by Tiffany Sala
“Well I’m going to see him whether I want to or not if he’s there, right?”
I started at Dad standing outside the car. He tapped on the side of the car even though all the windows were still down.
“Hey Matt, will you say hi to your mum for me?”
He went off laughing. I traded glances with Phil.
Matt put his head down on his steering wheel and started upright again when the horn went off.
“Okay, Matt,” I said, “you’d better tell me what you know about this.”
“Your dad has been meeting with my mum,” Matt muttered.
“Meeting…”
“Well I can’t give you anything more specific, it’s not like I spy on them. But now and then when you’ve been out doing something else, he comes over and they go off, sometimes out of the house and… well, she’s a lot happier these days, I don’t ask too many questions. But yeah, that is a thing that is happening.” He put his windows up and started to drive off like he might be able to outrun this discussion. No such luck: Phil was laughing so loudly it was hard to even think about getting a word in.
“You realise he’s a total flake and he might break her heart harder than that guy who broke her already, and he’s the type who expects the woman to financially compensate him.”
Matt laughed. “You, Aileen? Trying to warn me about a man who might be bad news?”
“I do see the funny side of the situation,” I admitted.
I didn’t think I really did. I was mostly in shock. Had he been cheating on Sandy with Matt’s mother, or were they all at a point in their lives where you just accepted that nobody was really doing the most honourable thing? Sandy had definitely been acting like something was up lately, with all her clinger antics. I’d mostly ignored it because I knew I was never going to have to accept Sandy as a permanent part of my life, but I was going to feel a bit guilty if it turned out Dad had been two-timing her.
Matt coughed pointedly until Phil finally chilled out with his cackling. “It worries me, but I don’t think there’s anything I can do about it. I don’t think there’s anything I should do about it. I… you’ve got to let people be happy however works best for them. And sometimes that means they have to enjoy things that might be ultimately bad for them.”
“You’re making my dad sound like a diet consisting only of Tim Tams or something. Because if that was the case, I’d want to date him.”
“I’m just saying not everyone arrives at the same destination through the same steps. And that’s okay. After everything Mum has been through, I’m willing to let her try anything that lifts her mood, if only for a little bit.”
We’d already made it to the venue our school always hired for this event. It looked exactly the same as it always looked when I passed it on the way to somewhere else. I didn’t think anyone from our class had been invited to participate in the decisions about catering and decorating. It was supposed to be a meaningful experience for us based on the fact of its existence only.
When we stepped out of the car I could already see Callie and Tamara waiting at the door with Lucas and Steven on opposing sides of them, forming a barrier that kept them from the rest of the class. Lucas was scanning everyone as they came in, greeting a few lucky individuals who were mostly too awkward to either be sharp with him or overly friendly, either. Callie looked bored in a dress that was supposed to incite questions of who are you wearing? but was bearing it well, bestowing smiles on Lucas’s chosen few who just reared back in bewilderment, like they still couldn’t quite remember who she was.
It made me shudder a little, but I had a while to keep observing them as I walked up from our parking spot, and for just a moment when we were too far away and nobody else was near, they broke character. Lucas grinned, and slung his arm across Callie’s shoulders, tucking her against him. She wouldn’t look at him for some reason, but her lips eventually quivered into a smile as well. When they were alone, without a doubt they had a world that only the two of them were ever invited into. And that actually seemed like the sort of thing that would suit Callie.
Tamara and Steven had already let half the attendees in on their personal world. They were both a bit rumpled, their eye contact searing, and I could hear what they were snapping at one another from ten paces.
“If you’d told me you were going to be late, I could have done something better with my time than sitting around twiddling my thumbs. But I guess you were too busy twiddling your thumbs to care about anyone else!”
Steven was somehow both wired and relaxed in the face of her tirade. “Jess knew where I was.”
“And why should I have to think that I need to ask my little sister where my boyfriend is? What kind of arrangement is that?”
I split off from Matt and Phil to get the greetings over with before I could find out if being Callie’s sometime friend and the target of Axel’s harassment entitled me to a Lucas greeting. “Lovely evening for it, isn’t it? Callie, you look like all the rest of the bucks Tamara and I couldn’t be bothered spending to fit ourselves out. Tamara, you’ve got Paradise in trouble, I see.”
Callie and Tamara had to take a moment out from their men to roll their eyes at one another. “It’s nice to see you decided to show up, Aileen,” said Callie, managing to mostly sound sincere.
Lucas slipped his phone back into an inner pocket of his suit jacket. He was so quick I had almost missed him. “We’ll see you again inside,” he said.
I knew exactly who he had gotten in contact with and why, but if he wanted to think he could just dismiss me now I was happy to move on with my evening as planned.
I didn’t need to let him think he’d completely gotten one over me, though. “Nice to see Axel has you as his personal bitch, Lucas.”
I didn’t even bother to stay around to see the change in his face, although I heard him scrambling for his phone again. I found Matt waiting just inside the foyer and followed him and Phil and Danny into the main area, which had clearly been put together by an events team as part of the ‘generic celebration’ package. Aside from our school colours—light blue and white, not burgundy in the slightest—there was nothing to really set it apart from any other boring social function.
Elizabeth had talked to me a little about how she had gotten herself ahead in her career so far, and one continuous theme had been a lot of social functions. Getting to know everyone else in the business, shaking their sweaty hands, everyone pretending to like one another. I usually did like most people, so I wouldn’t have been bothered, but if I was reading her right, she was talking about a world full of Axel/Lucas/Mic clones, only older and more seasoned. So, the exact type of person I least wanted my future to involve at the moment.
Well, maybe this whole awful run-in with Axel could serve as an introduction to that world. As I thought about it, actually, my resolve solidified. I should take myself into the legal world, if only to even up the ratios. Why should it be just men like Axel and women like Ashleigh who were destined to be professionals? No wonder our world was such a mess. Perhaps it would have to fall to people like me, who were willing to find a way to get along with the worst of other humans, to do the necessary work.
“There’s no point in coming if you’re going to be a million miles away the whole time, Aileen.”
I thought I would always know when Axel was behind me from now on, no matter how long I lived. The hairs on the back of my neck would prickle in anticipation of his hand coming down to bend me over, and then the shiver would make its way downward.
I looked around for Matt’s little gang, but they had clearly spotted him coming from a distance and scattered. The little cowards—well, I had told Matt I intended to engage with Axel, and he’d respected my desire to do that instead of getting into some stupid fight with Axel. I had to appreciate that.
For me, right now, the only choice was to turn and face Axel.
I would bet Axel’s suit wasn’t one he’d worn to a funeral or rented just for the occasion.
After tonight it was going to make its way into his closet for the first time and sit there: probably unused for all of eternity, because how many events was a pale blue suit with white trim going to be appropriate for?
I couldn’t resist making my thoughts known to him. “I see you had to flex with the pale blue and white ensemble, Axel.”
He shot a show cough at me. “Excuse me Aileen, the correct colour designation is powder blue, as you would have known if you ever bothered to consult the fronting materials provided in our yearbooks and our school diaries. I’m making my final show of solidarity with an institution that provided me with an excellent foundation for the start of my professional life, and attention to the details is important.”
I didn’t appreciate this thing where I was being chastised by someone who was the reason almost everyone else at this event was giving me and my cleavage the ten-times-over without bothering to speak to me. Axel, too, was offering some special attention to the region south of my chin, although he at least did me the honour of coming back to my face and smiling as he spoke.
“How many of these cute little sundresses do you have in reserve, anyway?”
I’d decided against wearing the wrap Elizabeth had given me because it was a warm night and the thing made me feel like I was as old as Elizabeth must have been when she bought it, but at that moment I would have been happy for any protection from his attention.
I held my confidence around me for the moment. “You’ve seen them all now.”
“Oh, Aileen… with your bank balance looking as it does right now, it’s a little shameful of you to be so tight with your money.”
His word choice was blatant, crafty, wicked. I wanted to match him at his own game, but with the memories he’d managed to bring up in my head, I was having trouble coming up with one little bit of innuendo.
Plain old sass was cheap, though. “I wore something that was already in my wardrobe, that looked good on me, that I felt good in.” Something I was pretty sure would rile him up in the way he was currently riling me up, but that wasn’t something we needed to go into. “I don’t spend money just because I’m expected to spend money, as you know because you’ve probably been able to count my frivolous purchases on one hand since you started financially stalking me.”
“I know it,” Axel agreed. At least he didn’t deny that he’d been spying. “I kind of like it.”
“On that note, you would have known I wasn’t wearing anything new tonight. I’m surprised you didn’t try to buy something for me and bully me into wearing it.”
Axel dropped his head. It was a strange pose I wasn’t used to seeing from him: if he’d been an animal, I would have said he was taking on a slightly submissive posture. “I picked something out.”
“But you didn’t buy it. Was it too late in the season?” He was an animal, right? A crafty, skulking one, but his graces and attempts at maintaining a sheen of humanity wouldn’t fool me any more.
“Aileen, if it were up to me, I would dress you like a princess.”
My heart throbbed in a way I was terrified he would be able to see under the insufficient fabric of my dress. Why did he have to say something that provocative? “I thought you considered yourself to have the right to interfere in my life as you pleased. Sort of wondered if you would have made the purchases seem to come from my own account.”
We seemed to be butting heads far too close to a gangway. After the third person had dodged around us (looking far less polite about skirting me), Axel took hold of me by the hand and drew me sideways so we both had one shoulder up against a wall. He was meltingly gentle, and I wanted to remind him we were supposed to be fighting, but he was already talking.
“I would do exactly what you say, yes, if I planned to beat you down and walk away without further thoughts. But that’s not the game any more.” He was standing much closer to me now, staring me down… which I had to concede was not his fault given the height difference between us. “That wasn’t ever the game, Aileen, I want you to know that. I didn’t want to hurt you, I just wanted to get what I was there for and get out without any collateral damage really. But you had to prove… difficult.”
“Sorry for standing up for myself.”
“You know you’re not. Be quiet and listen to what I’m trying to tell you.”
I realised he still had hold of my hand when he squeezed it hard. The feeling that warning pressure sent through me was not the sort of feeling you were supposed to have about a guy who had done the sorts of things Axel had done to me. But we’d just gotten through how I didn’t do what I was expected to do… so maybe I just needed to own that.
“What can I say but… of course, Mr. Bennett.”
And because he was holding my hand, I felt the shiver that sent through him. “I was trying to tell you, I’m not going to try to push you to do anything any more because that’s not how you treat someone you’re interested in. If there’s anything my research has taught me, it’s that you’re not going to respond well to being told what to do.”
“Whoa… we’ve got to step this back a bit. Your research?”
“Nothing you don’t already know I’m up to,” said Axel. I guess research was what we were calling all his creepy stalker antics now.
“And does anyone really respond well to being told what to do?”
“You roll with it just a little too readily,” said Axel. “You want another quick business tip? Don’t deal with someone who is really happy to go along with your game. It’s pure trouble. You’re pure trouble.”
“And yet here you are stroking trouble.”
Axel raised an eyebrow at me. I jerked my head in the direction of his fingers sliding across my hand in a massaging motion. He smirked and didn’t stop.
I tried to shut up and put it together in my head before he told me, but either it was really difficult or my head didn’t want to do that particular puzzle. Axel watched me for a while like he was getting a lot of entertainment out of the situation, and then he put me out of my misery—in one sense, at least.
“I’m trying to tell you I’m listening to you. I’m trying to make sense of what you really need, so I can give that to you.”
“To what end?”
His smile took on a hint of smarm. “I want to have the chance to get to know you better. To find out ‘to what end’.”
I took my hand away a little reluctantly, because I needed it to start counting. “You targeted me because you didn’t want to accept that I had a right to refuse to deal with you. You made me face the stress of having my academic self seem to disappear when I already had exams to worry about. You turned everyone against me when I did not need that stress—”
Axel grabbed both my hands so I couldn’t count any more. “I am not going to accept that. All those other pricks turned against you on their own. They didn’t have to react that way.”
“But you knew there’d be a reaction, or you would never have made that photo in the first place. I can’t imagine you ever would have done a photo like that of Matt with some porn star’s dick pasted on him, would you?”
Axel grimaced. “Why did you have to put that in my head?”
“You wouldn’t do it, because you know as well as I do that it’s a strategy for destroying a woman in particular. It was a very personal violation, and maybe I thought at the time the way to handle it was to act like I didn’t take it that personally, but it felt very personal. When you’re female, you have to work really hard to get anyone to forget, you have to pretend it doesn’t make the slightest difference even when it would be really nice to admit you just had terrible cramps interfering with your work performance and could do with sympathy. But you know if you try that you’ll be judged as if you said you drink the blood of orphans, and at the end of the day, someone will take advantage of your sex to wreck you even though you’re not allowed to use it to protect yourself.”
Axel looked like he wanted to get away, but he didn’t seem to want to let go of my hands e
ither. “This is a bit much, Aileen. I just—”
“No, you need to hear this. You want to ‘get to know me better’, then the first thing you need to know is why all those things you did to me were so awful. Why they make it so hard for me to think about ever trusting you.”
He bobbed his head rapidly, a notebook and a cute cap away from looking like he was restarting his studying career instead of already ending it. “Okay. And if I do a good job of understanding that, then…?”
“Then, an apology would be nice. But I won’t expect one. I’ll be happy if we can just part on reasonably good terms and not have to worry about one another ever again. I know you’ve got my dad tangled up in your stuff, but if he doesn’t do what you want it’s on you to get him off your ‘bankroll’. I’m going to be busy with my own job, so I won’t care for the money.”
“Your…” He shook his head. “That’s not fair. You need to give me a chance to make this up to you.”
“I believe we’ve been over this. I don’t need to engage with you at all.”
His smile made me feel the same way inside I had when he kissed me, bubbles rising… but then I remembered how that had turned out, all the degrading details, and I was hardened again when he said, “I’m going to make you want to engage with me by the end of this night.”
“I’m not going to give you any of my attention after we’re done talking here.”
At the poetically perfect moment, Mrs. Hitchens’s voice echoed across the space. She was standing on a small stage, gesturing everyone towards the tables.
“Well,” I cut off something Axel was about to say, “I haven’t found my table yet, so I’ll be off.” The one disappointment about my repurposed dress was that it didn’t have the stiff billowing A-line some of my peers had opted for, so my flouncing capabilities were greatly reduced. But the little flash of Axel’s face I got as I departed suggested that my attitude was doing the necessary job well enough.
Chapter Nineteen: Axel
