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The man only smiled, as if I was trying out my comedy act on him, right here on the lawn.
Jesus. Maybe he didn’t speak English? A glance at the truck showed a painted logo for Warsaw Landscaping. Perhaps he only spoke Polish?
Still, he had to get the gist of my problem. I pointed to the front door of Ellen’s house. “She didn’t hire you,” I said. “She won’t pay you. Any of you.”
The man laughed at that, emitting a cackle from his throat. Then he pointed to my neighbor’s door. “Talk to him,” he said in accented English. “We get paid just fine.”
I didn’t know what that meant, and Yellow Teeth wasn’t going to enlighten me. Worried that Ellen would get a bill that would give her a heart attack—and I had no money to help her out—I turned on my heel, steeled myself, and walked to my neighbor’s front door. His car was in the driveway, so he was definitely home.He’s just a hot guy,I told myself.Remember that time Harry Styles came into the salon?This was child’s play.
I knocked on the door, waited, then knocked again. Maybe he was in the shower. Maybe he was in the backyard. Maybe—
The door swung open and there he was, Axel de Vries in six feet of scruffy blond glory. He was wearing the same dark gray sweatpants I’d seen him in before and a black sleeveless shirt. His tattoos were resplendent down his arms, and for a second I was breathless, taking in the full view of them up close. He wore silver rings and a thin necklace around his neck from which dangled a circle the size of a dime, too small for me to see if there was any design on it.
His blue eyes took me in with curiosity he didn’t bother to hide. “Hi there,” he said.
Even his voice was sexy, like a cool drink on a hot day.
I gathered myself and pointed at the landscapers. “These guys say they work for you, but they’re in my yard.”
Axel’s eyebrows went up. Ignoring the problem, he said, “Your yard? You live with Ellen?”
“She’s my aunt.” I paused. “Technically, she’s my great-aunt, my grandmother’s sister. But I think of her as my aunt.” Great, now I was babbling my family tree. “It doesn’t matter. I’m living with her, and she definitely didn’t hire those guys.” I gestured again. The landscapers had paused what they were doing to watch the entertainment. Even the leaf blower guy had finally stopped, and he was chuckling.
“Yeah?” Axel was still curious, apparently about me. I turned back to find that his ice-blue eyes weren’t looking at the landscapers. They were fixed on my face. “How long have you lived with Ellen? Wait.” He snapped his fingers, his silver rings flashing in the sunlight. “Are you the niece who lives in L.A.?”
That set me back. Ellen had talked about me? To Axel de Vries? I’m as vain as the next person, because I asked, “What else did she say?”
“Wait, wait.” Axel gestured with his hand, moving his fingers as he searched his memory. His fingers were as graceful and beautiful as the rest of him, maybe even more so. Now that I knew this man was a drummer, a lot of how he moved made sense, the innate rhythm of his body. “I remember. You cut hair. Like, a high-end stylist to the stars or something. Right?”
“I do.” Why was I flushing, flattered that the two of them had discussed me at all? Then I remembered. “I mean, I did. I don’t anymore. I—”
A string of words was shouted across the lawn from one of the landscapers. Polish. Followed by laughter.
Axel’s eyes narrowed, and he flinched back. Then he surprised me again by lifting his chin and speaking past my shoulder, shouting out a string of his own words. In, I assumed, Polish.
There was a staccato shout back, then a few curt words from Axel. Then the leaf blower started again and the men went back to work, no longer staring at us.
“You know Polish?” I asked.
“Not a lot,” Axel explained, as if this was just something people knew. People who weren’t Polish, anyway. “I learned a few basics so that I could deal with these guys.” He lifted his chin past my shoulder again. “It’s a nice language. Also, it’s harder for them to rip me off when they know I know what they’re saying.”
“What did they say?”
His blue eyes looked annoyed. “They were making a joke about how I’ve made a conquest,” he admitted. “They were rude about it. I told them to mind their own business or they’re fired.”
I didn’t know what to do with that—any of it. The insulting joke, Axel shutting it down, the fact that Axel knew Polish. Then I remembered why I was here, that I was supposed to be solving a problem. “They’re on the wrong lawn,” I said. “Ellen didn’t hire them. They’re supposed to be doing your lawn, not hers.”
He leaned a shoulder on his doorframe, casual as can be. “Not at all. They do Ellen’s lawn, then mine. Every two weeks. The bill comes to me. We’ve been doing it for two summers now.”
I stared at him in shock. “What? You pay for my aunt’s lawn maintenance? Why would you do that?”
“Because I’m not an asshole.” He said this as if it were obvious. “Jeez, she’s in her seventies and she lives alone. You think I’m going to pay a crew to do my lawn, then leave her to mow all by herself? Forget it. Now, this guy.” He pointed in the direction of the neighbor on his other side. “He’san asshole. He gives me death glares whenever we cross paths, and I got a nasty note when I had to park my car on the street one day. That guy can mow his own fucking yard, and then he can fuck right off.”
As Axel spoke, I realized two things. The first was that there was simply no way I could resist this man. I understood, now that I was in his orbit, why Aunt Ellen had given him her hard-won devotion. Axel de Vries wasn’t a man-boy at all. He was perfect—smart, funny, talented, beautiful, considerate. He was kind to old people and at the same time he tolerated absolutely no shit. I didn’t just like him, I wanted to be him.
The second thing was that I finally figured out what the difference was between the man standing in front of me and the man in the photos from five years ago. It was the eyes. They were the same striking Nordic blue, sure. But Axel’s eyes five years ago had been shuttered, their expression dark and a little bit blank. The man who looked at me now had a warmth he hadn’t had before, as if a window had been opened to let in the air.
I was quiet for too long, but Axel let that go without comment. He was probably used to being recognized, at least occasionally. “I’m Axel,” he said, holding out his hand. “What’s your name?”
