Hello Forever

by Sarina Bowen

  I compromised.

  Crossing the room in three paces, I sat down on the bed beside him. I put both hands on the back of his shoulders and squeezed. “I’m sorry about Amy. But it wasn’t real between us,” I whispered. “I don’t have it in me, and she knew that.”

  He dropped his head, but leaned back a fraction of an inch into my touch.

  I massaged his skinny shoulders and sighed. “Would you do me a favor? Amy is, like, two weeks out of date on all the crazy stuff happening around here. Would you mind calling her and getting her up to speed? I should do it myself, but I’m kind of embarrassed.”

  He turned his head to look at me. “Really?”

  “Yeah. She’s going to kill me when she hears all the crap we’ve been through, and the fact that we didn’t ask her for help.”

  One corner of Jared’s mouth twitched. That was as much enthusiasm as I’d seen from him in a year. “Where’s your phone?”

  * * *

  I left Jared alone to call Amy. Since Axel and Scotty were deep into their movie, I went into the kitchen to clean up. Depending on what she had planned for today, I expected to be Amy-bombed either five minutes from now or whenever her schedule allowed.

  When I thought about it, I realized how weird it was that I hadn’t heard from her these past ten days. My father’s arrest had been all over the local newspaper. Even if Amy eschewed the Berkshire Valley Times in favor of the Boston Globe, someone would have mentioned it to her.

  I tried to remember the last time I’d talked to her. Amy had checked in with me right before Axel’s attack. And then…nothing. That was downright weird, and it gave me a prickle of worry. Had I missed something that had happened to her? Jeez, I hoped not. But my bandwidth was seriously strained at the moment.

  “Cax?”

  I turned to see Jared leaning on the fridge. He set my phone down and frowned. “Did you get Amy?”

  He nodded, looking grim. “Mark is with her, actually.”

  “Really?” I tossed the sponge on the counter. “Is everyone okay?”

  Jared shrugged. “She says he’s not ready to come home.”

  “Okay. Should I, uh, call her?”

  He shook his head. “She said she’ll come over later. Around suppertime.” He turned to go.

  That made me feel helpless. “Well, I guess I’d better figure out something for supper.”

  Jared looked over his shoulder again. “Oh—Amy said she and Mark would bring dinner.”

  I laughed. “Of course she did.”

  In the living room, Scotty was glued to the screen, but Axel had dozed off. I grabbed a Barmuth College throw blanket and covered him with it, taking a moment to admire the way his dark lashes swept down toward his cheekbones. Then I sat down beside Scotty to watch the rest of his movie with him.

  * * *

  After the movie, Axel woke up. Scotty ran off to the computer to try to figure out when the next Avengers film would come out.

  I went into the kitchen to get us a couple of sodas. As I poured the Coke over ice cubes, I couldn’t believe how trippy it was to have Axel sitting in the family room. This was a day that I thought would never come. Even if things were horribly complicated, and one of my brothers wasn’t speaking to me, it was still important to me.

  I loved Axel, and I wanted him in my life. And everyone was just going to have to get used to it.

  When I carried our drinks into the family room, Axel was texting someone. “Who are you talking to? Wait, that sounded jealous.”

  He chuckled. “It’s Josh. He wants to know if I need a ride home. He and Caleb keep tabs on my movements. They’re almost worse than my mother.”

  My chest got tight. It should have been me who’d helped him all week. But I’d been here, putting meals on the table, trying to convince my brothers that their lives weren’t falling apart just because their father was now notorious for assault. “Tell Josh that I’ll drive you home.”

  “I already did.” He tried to shove his phone in his pocket, but then dropped it. “Fucking cast,” he said.

  “Don’t say ‘fucking,’” Scotty said, walking into the room. “Amy’s car just pulled up.”

  I shot to my feet, but then thought better of rushing to meet them. Wherever Mark’s head was right now, it wouldn’t help if I rushed him like an offensive lineman. I sat back down again and sipped my drink.

  Both Axel and Scotty looked at me like I was nuts.

  “Hello?” Amy called from the back door. “Cax?”

  I stood up again and went toward the kitchen. “Hi.”

  Amy scurried to meet me halfway, so she could chew me out in relative privacy. “Cax? How do I not get a call when your father lands in prison? And you’re suing the state for custody of your brothers?”

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered.

  “Jesus, Cax. I was in Florida with Derek until yesterday. This morning my father tells me about the whole disaster. So I’m in my car driving over here to rip you a new one when Mark comes running out of the house like it’s on fire…”

  “Wait!” I held up a hand. “Back up. You were in Florida with Derek for ten days? Amy—that’s not a vacation, that’s cohabitation. Should I check the mailbox for a wedding announcement?”

  She shoved my chest, and I grinned. I’d missed this. I’d missed her. “Don’t interrupt me when I’m yelling at you,” she snarled. But she was smiling, too.

  Mark stomped into the back door with two bags of groceries. He set them down without looking at me. Then he went back outside again. “Um…?” I looked pointedly at the back door.

  Amy pushed my chest again until she’d backed me all the way into the family room.

  “Where’s his head?” I whispered.

  She flinched. “He’s been taking a lot of crap from his friends about your father getting locked up. Damn social media. He wasn’t invited to a couple of ski trips this past week and a party.”

  “He didn’t tell me that,” I whispered.

  “I know. He’s been trying to ‘be a man,’ whatever that means. But in his mind, you and Axel just make more fodder for gossip. He knows he was an asshole today, but he’s not quite ready to get over himself. Your dad fed him a lot of homophobic crap, you know.”

  “Oh, I know,” I sighed.

  “Give him a little time.”

  “Okay.”

  “Meanwhile, let’s talk about how you’re a terrible friend. Where was my phone call? Your dad’s in jail, your boyfriend’s in the hospital and you’re a single parent to three. How am I not notified?”

  “Because you were in Florida with Derrrrrrek.”

  She pinched me. I tickled her.

  “Ahem.” Axel cleared his throat.

  Amy took her hands off me. “Um. Hi! Sorry.”

  Axel grinned. “You must be Amy.”

  “Yeah.” She hustled over to the sofa to shake his hand. “I don’t usually pinch your boyfriend.”

  “I think he had it coming.”

  Amy grinned, then sat down beside Axel. “You know, Cax. He was cuter before your dad beat the crap out of him.”

  “Jesus,” I gasped. “That’s not funny.”

  But Axel and Amy were both laughing. “Gallows humor, Cax,” Amy protested.

  “I adore gallows humor,” Axel agreed. He put his hands to his chest. “But laughing hurts.”

  “Aw. Poor baby.” Amy patted Axel’s arm.

  The sight of two people I loved smiling at each other was almost more than I could bear. I wanted this so badly—a boyfriend, a family and friends. I wanted us to sit under one roof and have dinner together.

  Which reminded me. “At the risk of sounding like the biggest jackass in the world…”

  “What’s for dinner?” Amy guessed.

  “Well, Jared said something about food.”

  She grabbed my hand and pulled me down on the couch beside her. “Yes, my helpless one. I’m making chicken pad Thai.” Then she dropped her voice. “I gave Mark the job of putting
all the groceries away. It’s keeping him busy for a few minutes so he can just ease his way back in here, okay? Let him come to you.”

  I kissed Amy on the nose. “Thank you. Where would I be without you?”

  “Hungry, that’s where. Now who’s going to chop red peppers and peanuts for me?”

  “I’ll do it,” Axel volunteered. “I can prep vegetables one-handed.”

  “Do you cook?” Amy asked. She jumped up and offered him a hand.

  “Sure,” he said, standing up slowly. “Doesn’t everybody?”

  “Everybody but Cax.”

  “He’ll have to learn now,” Axel said. “He has three kids to feed.”

  “We’ll have some fun teaching him,” Amy agreed.

  I followed my two favorite people into the kitchen so they could tease me some more.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Axel

  Cax’s brother Mark snuck looks at me all through dinner.

  I never made eye contact, because I didn’t think he’d want me to. I couldn’t imagine the emotions he was dealing with. His father put a lot of shit in his head and then got hauled off to jail.

  He’d come around, though. He was young, and Cax was good to him. Even though I’d watched the kid say awful things to Cax, my boyfriend was gentle to Mark at the dinner table. It practically broke my heart to see the tenderness he had for his brothers. All the sacrifices he’d made to stay close to his family made sense to me now that I could see it firsthand.

  Amy helped, too. She was upbeat and fun, and it was easy to see how well the boys liked her. She was awesome. I felt not a shred of lover’s jealousy that she’d once slept with Cax. Instead, I was just happy to know he’d had someone like Amy on his side all these years. She made his past seem less grim.

  We ate her delicious cooking together, and the boys cleared the table. Then Amy dug a pack of cards out of her purse and began to shuffle. “Who’s dealing the first poker game?”

  All three of Cax’s brothers wanted in. So I anted up a few of the plastic poker chips that Scotty had run to find, and played a hand. But after a few minutes I became ridiculously tired.

  Cax noticed without my having to say anything. “I’m going to take you home now,” he said, pushing back his chair.

  “Nice meeting you, Axel,” Amy said, shuffling the cards.

  “Likewise.” I got up and looked around for my coat.

  “Actually,” Cax said, clearing his throat. “I’m going to make sure Axel’s walkway has been shoveled. It snowed again today. So I might be a little while.”

  “Yep,” Amy said without looking up. “You take care of that walkway. I’ll tell Scotty when it’s time for bed.” Cax left the room without a word. Amy looked up at me and winked.

  “Goodnight,” I said to everyone.

  “Night!” Scotty yelled, reaching for his cards.

  Jared muttered something that was probably “goodnight.” And Mark said nothing.

  * * *

  “You know Josh shovels my steps, right?” I said as Cax and I motored toward my apartment.

  “I’m counting on it,” he said. “Because I needed a little time alone with you. Do you have groceries? Are you really okay?” He shook his head. “I hate that you’re alone. I’d ask you to stay with us but…”

  “I’m fine,” I said softly. “Really.”

  He parked beside Caleb’s Toyota and walked me up the stairs. They’d been shoveled to perfection, of course.

  Inside, he helped me out of my coat, his eyes warm. “I love you,” he whispered. “I’m sorry it’s been way too long since I said it in person.”

  I stepped into his body and hugged him with my good arm. “It’s okay, Cax. Everything is going to be okay.”

  “Is it?” He squeezed me around the waist. “My life is a giant mess right now.”

  I shook my head, my nose landing at his neck. “That’s not really true. Precarious, maybe. But things are about to get better.”

  “Are they? I have to give up on my PhD and find a real job.”

  Stepping back, I looked into his eyes. “Fuck, why?”

  “I don’t own that house,” he said. “It’s my father’s mortgage. And he can’t pay it if he’s in jail. I’m just a starving grad student. Can’t keep three kids in burgers and Nikes on a teaching-assistant gig.”

  Hugging him again, I made a sad sound in the back of my throat. “Please don’t move away. Because then I’ll need to find a new job wherever you are. And that won’t be easy.”

  His body went very still against mine, and his voice was hesitant. “I don’t know what the future holds.”

  “I do.” I gave him a squeeze. “It holds you. Because we did not just get through all this bullshit with your father to let something like a job get in our way.”

  Cax took a deep, shuddery breath and laid his head on my shoulder. “When you say it like that, I almost believe it.”

  “You should believe it, because you’re mine. You’ve always been mine, and I’m not giving you up.”

  He smiled into my jaw line. “You wouldn’t really quit your Barmuth job if I had to move to Boston.”

  I gave him a kiss on the ear. “There’s a story I need to tell you. But we have to sit down.” Cax let me lead him over to my sofa. It was the first time we’d ever sat there together, but I hoped it wouldn’t be the last. “I got the Barmuth job offer through a Skype interview and a recommendation at OSU.”

  He nodded, his hand gently skimming the fingertips that protruded from my cast.

  “When I was trying to figure out whether or not I wanted to move here and take the job, I watched a Barmuth basketball game. I streamed it on some college sports network. And on camera, I saw you sitting in your seats. I recognized you.”

  Cax’s mouth fell open. “No fucking way,” he breathed.

  “Way,” I said with a chuckle. “I wasn’t ever going to say anything, because it sounds so stalkerish. But part of the reason I came all the way to Barmuth was you.”

  “God, Ax.” His eyes brimmed. “That’s crazy.”

  “I know.”

  He shook his head. “I mean it’s crazy that you found me. And that you’d look in the first place.”

  Something shifted in my chest. “I’ll always look for you, baby. Please don’t worry about money and jobs. We’ll figure it out. Your father might be ordered to pay support. He can sell that house and pay it out of his equity. And you and I can buy some other place. I make money. Not a ton—but it’s a living.”

  Cax’s eyes widened. “You would…buy a house with me?”

  Hadn’t he been listening? “Any day of the week.”

  He leaned back against the sofa and closed his eyes. “I’m afraid to feel happy. Like, if I let my guard down, something else will come along to screw me.”

  “That would be me.”

  He opened his eyes and smiled. “Not tonight, though. Not until you stop making that pain face when you move around.”

  “I hope it’s soon, then.”

  He patted my leg. “Let’s get you tucked into bed. Do you need anything first? A shower? Help with your kitchen?”

  I eyed my bathroom door. “I could use a shower. It’s so awkward holding my arm out of the curtain. Could you hand me the shampoo?”

  “Any day of the week,” he said with a smile.

  Cax did even better than that. He helped me out of my clothes. That was sexy in a frustrating way, because nothing would come of it tonight. Then he set up the shower and held my hand as I stepped in, supporting my broken arm as I stood under the spray.

  “Ahh,” I said. “It’s been taking me like a half hour just to get to this point alone.”

  “I’m always available to undress you,” he joked. And then we were both silent, wishing it was actually true.

  Cax did better than hand me the shampoo. He tossed his own shirt out the bathroom door, then reached into the shower and lathered up my hair. He let his hands skim my neck and shoulders. I lifted my a
rms to be washed there, too. He went for another little pump of soap, then let out a sexy growl while he spread suds along my belly, my hips, my ass.

  My groin.

  “Okay.” He sighed. “That was just gratuitous. Sorry.”

  I chuckled. “Sorry you stopped?”

  Cax groaned. “Rinse off before I climb in there with you.”

  Even though that sounded like a fun idea, I obeyed.

  After the shower came the towel. Cax dried my body gently while I held my cast away from my wet skin. He dabbed at my back, then kissed my damp skin. He dried my legs, his face close enough to my groin to give me a semi.

  Groaning, he got to his feet, and I saw that he was tenting his pants.

  “There isn’t enough sex in this relationship,” I mumbled.

  “No kidding,” he agreed, swiping water droplets off my collarbone. “Lean forward so that I can dry your hair.”

  When I’d passed inspection, I padded out of the bathroom and over to my bed while Cax fetched me a fresh pair of briefs from my dresser. He knelt down in front of me, still bare-chested, holding the elastic waist open for me to step into. But before I could, his eyes raised to mine. The hungry look in them made me hard.

  He licked his lips. “I have a parting gift for you before I go.”

  “Mmm?” I said, distracted by the proximity of his mouth to my dick.

  “Sit down,” he said, tossing the briefs aside.

  The second my ass landed on the bed, he pressed his hands down on either side of my thighs. Then he dipped his head and took me in his mouth.

  “Oh,” I gasped. “So good.”

  And it was. He swirled his tongue around my cockhead, then deep-throated me on the first try.

  “Fuuuuuck,” I panted. “You are getting very good at this. Who’ve you been practicing on? I’m going to kick his ass.”

  Cax chuckled around my dick, then popped off, pumping me with his hand. “Just my imagination and slutty videos.” He kissed my tip, and then took me deep.

  And, ungh! It had been a long time since we were together. And I’d been too ill and tired to get myself off. Suddenly, a lot of pent up lust began tightening up my balls. My hips rolled, and I was approaching the finish line a heck of a lot faster than usual. “Whew,” I panted, stroking his hair with my good hand. “This isn’t going to take long.”