Chapter 21
Axel
“I miss Fun Wrecker,” Boomer sulks, taking his turn to try to quiet Otto’s inconsolable cries by slow-dancing him around the living room. He’s got shit moves today, and Otto knows it, ramping up the wails until I wave them over, holding out my hands for my son.
“It’s okay, buddy. Daddy’s got you.”
Only he takes one accusatory look at me and lets out another furious cry.
I get it. I’m angry at me too. The woman we love is gone because I let her go.
Fuck, I practically made her go.
“Nah, this isn’t going to work.” Bowie shakes his head, setting his water on the coffee table and coming over to where we’re sitting by the window. “You’re as messed up as he is. It’s making him cry harder. I’ve got the touch. Give him to me.”
Bowie takes Otto, and within thirty seconds, hands him back, still bawling.
Boomer looks up to the ceiling, grumbling. “If you mean your touch puts women to sleep, D-Man, not the same thing.”
A quiet thud followed by a laughing moan comes from their direction, but I don’t bother looking.
I stare at my son, whose cheeks are tear-streaked and mottled red from crying.
Pushing to my feet, I start to walk, talking quietly to my brokenhearted boy.
“We had to let her go, Otto. I know it feels bad, but someone had to put her first… even if she wasn’t willing to do it herself.”
That’s what I keep telling myself. What I need to believe, because it’s the only fucking thing keeping me from getting on a plane and going after her. Begging her to come back to us. To let me show her that I can make her happy.
Otto squirms, restless and irritable. Because the one he wants, the one he loves isn’t here.
“Plane leave yet?” Bowie asks as Boomer starts clearing water bottles.
I nod and try to breathe through the pain in my chest. “Half hour ago.”
On-time departure. Good weather between here and France.
Turning to the window, I stare out at the streets below.
A heavy hand claps my shoulder, giving it a bracing squeeze.
Boomer. “Hey, man, we’re gonna get out of here. You got the new nanny coming over this afternoon?”
“Tomorrow.” I called the service on my way back from O’Hare and asked them to push back the start date until tomorrow. My boy and I need—
I let out a choked laugh, thinking back to that afternoon before Otto was born.
Five minutes. She’d needed five minutes to mourn her dead houseplant. The symbolic loss of her dreams. But me? I’m not sure five years will be enough.
“Well, text if you need anything.”
I need Nora. “We’ll be fine.”
The guys grab their coats, letting themselves out.
Or not quite. “Hey, man, uhh, looks like maybe you sent something to the wrong address again.”
“Huh?” I turn to Boomer.
He shrugs. “Delivery down the hall.”
Nora would be doubled over, but the last thing I need is a reminder of all the ways I fucked up with her.
“What is it?” I ask, meeting him at the door.
“Dunno. Looks important.” Boomer scoops Otto out of my arms. “You’re going to need two hands for this one.”
There’s a weird look on his face as I step past him into the hall and stop short, the air punched from my lungs at the sight of Nora wrestling her two too-small suitcases out of the elevator.
“Nora?” Her name sounds rusty, like it’s been the thousand years it feels like since I’ve said it. Like there’s too much emotion fighting to free it from my throat.
Her head comes up, and our eyes meet as she drops her bags and starts walking toward me.
I don’t wait, closing the distance between us in a blink, grabbing her against me for one critical heartbeat, then pushing her back so I can cup her precious, beautiful, teary face with my hands. “What are you—”
Except, I don’t fucking care what, or why, or how. Only that she’s here.
My mouth comes down on hers in the crushing kiss it took everything I had not to take at the airport. She grips my shirt, pulling me closer, opening wider, whimpering in that way that has me backing her to the wall.
I want to hold her there. Pin her with my body, my heart, whatever it takes so I never have to watch her leave again. Only I don’t even know why she’s here. If she’s staying. If there was some problem with her ticket and once it’s resolved, she’ll be on a flight tomorrow.
Using Herculean strength, I break from her kiss. My brow rests against hers, the breaths between us coming in ragged pants.
Her soft hand smooths over my cheek, my jaw, before coming to rest over my heart. I meet her eyes, showing her everything in mine I’ve been hiding for two fucking weeks.
“Don’t go.” The words are gravel-and-glass-rough, a plea so desperate it grinds past my throat.
“What?”
I push my hands into the thick waves of her hair, letting the weight of it slip through my fingers before holding it tight. “Give me a chance. I can make you happy. I won’t hold you back, I swear it. After playoffs, I can take you to France, take you anywhere you want to go. Or if you don’t want to wait for the season to end, I can send you. Paris, Rome, Barcelona… Tokyo. Anywhere. Just so long as you come back to me, to us, when you’re done.”
Her honey brown eyes pool with tears, a trembling smile rising to her lips. “So now you don’t want me to leave?”
I press her hand over that broken place inside my chest. “I never wanted you to leave. But”— this is going to fucking kill me —“I can’t live with being the man who holds you back from what you want.”
She slumps against the wall. Then frowns and thumps an angry but weak fist against my chest. “Then don’t. I want you and Otto. I love you. And it was killing me to try and leave you.”
She loves us. Still. Even after I pushed her away.
Christ, I’m such an idiot. But— “Why didn’t you go?”
“I tried. You’d made it clear you didn’t want me to stay.” I open my mouth to beg her forgiveness, to explain, but she shakes her head. “I believed you wanted me to go, and my heart was breaking. I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t stop crying. So I called Caroline.”
Caroline. Who knew the truth. “What happened?”
Nora takes a slow breath. “I told her I didn’t want to go. That it felt like I would be leaving the most critical parts of myself behind, like saying goodbye to you and Otto meant my life was ending instead of beginning… And then she told me what she did. That she went to you, and you agreed to make sure I got on that plane.”
“I’m so fucking sorry. I just… I didn’t want you to miss out on anything.” I didn’t want to be selfish, and instead, I was stupid. I hurt her. Day after day. Night after night. For nothing.
“And I don’t want to miss out on what matters to me the most. Us. You, me, and Otto. You know what I wanted? It wasn’t a life in France, it was to be able to choose how I live my life. And now, I choose the man I love and the little boy who feels like he’s already mine. That’s the life I want.”