It’s just us here.
Dax’s room is a deep, dark grey-blue colour. Every wall and even the ceiling is painted. It should make the place seem small and oppressive, especially with all the dark wood furniture, but it’s masculine and elegant. Or perhaps it’s the sheer expanse of the place that stops it looking too dark?
Aiden walks to one of Dax’s armchairs stationed in front of a window with all the blinds drawn low. Dax turns on the lamps to give us a little more light to see each other by. I stand just inside the door and hover, unsure where I’m meant to go. Anxious about what will be said and wondering if it’d be better to just forget it and escape to my room.
Even if running is sometimes the best choice, escaping from this situation is nothing like running from Franz earlier. This is a promise of answers and running away from that is more about running from myself. If I’ve discovered anything over these last few days, it’s that I’m not a coward. So, I walk into the middle of the room and sit on the bottom of Dax’s duvet.
Dax leans against the frame of an open door. His bathroom, perhaps? Or closet? It’s too dark inside to see.
We wait for him to speak, to continue with whatever he was almost willing to reveal downstairs.
“I’m worried as you’re in this situation because of us.”
“Ehh-EHHHH,” Aiden shouts, mimicking the fail-buzzer sound of a TV game show. He raises his arms and crosses them in front of himself.
“Arsehole,” Dax mumbles.
“Coward,” Aiden fires back.
“I’m worried because it’s our fault you’re here,” Dax reiterates, glaring at Aiden. “But I’m more worried…” He hesitates, then watches me and my reaction to whatever he’s going to confess. “Because I care about you, little gem. You are important to me.”
My jaw drops. I think I heard what he said, but I flick my gaze between Dax on one side of the room and Aiden on the other. Dax watches me carefully, trepidation in the soft, back and forth roll of his lips. Aiden just grins and waves Dax on.
“Us. You are important to us,” Dax adds in a rush at Aiden’s prompt.
“A professional‘I can use her as bait’kind of important?” I ask, not wanting to be confused here.
“No!” Dax says decisively.
“Not at all,” Aiden grumbles.
“Though, you might be our best means of drawing Franz out…” Dax continues, speaking more to himself than the room.
“NOT. AT. ALL,” Aiden barks.
Dax shakes his thoughts loose. “Right…no. In the, ‘I nearly had a heart attack when you went missing,’ ‘have been a bastard to my people for losing you,’ ‘nearly strangled Aiden for encouraging me to make the appointment,’ ‘gave Mouse a black eye for stalking you’…”
“But he saved me…”
“And for that,” he confirms with a nod, as though saving me was a crime too. “‘Almost tore that other man’s hoodie off you because it wasn’t mine’…‘have wanted to hold you, and apologise, and kiss you since I saw your face on the cameras,’kind of way.”
“You care about me?” I confirm, though it sounds a little more like a question than a statement.
“Yes.”
“We care,” Aiden adds, ensuring I don’t forget his claim.
“Why?” I watch one man and then the other as they look at me in confusion.
“Why?” He shrugs and shakes his head. His face a mask of disbelief. “Why not?” Dax asks.
“Because you’ve known me for less than a month. People don’tfall in…into care for each other in mere days. That’s for movies or books. Not real life.”
“How do you know that? People grow to care about people all the time.”
“I’ve lived for twenty-one years and not even my parents care for me. Forgive me if I’m a little suspicious when not one but two hot guys, reeking of danger,” I point at Dax, “and charm,” I point at Aiden, “tell me they care.”
“Do you care about us?” Aiden asks. He smiles innocently, but his eyes dance with mischief because, damn, he’s got me there.
