“Yeah. Let’s go have fun.”
We left some cash on the table and went outside. We walked through poorly lit streets to an area near the coast where most of the cocktail bars were. We picked one with low tables and colored cushions. I ordered a piña colada and Axel a glass of rum.
“I came here a few times with Oliver.”
“I like the place.” I smiled. “I like this.”
Axel didn’t take his eyes off me until the waiter arrived and served our drinks. I grabbed mine and relaxed, talking with him, looking at him, wanting to be closer, to have him, to take another moment of his…
“Lost Stars” played in the background.
“Can I ask you a question?” I said.
“Knowing you, I should be prudent and say, ‘It depends.’”
“It’s nothing really personal.”
“Okay. Shoot.”
“What did you used to do when you lived alone?”
“Before?” He shrugged. “Same as now. Just without you.”
Something about his tone in those last words gave me gooseflesh. I put my straw in my mouth and took a sip of my drink. I tried not to blush. “Was it better?”
“No.” He sounded certain.
“Will you miss me when I go?”
“Leah…” He sounded irritated.
“Come on. Be honest.”
Axel exhaled a breath. “I even miss you on the weeks you’re not here.”
My heart beat faster. I took another drink. I shouldn’t have…but the words got away from me. “Axel, why can’t it happen?”
He understood me without any need to say more. “You know. It’s just how things are.”
“What if they weren’t?” I said.
“What are you getting at, Leah?”
“I don’t know. Knowing what everything would be like in a parallel reality. If nothing stood in our way and we were two strangers who just bumped into each other here in this bar, would you notice me?”
Axel nodded slowly. His intense stare told me there was desire there, and more.
“What would you do?”
Axel shifted, nervous, discreet. “Sometimes it’s better to let things lie.”
“I’d rather know. I need to know,” I whispered.
He leaned back and let his defenses down. The wall crumbled at his feet and his words emerged from behind the cloud of dust that trapped us. “I’d talk with you. Ask you your name.”
“That’s all?” My lips were moist.
“Then we’d dance, and I’d kiss you slowly.”
“Sounds romantic,” I admitted uncertainly.
A muscle tensed in his jaw and he leaned his forearms on the table between us and came close to me. “Then without anyone noticing, I’d push you against a wall, put my hand under that dress you’ve got on, and fuck you with my fingers.”
“Axel…” My heart skipped a beat.
“And I’d make you say my name while I did it.”
I opened my mouth to say something, but nothing came out. We stayed there in silence, both of us breathing hard, not noticing the music or the people around us. Axel sighed and rubbed his face with his hands.
“We should go,” he said.
“Already? It’s early, and…”
“Leah, please.”
“Fine.”
64
_________
Axel
Oliver grabbed his pony of beer and smiled, relaxed. We were sitting on the porch steps, and the sea breeze was whipping through the surrounding brush.
“So things are happening with Bega.”
“That’s how it looks. I like her. I like her too much.”
“I can see that…” I took a sip of beer.
“I didn’t think I’d ever feel this way…”
“I never thought I’d witness it.” I laughed.
Oliver ran a hand through his hair. “I don’t know, at first I just liked her, but things got complicated. She’s…different. I know you think I’m not making sense, but it’s true, Axel. You think it’ll never happen, and then one day there’s someone you can’t get out of your head.”
“I need to grab a smoke.”
I went to the kitchen for my cigarettes. When I came back, he was uncomfortable, like when you’ve got a tiny stone in your shoe and it doesn’t hurt, but you can’t help noticing it’s there. I lit my cigarette.
“How are things around here?” Oliver clapped my back and I coughed up a cloud of smoke.
“Good. Like always, I guess.”
“I wouldn’t say that. Leah’s changed. A lot. For the past two months, she’s seemed like the girl I used to know.”
I swallowed the words burning in my throat because, from my point of view, she wasn’t at all like the girl of before. There were things that would never change, but lots of new ones too. The Leah who lived with me was more complex, more intriguing, and unfortunately for me, a lot more of a woman. She had her cold, distant side, the one that painted in black and white and spent hours shut up in the room with her headphones on or a piece of charcoal between her fingers. Then there was the other one, the unpredictable one who caught me by surprise and fucked up my life, stripping naked in the middle of my living room on a random night. I liked both of them, damn it, in some twisted way I couldn’t quite work out.
“Yeah, a little at a time.” I took a long drag. “Hey, when they gave you the job, didn’t you say maybe you’d be able to cut your time there short?”
“I was thinking about it, speeding things up…”
“Can you still?”
“Why, is Leah giving you trouble?”
“No, it’s not that.” I rubbed my face. “Forget it.”
“Come on. Spit it out.”
Oliver was impatiently awaiting a response. I could feel my heart beating faster. We had spent our whole damn lives together. Until a few years ago, I didn’t know how to do anything without him. He was the only true friend I’d ever had, almost a brother. And I was acting like a bastard.
“I was just saying, because of the dates. The idea is she’s going to go to college, right? So depending on when she starts, we’ll have to look at dorms. And so that made me think maybe I could take her one day to Brisbane, show her the campus… Maybe that would motivate her. I wanted to talk to you about it first.”
“Sounds fucking brilliant to me.” I said.
“I figured the end of next month. You think it will work out okay?”
“What do you mean?” I gave Oliver a close look.
“That this was worth it. The Sydney thing. That Leah will go to college and not drop all the plans she had before…before the thing happened.”
“The accident,” I said.
“Yeah, you know what I mean.”
“Why don’t you just do it?” I demanded.
“What?” Oliver furrowed his brow.
“Stop beating around the bush. Do you talk to Leah about your parents?”
“No.” He took one of my cigarettes. “I don’t really see it as the best thing right now. She had a really bad time, Axel; she couldn’t deal. It was difficult…”