Everything Carries Me to You (Axton and Leander Book 3) (61 page)

After work, Leander let himself back into a quiet apartment. Quiet.
Too
quiet?

Leander palmed his folding knife, took off his shoes, and silently crept around the apartment in his dress socks. No signs of struggle. Nothing out of place. No real reason to think anything bad may have happened, really.

Still.

Leander pulled the bathroom shower curtain back suddenly.

Nope. Empty. Cool.

The sweep was done except for the bedroom and the apartment seemed clean.

Still.

Leander flicked his knife open, just in case, and sidled into the bedroom.

The sheets were rumpled. The comforter was on the floor. The pillows were in disarray.

And Axon was sleeping peacefully, sprawled out on his stomach, half wrapped in white sheets.

With a relieved sigh, Leander flicked his knife closed and rubbed at his chest. Jesus, this shit was going to age him prematurely. Gently, he sat on the edge of the bed.

"For someone who doesn't need to sleep, you spend a lot of time napping, babe," he said, smiling. He reached out and rubbed the back of Axton's head, right where his skull met his neck.

Axton mumbled something incoherent and shoved himself forward just enough to thrust his head into Leander's lap. Clearly, he wasn't getting up yet. Leander did not actually mind. The novelty of Axton being his to look at hadn't worn off yet. Perhaps Leander would never be able to take that for granted, given how it had been ripped from him before. He took his time, looking.

The sheets revealed just as much as they concealed, and Axton's body was slim and muscular, promising power as well as speed. When Leander had first gotten him back, Axton had seemed a little hollowed out. Stress had made him thinner, and Axton hadn't started off with remotely enough weight to lose and still look solidly healthy.

Peace gave Axton some weight back, made the tautness of his body look strong instead of brittle. His cheekbones kept their high drama, but his eye sockets had lost their brief, haunted prominence. Everything about him was sleek muscle and refined bone, and yet on this streamlined predator's chassis, genetics had seen fit to add a pair of soft, long eyelashes. That delicate detail, that tender apparent contradiction, drove Leander crazy. It seemed to encapsulate everything about Axton. Something small and gentle in the midst of all that strength--

Axton was awfully, terribly beautiful, and he somehow still had no fucking idea.

It was an issue. Leander was working on it. He was starting to suspect it wasn't even low self-esteem. Axton was just artless that way.

Right now, Leander was caught in that confusing moment between
god, I love you so much, let me tell you about it
and
let's fuck hard and long, right NOW
. These feelings were not mutually exclusive, but they were also not entirely the same thing, and therefore somewhat difficult to do simultaneously. In any case, Axton wasn't even awake yet.

"Goddamn," Leander said, thoughtfully.

Fuck it. You had to make things happen.

Leander scratched the back of Axton's neck more insistently.

"Wake up," he said.

"In a minute," Axton mumbled.

"I love you so much," Leander said, "but I also want to bang the fuck out of you. Choose your own adventure."

Axton yawned and opened his eyes slowly.

"Glad to see the poetry is still alive in this relationship," he said, and, swift as if he was taking down a buck, he turned and knocked Leander flat on the mattress, climbing on top of him.

"I'll
show
you
poetry," Leander said.

"I don't know if your mouth is going to be free for that."

"Poetry in
motion
, motherfucker."

The next day, Leander spent his lunch break driving out to a neighborhood he'd never been to. He was alone, with a big basket flower arrangement in the passenger seat. He expected he wouldn't get as far as the flowers, but he was game to try. When he finally got to his destination, Leander parked, took off his sunglasses--sincere eyes; he had to give good sincere eyes--and then promptly…fidgeted in his seat and did nothing for a while.

"Okay, okay," he muttered, trying to psych himself up. "All right. Okay. Yeah."

He blew a big breath out of his mouth nosily.

"Fuck," he said, and then he got out.

He glanced back at the flowers.

Would leading with flowers seen insincere? But then again, didn't they set the tone immediately?

And after all, didn't she
like
fresh flowers? Right.

Leander turned around and grabbed the flowers. Then he peered around the crowded apartment complex, making sure he had his numbers right. He tried to not let the metal framework on the windows pain him. He hated that; no matter how decorative the cheap metalwork tried to be it was still ugly, because it said:
we don't trust our neighbors here
.

The walk to the second floor felt like it took a long time.

Leander took a deep breath and rang the doorbell.

Immediately, an obviously small and angry dog erupted into warning barks. Despite his general mood, Leander smiled. The door was thin and he could hear definite human scuffling sounds inside.

When the door failed to open after a good while, Leander's smile faded. He didn't want to be pushy and ring the doorbell again. Ringing doorbells more than once was pretty standard, but in this case, he knew the door was being deliberately not opened.

Deep, even breaths. He had to try. It was the right thing to do. He pushed the doorbell again.

Come on
, he urged silently,
let me tell you I'm sorry, at least. Grant me that final kindness
.

He changed his grip on the basket, surreptitiously--he hoped--calling attention to the apology flowers.

He was debating whether to ring for a thing time, hand over the button, when the door finally opened.

Leander stepped back.

"Hi," he said, hopefully.

Christina stood in the doorway and crossed her arms over her chest, plush lips in a thin line.

"Yes?" she asked.

"Um," Leander said.

"You have three seconds to tell me why you're here," Christina said, "or I'm closing the door."

"Jesus, okay, give me a--no,
wait, wait
. Please? I'm here to apologize," Leander exhaled sharply after he got it out.

"I see you're holding apology flowers," Christina said.

"They're for you," Leander said unnecessarily, offering the basket.

"What are you apologizing for?" Christina asked, ignoring the proffered basket utterly.

"Is that, like,
what are you apologizing for, I totally forgive you immediately
, or is it
enumerate exactly the correct ways in which you wronged me or else the apology doesn't count
? Because those are different," Leander said.

"Which do you think?" Christina asked.

"I think I'm an asshole," Leander said immediately. "I think I completely ignored your desires as a person, as a person close to me, as a person who is dearer to me than nearly anyone else in the world."

"Not
anyone
else," Christina said.

Leander plunged onwards, ignoring that.

"I think you wanted to help me and I turned you away, and I did it as viciously as possible because that's all I could think of that might work. I didn't explain to you what was going on. I was so blinded by my fear for your safety that I pushed you away at all costs, because I felt it was the only way to push you out of
harm's
way. I didn't consult you as an equal. I just did it. I cut you out. I disrespected you by not letting you make your own decision. And I'm
sorry
, and I'm terrified it might not be enough to apologize,
corazón
, but I couldn't live with myself if you or the girls got hurt because of me. I just couldn't."

"Anything else?" Christina asked.

"I'm really,
really
fucking sorry for how I did it," Leander said.

"The big thing is how you didn't trust me to make my own decision," Christina said, "how you decided for me."

"I know," Leander said, "but I also regret all the nasty things I said to make you mad at me so that you'd go. I'm sorry. I've missed you like hell, and the kids, and even the yappy little dog, who I think knows it's me now because that's not her angry bark anymore but she still won't shut the fuck up."

"It was shitty of you," Christina said.

Leander bowed his head.

"I know," he said.

"Did you give up?" Christina asked, "or did you win?"

Leander looked up, eyes gleaming.

"I won," he said.

There was a quiet but fierce satisfaction in his tone that he could not hide. Could not? Did not? Leander wasn't sure.

"Well," Christina sighed, "at least there's that."

Leander couldn't tell if she meant it or not. Just in case she did, he went on.

"I, uh, so there's this house I got fixed up, in the same--"

"Gauche," Christina said, cutting him off, clearly disgusted. "Very gauche. Beneath you. Don't."

"Please," Leander said. "Please, let me--"

"We don't need you," Christina said sharply. "I never thought I'd have to prove myself to you of all people, but you've been gone for over a year and we're fine.
We don't need you
. We never did."

Leander didn't look away from her, even though he wanted to.

"I know," he said, cold sinking in his gut. "I know. Of course you don't."

Deep within the apartment, the yapping intensified.

"I don't--" Christina started, but she stopped, annoyed, unable to be heard over the barking now without raising her voice.

"You may not need me," Leander said, shouting a little over the shrill yapping, "but I need you, all of you guys. It's always been on my mind, through every setback, every triumph. Each time I thought I might die,
what if I never see them again?
and then when I won for sure I was happy but there was still--"

"I don't care about what--"

At shin level, something blurry vaulted past Christina's legs to collide with Leander. He set down the basket and couldn't help but smile--Daisy was jumping as high as she could, yapping joyously. He bent down to pick her up and in her frenzy to lick his face, she wriggled so much he thought he might drop her.

"I missed you, too," he cooed, because, goddamnit, you couldn't deny a dog a happy reunion. He made sweet nonsense noises at her, scrunching his face when she continued to lick him lavishly. When he opened his eyes again, he saw Christina with a tiny smile on her face. She looked away quickly when she realized he had seen, but the damage had been done.

"You missed me," Leander said, with confidence. "You think I'm an asshole and by all means, stay pissed off at me for as long as you want. You have the right. But you missed me. Admit it."

"Oh,
fine
," she said, dropping her arms in exasperation. "Get your dumb obvious basket and come inside to talk."

"I love you," he called out after her, bending to pick up the basket, writhing happy dog tucked under his arm.

The egg whites were foamy. Axton wasn't sure he understood the point of adding egg whites to a drink yet. He handed the glass back to Leander.

"Nope," he said, adventures in taste testing concluded.

Leander nodded and sipped.

"I think that's the first time I've seen you turn down a food stuff of any kind," he observed. The tension rolled from Leander in waves, but he seemed to finally be relaxing, his shoulders easing into a lower configuration.

"Don't get me wrong, I'd drink it," Axton said, "but I wouldn't enjoy it as much as you would."

"By that standard--" Leander started.

New York materialized from somewhere to the side and swooped in to gently take Leander's drink out of his hand.

"Goddamnit," Leander said.

New York guzzled down half of the pisco sour and then thumped the glass down on the bar.

"Stay on your toes," he warned, pointing at Leander and then sailing off.

"I hate you," Leander called out. He turned back to Axton.

"You're smiling," Axton said.

"I am not," Leander said, caught in the act and now schooling his face into the proper expression.

"You were smiling fondly," Axton said. "I saw you."

"I was mourning my defiled drink," Leander said.

"You like that he's an asshole," Axton said.

"Well, he's often performing at being an asshole," Leander said, "and that's fun. He's occasionally genuinely an asshole, and that's less fun."

"You could have just told me you didn't want to go dancing," Axton said.

"Ah, but I
do
want to go dancing," Leander said, picking his drink back up. "I enjoy you; I enjoy dancing; I enjoy dancing
with
you. I can't just give that up forever because of traumatic associations."

"And your solution is the guy that's hitting on the bartender?" Axton asked, quirking his lips into a smile and cocking his head towards the end of the bar.

"Oh, that's the owner, Catherine," Leander said. "New York's been trying to sleep with her for years. Sometimes successfully, if I recall. Don't mind him. It's ritual, by this point."

"Nonetheless," Axton said, "he's got his hands full. How is he back up?"

"He's like a, what, a loud and obnoxious security blanket," Leander said. "I don't expect him to do anything useful. He just makes me feel better."

"He is loud," Axton said thoughtfully, "but also pretty good looking, so I'll allow it. You two are pretty close, huh?"

"The answer is no," Leander said, "not even once, not even remotely."

"What?" Axton said.

"You were about to ask if we'd ever, like, acted on repressed homosexual longing for each other," Leander said. "I know that look. Sarah's asked me a dozen times over the years. I'm positive she's always picturing it as she asks."

"So you haven't
acted
on it," Axton said, "which implies that the urge exists--"