AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Sorry, Mr. Griffin.” I cough to clear my throat one last time. “Uh, what can I get you?”
* * *
Nicole messages just before three to let me know she’ll pick her daughter up from school herself. She doesn’t mention Axel. She texts again just before five to ask me to shut the place down and lock up on my way out.
She still doesn’t mention Axel.
My phone doesn’t bleat again until nearly seven, when I’m already at my apartment, sipping on a glass of water and desperately attempting not to freak out.
But the vibration against my leg, and the short, sharp bleat is enough to send my pulse racing. Not just because I received a text, but because it’s Axel’s name on my screen.Hiswords beckoning me.
I spill water over the side of my glass as I eagerly thrust it to the kitchen counter to free my hands. Then I turn away from my roommate, whoknowsI’ve been on edge all afternoon.
She knows who Axel is, of course. And the local news is already reporting about the firefighter who landed his ass in the hospital.
Unlocking my phone and navigating to the text app, I release a heavy breath when I see ‘I’m okay.’
“Oh god.” Tears burn the backs of my eyes and leave me breathless. Because I was told hours ago he would be fine, but until I heard it directly from him… “Oh jesus.” I press a shaking hand to my mouth and will myself not to lose my shit. “He’s okay.”
“See?” Vivian, my roommate and closest friend in this town besides Nicole, wraps herself over my back and sets her chin on my shoulder. It’s a hug of sorts. “He’s gonna be fine.”
“I want to talk to him.” I reach up with a still shaking hand, despite my willing the shakes to stop, and wipe beneath my eye. Sliding my thumb across the screen and finding his name in the call log, I hit dial and silence my breathing. Calm the hell down.
He’s not your boyfriend, Hannah! He’s not your anything.
The call rings in my ear. Long, drawn out, cruel trills that threaten me with a reality of him not answering, despite my knowing he has his phone in his hand. If it goes to voicemail, it’ll be because he sent it there on purpose. Because he doesn’t want to speak to me. And that, after spending an afternoon like I just did, might hurt too much.
Too viciously.
“Hannah?”
I choke out a desperate exhale when his end of the line connects, and his voice, gruff and tormented, rolls through my ear.
“Axel?” My voice vibrates with sadness. “What the hell happened?”
“I said I was okay,” he sighs, like I’m a bother to him. Like I’m taking up his precious time. “You didn’t have to call.”
“I needed to hear your voice,” I whimper.
I hate that I love him so much. That I’m so young and yet, so ridiculously loyal to a man who refuses to return the same affections.
It’s worse, because his reluctance isn’t because he doesn’t love me back.
It’s because hechoosesnot to act on those feelings. Hechoosesto hurt us both, like some martyr fucking prince.
“Are you still in the hospital?” My words come out in an almost whisper while Viv rubs my back. “Did you break anything?”
“I’m home.” His breathing comes out a little heavier. His voice, a kind of grunt as he shifts in his bed… or recliner, or wherever the hell he is. “I got here just a minute ago.”
“And you knew I’d be waiting?” Emotion sits deep in my throat and threatens to strangle me. “You knew I needed an answer?”
“I know you need to stop losing sleep over me.” But his tone gentles. Softens in a way thatalmostfeels like a hug. “I fell off a ladder, Han. That’s literally it.”
“You hurt your back,” I counter. “You were on a ladder, still twenty feet up. The fireball blew you back, and you landed on your tanks.”Thank you, six o’clock news. “That’s not the same as stumbling off the bottom rung of a ladder, Axe.”
“Hannah—”
“Are you in pain?” Tears itch the backs of my eyes. But they don’t fall. They don’t dribble along my cheeks and make me feel more of a fool than I already am. “How long are you off work?”
