AXEL

The next day The Tinseltown Tab came out and I learned more about Ricki Hamilton in the ten minutes I was sitting in the waiting room outside the recording studio reading it than I had in the previous two months. I found out she got her MBA at Wharton—Ivy League!—right out of UPenn and that her sister Gwen was Ivy, too. Well, okay, the Ivies let in a lot of the kids of the rich and famous: that’s how they afford the less affluent kids, right? Still. They don’t take you in if you’re a complete dunce. I was pretty sure Ricki and Gwen were every bit as smart as they seemed.

She was going to hate the article, though. The reporter had managed to get an interview with her father, who was supposedly in rehab and, I would have thought, wasn’t allowed to talk to the media. But what did I know? Maybe the woman had talked to him before he went in and they’d held the story until now.

After reading the article all I could think was, despite her protests, no wonder Ricki was weird about rope. I considered tearing out the pages and taking them with me to read again later, but decided that might be frowned on by the nice folks at the record company who put magazines out to make a friendly impression in their waiting room. They probably wouldn’t want it sitting there all ripped up.

So I took the entire magazine. I stashed it in my shoulder bag with my lyric notebook and tablet.

Mal and I went to check out our new rehearsal space after that. Ford, Chino, and Samson met us at a boring-looking strip mall. Next door was a former video rental store (now vacant), and next to that a tanning salon. Our space had once been a small gym of some kind. The front was the office and reception area, and the back was a fairly large, fairly soundproof room, which was what we needed. The floor was concrete and you could see marks where various pieces of equipment had been bolted down once upon a time. That the place had a whirlpool bath still installed, that we could use if we cleaned it out a little, was an unexpected plus.

The rest of the day was spent moving gear into the new place from Mal’s condo, Christina’s office, and a room at Capitol’s offices we’d been using as storage since the Grammys. The plan was to start working on material for the next album, but we weren’t going to record anything for a while. Now was the time to start jamming, and playing bits of songs for each other that we’d been writing, and see what came together. We didn’t need any fancy audio equipment for that. Anything we wanted to stick down on demo we could use our phones or a laptop for. For now, not only did the regular gear need to be set up, but we had to make a run to the store to buy chairs. Then, after playing halfway through one song—“Rock the World,” which is kind of loud—we decided we needed a little more sound-dampening, so we made another trip to Home Depot for egg crate foam and mats for the floor.

Taking five guys to Home Depot is never a quick trip. But it’s not like we were in a hurry.

Ford’s dad dropped by while we were sticking up the egg crate foam and invited us over to his place for dinner. We declined—I think we all wanted to play all night if we could—and instead ordered a pizza, and Chino went out and picked up a couple of crates of Mexican beer. And that meant a third trip to Home Depot, this time for a refrigerator, and then we pretty much had a rehearsal setup we could live with for the next couple of months.

We hadn’t played together since the Grammy performance and I think everyone was really eager to get back in the saddle. When you’re in a band, it sounds corny to say it, but it’s kind of like being married to a bunch of guys. Sometimes you want to kill them, but you miss them when you’ve been apart.

“You guys ready to rock like Grammy winners?” I said when everyone was finally picking up their instruments again after we got the fridge running.

Chino played a little drum fill. “What should we start with?”

“How about ‘Short Fuse’?” Ford suggested.

I shook my head. “Let’s start with something that doesn’t push the high notes first thing. How about ‘If This Car’s Rockin’?”

There was general agreement on my choice and off we went, playing through a couple of our older songs—“Gravitate,” “Hold Fast,” “Don’t Look Away”—to knock the rust off before we started tossing around ideas for new material.

Around two in the morning Christina called my phone to harangue us not to stay up all night.

I put her on speaker and laid my phone on top of an amp. “You guys,” came her tinny voice. “It’s two a.m.”

“We know,” I said. “That’s why I picked up the phone. I figured it was something urgent.”

“No, just reminding you to go to bed.”

“What are you, our mother? Why should we go to bed?” I motioned to the other guys who made noises of agreement with me. “Seriously, Chris. Do we have to be somewhere tomorrow?”

“No,” she admitted. “So did you start writing anything new yet?”

“It’s our first rehearsal, Chris. We’re still knocking the rust off.”

“Well, remember, this is the album that will make or break your careers. A one-hit wonder is great, but you need to have this one not only break big but break big internationally. And if it doesn’t, well, that’s all the more reason to set up this separate deal for the UK. I can basically double the money up front if Rothschild will go for it, you know.”

Mal was rolling his eyes. He was as un-thrilled about trying to figure out what the British pop charts would like as I was. As if writing songs wasn’t hard enough as it was. “Christina,” I said seriously. “We love you. But leave us alone when we’re writing, okay?”

“Okay, okay. Just wanted to remind you. Well, don’t stay up too late!”

I got the feeling she felt we already had, but I laughed and said, “Bye, Chris. Don’t call too early tomorrow. None of us will pick up.”

We didn’t actually play all night, only until about four, and then we went off to our various places to sleep. Samson and Ford were both staying at Ford’s dad’s place in Laurel Canyon, which had a couple of spare rooms. Chino—I’m not sure where Chino went. I went back to Mal’s in Santa Monica where I’d converted his couch into a blanket fort because the morning sun could be kind of bright.

All of which means I didn’t re-read the article or call Ricki about it until well into the next day. I texted her first in case she was in the office.

Saw the piece in TTT. You doing okay?

The answer came quickly, as if she already had the phone in her hand.

No. I’m stuck here on media blackout.

Oh? Here=home?

Yes.

Great. I called her. I was lying on the couch, the blanket under me now, and I could hear Mal in the shower. “Hey. Want me to come over and relieve your boredom?”

“Who says I’m bored?”

“You used the words ‘stuck here,’ ” I pointed out.

“True.”

“I’ve got rehearsal, but I’ll beg off after a couple of hours to save my throat if you want to see me.” I didn’t think the guys would be too pissed at me. They’d get over it.

“I don’t know, Axel …”

I knew there was a ton of reasons why the article might make her feel bad about herself and about relationships and about kink. But I played it light: “Don’t know what: if you really want to see me or if you want to put up with my horny magnificent self? I can be good, you know.”

“I don’t know if it’s a good idea for us to … keep doing what we’re doing.”

Uh-oh. I hoped she meant the dom-sub thing and not the whole relationship.

I kept my cool. “I don’t know, either. Why don’t we get together and talk about it.”

“This is going to sound corny, but … it’s good to hear your voice.”

That did not sound like a woman who wanted to kick me to the curb, did it? “I’ll come by late. Nine or ten, okay?”

“Okay.”

I was distracted and jittery all through rehearsal. Granted, some of that may have been the coffee. LA is a driving town. Everyone drives everywhere. Having a car of my own, even if it was a rental, was kind of a new experience for me. Having a car of my own in a town where there was drive-thru everything—including coffee—was even newer. So I had picked up coffee at a drive-in window, at one of these places where the names of the sizes are all translations of the word large. Which means they don’t indicate how large. They should probably be translated as giant, gigantic, and gargantuan if the state of my bladder was any indication. Next time get merely massive, Ax.

But the guys were also not fooled. Let’s put it this way: I knew they were onto me when they started working on a song called “PW.” For Pussy Whipped. I think Chino was the one who suggested it, but I was too distracted thinking about Ricki to pay attention to them making fun of how distracted I was. Let’s face it: there’s not much you can hide from your band. They know you too well and when you play music together … not to be too woo-woo or anything but … you sense each other’s emotions.

They knew what was what. Mal threw me out after a couple of hours with the admonition to work on some lyrics by myself while they jammed. He was angry but I knew it was also his way of doing me a favor.

I probably should have been more worried about him being pissed at me but honestly I couldn’t feel anything other than happy I was about to see Ricki. It was that stage of puppy love or new love or whatever you want to call it where the surges of emotion are so strong they get in the way of actual thought. So although I knew she was upset and was having some second thoughts (or maybe third thoughts), all I could feel was euphoria at the fact I was about to see her.

At the gatehouse to the Governor’s Mansion, the guard gave me directions on how to drive through the grounds to the private garage. I wasn’t sure what would happen if I made a wrong turn and I didn’t want to find out. They had a fair bit of land and it was hilly; from the gate you couldn’t even see the house.

When I pulled up to the garage door set in the side of a hill, it opened automatically and I eased my car in.

The suited man I knew as her head of security was there to greet me. “Mr. Hawke, I’m Reeve. Ms. Hamilton is awaiting you in the kitchen. I’ll show you in.”

“Thanks. I think maybe we passed the kitchen on my first time here but I wouldn’t bet on me being able to find it again.”

He gave me a tight smile and led the way.

She was in the kitchen making something, her back to us. I was half expecting a butler to announce me. But Reeve was like a ninja, totally silent, and he faded into the background once I stepped into the kitchen. I slipped onto a stool at a counter island that looked like it had come right out of a home and garden magazine. I guess when you can afford the best, you get the best.

I could hear the whisk in the pan.

“Don’t you have servants to do that?” I asked, then felt a little guilty for startling her, because she jumped.

When she turned around she pretended she wasn’t startled, though. “I don’t keep the kitchen staff here this late,” she said. “Besides, I don’t need a chef to make me hot chocolate.”

“I dunno, Rick’. It can be tough work to break up all the lumps in Swiss Miss.”

She gave me a critical look.

“Isn’t it a little warm out for hot chocolate?”

The look intensified. “Sometimes a woman’s need for chocolate has nothing to do with the temperature.”

“No argument here.”

She went to fetch what was on the stove. She set two mugs on the counter between us, drizzled liquid caramel from an unmarked squeeze bottle into them, and then from the saucepan poured a dark liquid striped with beige foam. The mugs were each filled about two-thirds of the way and she gave me one.

“I didn’t know when you were coming,” she said, as if apologizing for the scant amount.

I had the mug halfway to my mouth. “Whoa, whoa, you aren’t giving me chocolate you intended to drink yourself, are you?”

“I can always make more if I need it,” she said, coming around to the stool next to mine. She took a sip and closed her eyes, a long sigh of relief coming from her as it went down. It was like her body relaxed as the chocolate seeped in.

I had a sip myself, and yes, it was ridiculously rich and decadent. No wonder she’d given me that look; this was not Swiss Miss.

When she opened her eyes I took her mug, poured from mine until hers was all the way full, and then gave it back to her.

“Chivalry is not dead,” she joked, but she took it and gulped gratefully.

“Maybe I just decided it’s in my best interests not to get between you and your chocolate,” I said.

“Hm. You’re smarter than you look.” She tipped the mug back, taking it in silky swallows. When she was done, she had a rim of chocolate along her top lip.

“There’s plenty for me right here,” I said, and pulled her gently toward me until I could lick her mouth and kiss her clean. Which I did, with slow and luxurious sweeps of my tongue.

She leaned her forehead against me. “You said you could be good.”

“Wasn’t that good?”

“Axel. Seriously.”

“Okay, seriously. If you want me to be hands off tonight, I will. It’ll just take more willpower to resist you if you’re covered in chocolate.”

“I am not covered in chocolate!”

“Not anymore.”

She actually made a little fist and thumped me on the shoulder with it, then said, “You’re incorrigible.”

“Yep. I’m only corrigible when it’s really necessary,” I said, trying not to grin too widely. “That’s why you like me.”

She sat back and noticed I hadn’t finished what was in my mug. I handed it to her without a word. As she took it, though, she said, “That might be true.”

“What might be true?”

“That I like you because you’re not …”

“Corrigible? I think I made that word up.”

“No, silly.” Her smile was worth millions. I was glad she seemed happier now than when I’d first walked in, and I hoped at least a little of that was me and not chocolate. “You’re not like other men. You’re neither bossing me around nor deferential.”

“I save that for the bedroom,” I said seriously. “I’m not your boss.”

“You’re one of the only people I can think of, besides Gwen, who’ll make a joke around me,” she said.

“Now you know why kings and queens had to hire jesters.”

“Why?”

“Because no one else would dare crack a joke around them.”

“Hm.” She went quiet then, thinking about that.

I didn’t want her to become too broody or moody if I could help it. “So anyway, Your Highness, you tell me if I’m supposed to behave tonight.”

She glanced around the kitchen. “Let’s go into my wing to talk further.”

She put the dirty dishes into the sink and led me to her door, the one I remembered from before with the security keypad.

Ricki’s wing of the mansion alone was larger than the largest house I’d ever lived in. I wasn’t sure exactly how many rooms there were, but there were six or seven doors leading onto the central hallway that I could easily see. She had a bedroom, a small office, a guest bedroom, a media room, and a couple of rooms I guess you’d call parlors? In a regular house I might have said one was the living room and one the den, but this wasn’t a regular house.

She took me into the media room, where music was playing quietly—a soundtrack album I didn’t recognize—and the couches were dark leather. I could see a copy of TTT on the coffee table.

“I read the article,” I said, as I reflexively pulled her into my arms from behind. My palms wrapped around her stomach and I took a deep breath with my nose in her hair. Oh, that shampoo. I had a sudden flashback to her bathroom. The scent of orange blossoms was going to be an aphrodisiac to me forever, now.

“Then you know why I’m hiding.”

“Because you don’t want to talk about painful family stuff with total strangers and co-workers? Understandable.”

“I don’t want to talk about it with anyone.”

“You don’t have to talk with me, either,” I said, “unless you want to. But if you want me to behave myself—”

“You had better. I’m about to pop.”

“Pop?” I wondered what that was a metaphor for.

“Literally. I’m about to get my period.”

“Ohhhh. And I thought the chocolate was for the stress.”

“Well, that, too, but when I’m about to get it, two things happen. One, my chocolate craving spikes, and two …” She trailed off and I nuzzled her neck, waiting for her to continue.

When she didn’t, I optimistically added, “Your sex craving spikes, too?”

“Well, yes, but that’s not what I was going to say. I was going to say I go through moments when I want to kill everyone with a baseball bat.”

“Mm-hm. That sounds like sex craving to me.”

“Axel. Not everything is about sex.”

“No, but I bet if we have sex, afterward you will not want to kill me with a baseball bat. And also the cramps will lessen.”

“How do you know about my cramps?”

“Rick’.” I ran my hands up and down her belly. “I can feel the tension.” Plus I had a college housemate who was a raving lunatic in the forty-eight hours before her period, whose lunacy was greatly lessened by vigorous fucking. Or so I’d learned from experience. I didn’t think this was a good moment to bring that up, though.

“I’m so not sexy when I’m like this, though,” she said.

“Let me be the judge of how sexy you are. If you don’t feel like having sex, that’s one thing. If you think I shouldn’t find you desirable just because you’re having a normal biological thing, sorry, you don’t dictate how I feel.”

She pressed back against me. “But it’s gross.”

“What’s gross? How bloated you feel?”

“No. I mean … it makes a mess.”

“Oh, you mean if you get your period while we’re at it?”

“Yeah.”

My hands found the ridges of her hips. “Tsk. No one will see the bloodstains on these dark brown leather couches.”

“Axel!”

“Seriously, Rick’. I don’t know about other guys, but blood doesn’t bother me. Not for fucking, anyway.”

“I’m two days late,” she moaned, but her hands were on top of mine now, and she was pressing them downward.

I let one of them keep traveling until my fingertips had slipped under the waistband of her warmup pants and her panties. “Probably because you’re stressed,” I said. I had to bend my knees to get my hand all the way down between her legs. Her labia felt dry at first as I spread them with my fingers but then my middle finger found her wettest place. “Hm. Either you’ve got it now, or you’re really happy to see me.”

She cocked her hips, giving me more access. “I’m really happy to see you.”

“Good.” I slid her pants and panties down to her ankles with both hands. “Bend over. Hands on the arm of the couch.”

I knelt down behind her so I could take a leisurely look at her hindquarters. Gorgeous ample asscheeks with the cutest little pucker between them. No wonder her family was so rich: she must shit gold it was so clean. The only thing that kept me from jamming my tongue into her asshole was the thought that she might refuse to kiss me later if I did. I settled for wetting the ends of my fingers well and good and teasing, slipping one in just up to the first knuckle. She tensed and then sighed, accepting the intrusion.

“Have you had much anal sex?” I asked.

“Only once,” she said.

“Was it good?”

“If it was, don’t you think I would’ve done it more than once?”

“Oh.” I trailed my wet fingertip up and down over that sensitive pucker, watching her suck it in. “Wasn’t done right, then.”

“That’s for sure.”

“Tell me about it, Ms. Hamilton.” I leaned on her name a little to be clear that it was a command, not a request, and pushed my fingertip into her ass again.

Ricki yielded to my force, both physically and mentally. “Yes, Mr. Hawke. It was a college boyfriend named Robin.”

“Cock Robin?” I eased the finger in and out of her.

“You could say that. He was eager to stick it anywhere it could go, anyway. Including my ass. And my roommate’s.”

“You had an anal three-way in college?” I asked, incredulous.

“No no, I mean, after he tried anal sex with me and it was a disaster, he started cheating on me with my own roommate. I came home a few days later to find him with his dick in her rear.” I could practically hear her rolling her eyes.

“That doesn’t sound like a particularly pleasant experience.”

“Especially since as I opened the door I could hear her shouting, ‘wrong hole, you bastard, wrong hole!’ ”

I gave her my best scandalized-sounding “No!” I pulled free of her then and switched hands, massaging her pussy until her clit swelled against my middle finger.

“Yes. He claimed it was an accident, but you know, when you’re doing doggie style? Putting it in the wrong hole?”

“What a loser.”

“That was what we both thought at that point. We kicked him out with his balls blue.”

“You forgave her?”

“He’d told her we had an open relationship.”

“Tsk tsk tsk. A loser all around. Had he told you ‘wrong hole’ also?”

“No. I’d agreed to try anal … oh, this story is stupid.”

I spanked her lightly, once, with my free hand. “It’s not your job to judge the story. It’s your job to tell the story, Scheherazade.”

“Or what, O sultan? You’ll behead me?”

“Or I’ll stop doing this.” I slid my finger into her the way I knew she liked. Her swollen pussy clenched all around my hand. “Go on. You’d agreed to try anal and?”

“And it was because I really wanted him to … you know … take me from behind.”

I thought I knew what she was getting at but I didn’t interrupt. Hearing Ricki talk without inhibitions about sex was almost better than sex itself—very intimate, and I craved more.

“I wanted him to take more initiative in bed and be a little more … forceful, I guess,” she admitted. So my guess had been right. “But I didn’t really know how to ask for that. I wanted a wolf, holding his mate down from behind by his teeth as he takes her in heat.”

Now that was a hot image. I nipped at her buttocks with my teeth as I continued to finger-fuck her, adding a second finger.

“But what I got was an overeager beagle, dumb as a post, who wanted to jump up and slobber in my lap.”

I laughed at that description. “So you agreed to try anal sex.”

“Neither of us really knew what we were supposed to do. I’d seen an anal porno once and I thought all the stuff they did leading up to it was just to drag it out for the sake of the camera, you know? I didn’t know it was actually necessary to finger a gal’s bum so much before you could put something bigger in.”

I cringed a little. “Please tell me you used lube.”

“Yes, but that just meant there was no friction to keep him from jamming it all the way in.”

“Oh jeez.” I patted her on the back. “Enough of that story. Tell me a sexier one.”

“You asked.”

“Yes, I did. And now I want a sexier one.”

“Or you’ll stop?”

“Uh-huh. In fact, stand up. Let’s change positions. And strip while you’re at it.”

I sauntered out to find the bathroom I remembered and after a quick wash of my hands I came back with a nice, clean bath towel. I folded it in half and put it on the leather couch, then shucked my jeans and sat on top of it. “Come here, please.”

I turned her so she straddled my thighs facing away from me, giving my hands complete access between her legs. My cock bobbed eagerly but I ignored it for the moment.

I put one hand on the flat of her abdomen and circled her clit with my other palm. “Okay, now, a sexier story or I’ll stop.”

“Mmm. That feels good.”

“Well, you know how to keep it going.”

“Okay. Hm. A sexier story.” She wiggled against me, spreading herself even wider. “Well, there was this one time I got kidnapped by a crazed, horny rock star.”

“Horny, how do you know he was horny?” My heart sped up suddenly, wondering what she was about to tell me.

“Mm, because when I kissed him he kissed back like a starving man.” She stroked her fingers lightly up my cock. “Also, I could feel his horn, right through our clothes.”

“Oh, really.”

“Mm-hm. And he almost made me come without even touching me between the legs.”

“Did he, now?” I hadn’t realized she had been that close that time in the limo and I cursed myself for not trying it. Making a woman come without even touching her clit was high on my bucket list. I could not count on the couple of times groupies had claimed I’d succeeded being for real. “How did he do that?”

“Insanely light touches on my nipples and sucking on this one spot on my neck. I had no idea it could feel like that.”

“Your nipples, eh?” I let the hand on her belly stray upward to brush across one nipple, letting her know I was taking in every word of this “story” of hers. “And then what happened?”

“And then one thing led to another.”

Oh, but I wanted to hear more. This was the closest to flat-out talking about what she thought about sex, BDSM, and me Ricki had ever gotten. “You’ll have to give me more details than that if you want me to keep going. How about this: what was the best part?”

“The best part was that he took complete control.”

That was not the answer I was expecting, but that’s why asking probing questions could be so much fun. Not to mention arousing. Holy fuck. “How complete?”

“So complete that I didn’t even let the thought enter my mind that what we were doing might … have consequences. So complete that the idea of refusing him never entered my mind.”

Hm. She sounded ever so slightly worried about that. “So he was some kind of mind-control expert?”

“No, just very very …” She whimpered a little as I sank a finger into her again. “Distracting.”

I tried not to be so distracting now that she couldn’t keep talking, although the temptation to was very strong, too. Decisions, decisions. I kept probing with words, though. “Ahh. And you like this being taken completely, giving up control?”

“It was the best sex I’d ever had. And it was the best I’d felt about sex in a long time.”

Really? I recalled her feeling pretty crappy after that time in the limo, clamming up and refusing to speak to me. All I said, though, was, “The best? Did the feeling last?”

“Deep down, it did. Deep inside …” She gasped then as I canted my hips and impaled her on my cock. I coudn’t wait any longer. My hands held her by the waist and I seated her on me. “I think I …”

I held as still as I could, to let her speak—my need to hear her words every bit as sharp as my need to lose myself in her heat.

“I didn’t know how much I needed that. And it was scary to realize it. But I did. I do. Need it.”

“You need to be taken.” I felt my cock throb impatiently inside her.

“Yes.”

“You need to be overpowered, controlled.” The urge to thrust was strong, but I held completely still.

“I need to surrender,” she whispered, the sweetest confession I’d ever heard.

I nodded and kissed the back of her neck, unable to hold back any longer and with a strong reason not to anymore. “Good thing I’m here, then,” I said. “Touch your clit with your fingers, darling. I’m going to concentrate on fucking you now.”

RICKI

What did it say about my life that I was less worried about getting blood on the couch than I was about having to tell someone about the blood on the couch? I didn’t want to have to explain that to the housekeeping staff. The worry was crushed to dust under the force of Axel’s desire, though. Surrender, submission, whatever you called it—it wasn’t something I could do for myself even with the help of the fanciest sex toys on the planet.

He was right, though. A generous dose of sex with several orgasms made my cramps disappear. And lying there in his arms afterward, I did not have the urge to murder anyone with a baseball bat or any other blunt instrument. Not even my fool father or the TTT reporter who’d talked to him.

“What are you thinking about?” Axel asked.

“How can you tell I’m thinking about anything?”

“I can feel you tensing up.”

“You’re a mind reader.”

“That’s your body, not your mind, I’m reading. Is it the article?” He sounded so down-to-earth, like this crazy family shit didn’t bother him. Maybe it didn’t. I was grateful for his calm.

“The article. It’s kind of unfair, don’t you think?”

“Unfair? In what sense?”

I tried to think of how to explain it. “I get that I am lucky. I was born into money and all that. But I also didn’t ask for everyone to pry into my private life.”

“Ah, yeah. Especially if they’re going to throw around shit like ‘potential suicide.’ ”

Axel Hawke really knew how to hit the nail on the head. I swallowed, trying to tamp down the sickening feeling that crawled up my throat every time I thought about it. “Yeah. That … yeah.”

“Wait. Don’t tell me this article was the first time anyone’s ever thought about that?”

I burrowed against him, needing to feel his strength, his nearness. “Far as I know.”

“Wait, wait, wait.” He shifted like he wanted to look me in the face but I stayed hunkered against him and he relented, stroking my back and hair instead. “This was the first time you ever thought about that?”

I nodded.

“That’s … wow. Fuck.” His chest tightened; lying against him like this I could feel that. His voice was gentle. “You want to talk about it?”

“Yes and no. I mean, I think I should. But it’s like I’m still trying to figure out how to feel about it.” Other than feeling like I just wanted to cry or throw up or … I don’t even know.

“Feel what you feel, Ricki. Don’t try to figure out how you’re supposed to feel.”

It was good advice and I wasn’t even sure I could take it. Just feel? Just be without worrying about how it looked or what other people thought? What a novel concept.

“It’s okay to feel contradictory shit, too,” Axel said.

“What do you mean?”

“That was the big lesson I learned after my parents split up. I was pretty fucked up for a lot of reasons and the part of my head that got unfucked by a counselor was when he told me it was okay to feel happy and sad at the same time. It sounds so simple, but when my father left, on the one hand I was devastated, but on the other hand I was relieved, too. And I carried around this massive guilt that feeling relieved or happy about it meant that him leaving was actually my fault—”

He stopped abruptly as if he’d choked up a little. I lifted my head to look at his face. He was looking upward, that way you do when you’re trying to stop tears from forming. My own angst seemed suddenly smaller in comparison, as I tried to imagine being a teenager in that position. “But you knew it wasn’t your fault.”

“My heart didn’t.” He lowered his eyes to look at me, the green seeming darker and deeper now than before. I felt my own eyes sting a little as he described his old pain. “How could I dare to feel the slightest bit happy he was gone? I punished myself, beat myself up over that little bit of feeling, like the only feelings I should’ve been allowed were sadness and rage. It was so stupid.”

“You were young,” I said, as if I could help by giving him an excuse.

He gave me a wry smile. “I know. And I know better now. I tied myself in a knot over it, thinking both feelings couldn’t be ‘true.’ But they were. Learning that didn’t solve all my problems but that was a really big lesson to learn.”

I lay back down in the crook of his arm. “I feel … sadness and rage. But I think right now I’m angrier about the reporter and my father blabbing on than I am about what actually might have happened back then.” As I said it a little chill of fear made me shiver, though. The thought of suicide was terrifying, a whole unknown angle on the story that I wasn’t sure I could stand. “The thing is, I don’t know the truth and people are going to ask me about it and I don’t know what to say.”

“Hm. How about, ‘You guys want to know about my parents’ private life? Well, I don’t. What kid does?’”

That made me smile. I could imagine Axel sparring verbally with reporters. “I can’t say that.”

“Why not? Wouldn’t it be true?”

“Well, yes, but …”

“But what?”

“But you can’t just shut them down like that.”

“Or what? They’ll bite you like they’re actually rabid dogs?”

“Or they’ll keep digging.”

“I’d say they’ve dug to the bottom of this one.”

I sighed. “And what if they haven’t? We still don’t know what really happened.”

“Okay, I guess the question is … do you actually want to know?”

I turned the ideas around and around in my mind like abstract sculptures, like they might mean something different if seen from another angle. “I guess I do. But I might have to live with the fact I may not ever get the truth out of my father. Even if he tells me, can I believe him? Does he even remember? He’s got all kinds of memory loss from pickling his brain.”

“Harsh.”

“But true. I guess the biggest thing is …” I took a deep breath, asking myself if I was ready to say this out loud. Somehow feeling like Axel would listen, really listen, made me brave. “I have to figure out if I’m ready to forgive my father if it turns out it wasn’t his fault.”

“Or if he claims it wasn’t?”

“Yeah. I’ve been clinging to the idea that her death was his fault for so long …”

“And if you’ve shaped your heart around that idea, what happens if that idea’s gone?” He tensed suddenly.

“What?”

“Nothing. That’s just a good idea for a song.”

“It is?”

He sang softly to me then, just improvising the lines and a melody. “I clung to the idea for so long / what happens when it’s gone / my heart’s the shape of something wrong / if it goes away I’ll fall apart.”

I patted lightly on his chest as he sang, keeping time, until he wound down.

“If you want to get up and write it down you can,” I said.

“Nah. I’ll remember it. Or if I don’t, it wasn’t that good an idea. So. You’re angry. Confused.”

“And clinging to my anger at my dad. But there’s a kind of security in familiar feelings, you know? Being angry at him and tamping it down all the time to hide it sucks. But what if feeling some other way is even worse? Fear of the unknown is always worse than whatever you’re suffering at the moment.”

“That’s why you like surrendering,” he said. “Because it means you’ve gone to the point of giving up what you know and letting go.”

“Yeah, well, letting go with you is one thing. The media, on the other hand, won’t recognize my safeword.”

“Unfortunately.” He stretched against me. “I think we should probably move from the couch to somewhere wider if we’re going to keep cuddling like this.”

“There you go, messing with your image and being sensible. I have to use the facilities anyway.”

As I climbed carefully off him he chided me. “You don’t have to talk like that with me, Ricki. ‘Use the facilities’? Just say you have to pee. Come on.”

I stuck my tongue out, turning back as I reached the door to the hall. “And if I don’t have to just pee? What then?”

He laughed and I pranced out in triumph. Turns out I was right in more ways than one, though. I got to the bathroom and discovered my monthly visitor had, in fact, arrived.

One thing at a time.