AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I throw each article down and switch the television off, bathing us both in almost darkness.
“Alright, handsome. I’m here now.” I walk to him, knowing where he is. Knowing how many steps it takes to cross his room. “Move over.”
I climb onto his luxurious king-sized bed and wait only a beat before he turns with a grunt and makes space in front of his body.
He creates a place for me to be his little spoon.
My rightful place in his life.
Fuck the rest of the world, and the ‘we can’t be together’ bullshit he spouts off to anyone who’ll listen. Screw his worry about my worry. His anxiety about my anxiety. To hell with his concerns about my age. Because as he turns and wraps his arm over my torso, I know we fit.
We don’t make love; we never have. We don’t kiss. Nor do we hold hands in public. There’s never been a declaration of a relationship between us. But here, in this room and in this bed, we fit.
The rest doesn’t matter.
I close my eyes and sigh when his plump lips rest on the back of my shoulder.
“I love you, Axel Feeney.”
“Yeah.”
He tucks his legs up and cups me close, and though I feel the pain he holds in his body, the tension from a hard day at work, my lips curl into a smile when his palm comes to my stomach and caresses the annoying bulge I get when I lay on my side.
It’s his reminder, I think, that I’m only human. That in here, in this bed, I’m just a woman, with skin and fat, sunspots on my cheeks, and frizzy hair when I forget to use the expensive leave-in treatments.
And when I’m positioned exactly right, lying on my side, I also have a few tiny curves for him to hold on to and hug while he sleeps.
Day in, day out, when we’re in the real world and everyone else is looking, he places me behind a thick, impenetrable glass wall, sitting upon the pedestal he built and decorated. But in the dark, cuddled together in his bed, I’m just… me.
And every now and again, when I’m really lucky, it almost seems like that’s enough to make him happy.
Axel
A COUPLE OF WEEKS LATER
It’s my day to hang with Juniper.
Pizza. A movie.
Casper thefriendlyghost; though, if you ask me, I’d say the human version can go fuck himself, considering my six-year-old niece has a crush on the dude and thinks it’s cute to creep me out with that unholy knowledge.
But instead of cuddling up beside my best little friend, I’m walking through a fire. Two stories, fully engulfed in flames, while Lieutenant Rosa walks just six feet behind me.
“We’re approaching the door now,” he murmurs through his radio, his voice pulsing in my ear. “Wishing I was in Italy.”
I roll my eyes and continue forward, Halligan bar in hand and mask covering my face, as I act as the head of our spear and keep a keen watch on the wall of flames licking across the ceiling.
Everyone knows Idalia Mazzi, Nix’s girl, is Italian and perfect… and a worrier.
She’s terrified of his career the way I kinda wish Hannah would be.
At least then, I could feel comfortable knowing she’s smart and being realistic. But where I throw the dangers of my job in Hannah’s face, Nix speaks in code to comfort the woman secretly listening in on our comms.
Our crew is a family. We’re a team who has each other’s backs. So although we know our lieutenant is breaking protocol and sneaking gear off the truck, we don’t call him out on it. We don’t make him stop.
Because maybe someday I’m gonna need my crew to havemyback like that. To take care of Hannah when she inevitably refuses to back the fuck down and move on without me.
“Door’s hot,” Nix continues through the radio. “Might need to bring those hoses around this way, Cootes. My spidey-sense tells me we’re about to get a nasty surprise.”
