logical,” Grant complained. “What good are you? I’m going to talk to someone fun.” He got up and left the room.
Axel put the box on the shelf, took down another box, and uncapped his marker again. “Are you all right?” he asked, his gaze on the box.
His tone was cool, butAre you all right?wasn’t the same question asHow are you?It was the question you ask someone when you’ve been worried about them. “I’m fine,” I said, my voice coming out defensive. “Did you think I wouldn’t be?”
“You didn’t have to switch shifts to talk to me,” Axel said, ignoring the question. “You could have called or texted. Or knocked on my door.”
“Well, this is what I chose.” I knew I sounded like I was arguing, but I couldn’t seem to stop it. Being in his presence was shifting jagged things within me, shards of hot and cold rubbing together. He’d offered to strip for me.I’ll give you a show.I’d made myself forget the heat those words had unleashed in me, because he hadn’t been playing. He’d been serious. He would have done it, right there in Ellen’s kitchen. Stripped naked if I’d wanted.
And I’d said no.
Axel put his Sharpie down and rubbed his fingertips over his eyes, drawing my gaze to his rings. I still didn’t know how many rings Axel owned—it seemed to be infinite. He had thin silver bands and bigger designs, chunky silver shapes, rings that fit over his elegant thumbs. Sometimes he wore a lot, sometimes one or two, sometimes none. I wanted to know what each iteration meant, what mood it indicated. I wanted to know what his tattoos meant. Everything about him fascinated me, and it drove me insane.
“I’m at a loss here,” he said, his voice gravelly and tired. “You seem to want something from me, but I don’t know what it is. I risk either offending you somehow or crossing a line no matter what I come up with.”
“I want you to stop treating me like a leper.” I still sounded like I was arguing, because he was right. I wanted him and I didn’t want him, and I didn’t make any sense, and he was just trying to be nice to me. At the same time it made me angry that he was trying to be nice, as if I was his nuisance little cousin that he was trying to prevent from throwing a tantrum while he was stuck babysitting.
“What doyouwant?” I threw the words at him in self-defense, but I really wanted to know.
“Me?” Axel dropped his hands and his eyes went wide. “Jesus, how long have you got? I have a long fucking list. But I guess at the top, I’d like my friend back. And I’d like to stop reminding myself that I fucked it all up.”
Hehad? No. “You didn’t.”
“I did.” His voice was firm. “I fucked it up, Brit. And now you’re in therapy, and you’re fragile.”
“I amnotfragile.”
“You are.” He was so sure of it, and the fact that I was suddenly near tears meant he was right. Damn it. “This is a bad time. So I’ll be your neighbor and I’ll be your boss, okay? We’ll just have to work with that.”
I stared at him, all of my feelings tumbling inside me. It was time to admit that I wanted him close and I was terrified at the same time. “You’re like something bad I can’t quit,” I said.
“Yeah.” Axel’s voice was tired again. He turned and put the box back on the shelf. “I know the feeling.”
Too late, I realized what I had said. “Axel—”
“No, I get it. I do.” He took a step back from the shelf, and when he turned to me, his eyes were carefully shuttered. “Let’s just do it this way for a while. I think it’s for the best.”
* * *
More days crawled by,and I slowly fell apart. I didn’t understand what was happening to me. After Pierre, I’d sealed my feelings off, telling myself I had them under control. Now, it seemed I felt everything at once, with more and more vividness, even though feeling was the last thing I wanted.
I was angry and scared and atrociously sad. I wanted connection with other people and I wanted to be alone, probably forever. I told myself I hated everything about myself, and then I’d be hurt that no one appreciated me. I was going insane.
My new therapist, who was a saint, tried to pick apart my mental knots, like someone unraveling a huge tangle of Christmas lights one by one. Despite living in L.A., the land of a therapist on practically every corner, I had never done therapy before—and fuck, I needed it. It turned out that being a hot mess starts in childhood and doesn’t improve from there. By the time you’re thirty-one, the mental ball of Christmas lights is freaking huge.
Axel had said he was further along in this than I was, and as I saw how big my problem was, I started to understand what he meant. I wanted to ask him if he’d felt like this in the beginning, maybe when he’d just gotten sober, like a ball of helpless emotions that took off in every direction. I wanted to ask him if it got better. I wanted to ask him how he’d stayed sober through this hell. I wanted to tell him how much I admired him, how I could see now that the work he’d done was amazing and inspiring. I wanted to ask his advice.
But I couldn’t do any of that, because he’d stuck to his resolution to be only my neighbor and my boss. He was polite, friendly, and distant to me. When we texted, it was about my schedule. He didn’t invite me for impromptu errands anymore, and he didn’t invite me on walks. Instead, he kept up his running schedule alone.
“I want to sleep with him,” I said to my therapist, Meredith, at one of our sessions.
She nodded. She was in her fifties, kind and always professionally dressed. Her office was painted in a relaxing cream shade and was accessorized with potted plants. “That isn’t a surprise,” she said. “You’ve been very clear that you find him attractive.”