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One of the men walks with a slight limp, his broad shoulders bowed, and his chest thick enough to make my lungs ache. It only gets worse when, just a few feet from the window, he lifts his head and our eyes meet, my chocolate brown to his electric silver.
I jolt in my booth and yank my hand away when Thomas reaches for it.
“Hannah?” he tries again. “Are you okay?”
But I don’t think I am. Because I could swear Axel fricken Feeney stands on the other side of the glass, staring in with a familiar scowl as Thomas’ hand wraps around mine.
I slam my eyes closed and scrunch my face tight, like maybe it’s just his ghost, here to torment me. But when I open them again, he’s still there.
A pathetic whimper escapes my throat. “Oh no.”
“Axe!” The guy he’s with, one I remember too well from the funeral that inadvertently created more ghosts than just the one who perished in the Oriane fire, turns when Axel takes off and charges toward the restaurant entrance.
Ruiz looks back to me. To Thomas. Then he searches for Axel again, and sniggers when his companion shoves through the front door of Pinocchio’s and starts in our direction.
I shrink lower in my seat, like I could somehow turn invisible.
Disgust rolls in my belly at my cowardice.
I always imagined, when face to face again, I would be angry. Truly enraged, and filled with words of venom to spit in Axel’s face.
So I’d practiced my schooled expression, preparing for when I inevitably see him this weekend at the party for the woman we’re mutually invested in.
But to see him tonight, before I’m ready, and when I’m on a date?
This isn’t how this was supposed to go.
“Hannah?” Axel saunters to a stop in the very place our server stood just a minute ago. But where she was demure and smelled of vanilla and flowers, Axel smells like… well, Axel. And ‘demure’ is the last word on the planet I’d use to describe him.
I bend my neck back and glide my eyes up his body.
My heart thunders as I catalog the fact he’s changed in the last six months. Grown. It could be because I’m sitting, but I swear, he’s gotten taller since he was last here. And his hair, the strands that peek from beneath his hat, prove his locks have grown longer. His eyes are harder. Meaner, much like when he had stared me down on that devastating day in the middle of the cemetery.
When Ruiz, the very man whose girlfriend we buried, strides through the restaurant and comes to a stop beside Axel, I shrink further into my seat and groan.
“You good here, guys?” Thomas sets one arm on the back of his seat so his body turns their way, but his second hand remains wrapped around mine and holds me hostage for everyone to see.
Why am I such a pussy? Silent, when I have so much to say. Speechless, when I have an entire tirade prepared that centers on Axel being an asshole.
Axel ignores Thomas’ question and instead, yanks a chair from a nearby table and swings it back around, setting it down so close that, when he sits, his shoulder almost touches mine, and his foot is within an inch of my toes.
“You’re on a date?” He spares the shortest glance for Thomas, while at his back, Ruiz grabs a second chair and mirrors his friend.
Because I guess we’re on a double date now; except I’m the only woman, and this doesn’t feel as pleasant as those spicy reverse harem books that I read in secret would have me believe.
As Ruiz makes himself comfortable, Axel’s eyes move to my hand, held captive in the middle of the table.
“And you’re holding hands with the dude?” Finally, he glances toward Thomas and fakes a smile that borders on violent. “What’s up?”
“Er… what’s up with you?” Thomas responds. “We’re actually kinda busy, so if you could put your chairs back and lea—”
“I’ll go when I’m ready.” Axel’s silver-gray eyes swing back to me. “You look good. Beautiful, actually.”
“Great.” I flash a smile that matches his energy, then I flick my free hand in his direction. “This table was booked fortwo. So now would be a good time for you to leave.”
“I’m in town for a while,” he supplies, though I didn’t ask. “Staying at my house. Somehow got me a housemate I don’t like, freeloading until he can find something else.” Then he turns to Thomas and looks him up and down with a sneer. “CrossFit body, but the hands of a real estate agent.” He grabs our joined hands and yanks them apart so Thomas’ falls to the table, and the salt and pepper shakers rattle in their holder. “Can you hook my friend up with somewhere to stay?”
“You’re rude,” Ruiz scoffs. “And you seem to have a thing for my future landlord’s… prized mare?”
