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“Question time,” Axel said.
I was confused. “What?”
“There’s a lot I want to know about you,” he explained, “but you prefer it if you ask me a question before I ask you one. So go ahead. Ask me anything.”
I took a second to digest that. He wanted to know about me? And I could ask him anything? Literally anything?
What are you like in bed?It was the first question that came to mind. Completely inappropriate. I could never ask it. He would run away in those sweatpants and never speak to me again.
So I went with another question that had crossed my mind. “How did you meet Grant?”
Axel’s eyebrows rose, and then he nodded, as if he approved of the question. “His sister was in rehab with me. We were close, and Grant came to visit her regularly. Grant and I hit it off. I wanted to start something new, something that had nothing to do with the Road Kings. Grant has a business degree and had started the coffee shop, but he needed an infusion of cash to make it what he wanted. So I bought in, and we became partners.”
Things were clicking in my mind as he spoke. “Rehab,” I said.
Axel glanced at me. “You didn’t guess?”
“I should have,” I admitted. So many things made sense now. Axel’s dedicated health routine, his early nights, his lack of parties despite being a rock star. He’d said he couldn’t tour like he used to anymore. Grant had said Axel went through something serious, which was why he was single. Mostly, it explained the difference in Axel’s eyes from five years ago to now. The man from five years ago was closed off and shuttered for a reason. “I get it,” I said. “I saw it often enough in L.A. Was it alcohol?”
“Copious amounts,” Axel said. “But what hooked me was pills. Getting off them was rough. I’ve been sober for three years now.”
“Congratulations,” I said, meaning it. I couldn’t imagine how hard that must have been.
“Thank you,” he said.
I picked out another thing he’d said, one that made irrational jealousy rear its head. “Were you dating Grant’s sister?” Grant was good-looking, so his sister was probably a babe.
Axel laughed. “That would have been one hell of a plot twist.”
I translated that. “So she’s gay, too?”
“Very much so.” He didn’t seem to mind that I hadn’t limited myself to one question. “She moved to Phoenix with her girlfriend a year ago. They run spiritual retreats together. She’s still sober, too. I talk to her regularly.”
I was starting to see that Axel was a woman magnet, and not just in the sexual sense. He had my great-aunt and Grant’s lesbian sister in his fan club, which meant he was good at being friends with women he wasn’t trying to sleep with. A group that seemed to include me.
I didn’t know what to make of that yet. I shouldn’t like being in his fan club—in any man’s fan club. And part of me wanted to be the woman he found sexually desirable, the woman who drove him wild.
At the same time, being with a man without the complication of potential sex was making me relax for the first time in—well, ever. I would have to think this over.
“Now it’s my turn to ask questions,” Axel said. “Tell me about leaving L.A.”
“You already asked me that.”
“And you didn’t fully answer. So tell me.”
I didn’t want to talk about it—yet, suddenly, I did. It was exhausting, having something weigh so heavily on you. “My boyfriend and I were together for three years,” I said. “His name is Pierre. We started our salon together—he brought in the clientele, and I did cuts and hired the staff. We got great word of mouth in celebrity circles. It made a lot of money. When you work with celebrities, you can charge five hundred, six hundred dollars a cut.”
“Wowza,” Axel said.
I shrugged. “Hollywood is different. I moved into Pierre’s apartment and we worked and lived together. So when I left, I lost everything. I lost my home, my business, my career, all of my income. He kicked me out of the business and badmouthed me all over the industry so no one would hire me.” I rubbed my bottom lip as my throat tried to close. “I, um, had nowhere to go. I called Aunt Ellen and she immediately said I could stay with her. So I came to Portland with a few suitcases and the money I had left in the bank. And here I am.”
The silence stretched between us. I was thinking about Aunt Ellen’s voice on the other end of the line when I called her that day.Of course you can come. I have a spare room.We had never been close, Ellen and me. I called her from time to time, but Pierre didn’t like it when I talked too often, or too long, with someone who wasn’t him.
And yet when things had been bad, it wasn’t my parents or any of my so-called friends that I called. It was Ellen, and she had been there.
When Axel spoke, his voice was gentle. “You must have wanted to leave very, very badly.”
The words came out of me from some depth I hadn’t known existed. “It felt like life and death.”
