Chapter Twenty-Seven
PAXTON
*
Alex sat back down beside me, as I struggled to wrap my head around the incredible new revelation he'd just shared with me.
Even with the yearbook closed on my lap, I still saw that picture of him, down on the ground. The little kid had barely even looked like Alex! He'd been small, scrawny, his features lacking that symmetrical cleanliness that made Alex so attractive. With that appearance, and no confidence... I could see why women wouldn't have been interested in him.
His early life sounded, if possible, even worse than my own. I'd been heartbroken when my parents passed away, but at least I'd had the support of my uncle, and friends at school. I had Anna-Claire, always a pillar of strength, step up and appoint herself as not just my best friend, but also my unofficial parent as well. I'd had a support network there to help me through that horrible past.
Alex hadn't had anyone. And that lack of support, no one to just reach out and offer him the smallest bit of kindness, had driven him to consider committing suicide. To take an unnecessary risk and almost die from it.
If he hadn't developed those powers in the hospital... I doubted that he'd be sitting next to me, or even would be sitting anywhere at all.
And then, to wake up next to me that morning and find his powers gone, to fear that he might be losing everything he'd gained, everything that kept him from following through on that suicide... I suddenly saw things from his side, and I understood. I imagined waking up to find that the one thing that had brought me everything good in my life had vanished, and tried to guess how I might react.
I'd be scared, too. I'd probably want to get away, a knee-jerk reaction to try and save things from getting worse.
But would they? Even though I understood Alex's intentions a bit better now, would we ever work together if just being around each other stripped him of his powers?
"So what will happen if they go away?" I finally asked him, fearing what he might respond.
He shrugged, looking back at me. I'd never seen those green eyes look so open, so... so vulnerable. "I don't know," he admitted simply. "Maybe everything that's changed so far will stay that way. Maybe it will all go back to how it once was. Maybe all the changes I've made will vanish, to have never happened at all."
And if that happened, Alex wouldn't be the same man I knew. The man I'd come to care about deeply. To love. I sat there, hating the thought of it, hating this feeling like I was stuck. I couldn't leave him without breaking my own heart, but I couldn't stay with him without undoing all that he was...
"I could really use a bit of research from you now," Alex said softly, a poor attempt at a joke.
"Research?" I repeated, thrown off.
"Yeah. You dug up all that stuff on King Arthur and Morgan Le Fay and the others; I guess it might be possible that you'd uncover something that tells what happened when King Arthur lost his powers, as well."
I stared to shake my head, to tell him that no, I hadn't found anything about that – but paused, as a revelation hit me like a lightning bolt.
"Wait a minute," I exclaimed, "that's it!"
He looked over at me, still sad and unsure. "What's it?"
"King Arthur! He's the answer!" I jumped up from my seat on the bench, forgetting in my haste that I still had half of an unconsumed sandwich sitting on my lap. Somehow, impossibly, Alex managed to catch it before it landed on the ground.
"I'm not giving this back to you until you start making sense," he said, looking up at me as I stood over him, a grin blooming across my face.
"Oh, I'll earn it back," I promised him. "Look, King Arthur lost his powers, right? It's in the fall of Camelot, in all the stories, chronicled by a bunch of different poems."
"So?"
"So the point is, even though he lost his powers, it didn't undo everything that he did, because we remember it!" I felt a new surge of energy rushing through me, so much that I couldn't stand still. I bounced up and down on my feet, until Alex finally rose up to his own feet, setting my sandwich on the bench behind him, and put his hands on my shoulders in an effort to stop my bouncing and vibrating. "It means that all of his magic didn't get undone! He couldn't do any more, but everything else was still there!"
It took an instant to click in his head, but I saw his eyes widen as the idea made sense to him. "You're right," he said, sounding awed. "So all the changes that I've made, all the improvements to my life-"
"They'll stay, but you can't make others!" I finished his sentence for him. I grinned up at him, thrilled that I'd figured it out – but then felt my face fall again as the real impact of that decision sank in for me.
"What?" he asked, seeing my expression turn from jubilant to fearful.
I shook my head. "I just realized what that means," I said. "You'd be giving up those powers. Just for me." And he wouldn't do that, would he? Who would throw away all of his power, the ability to make anything happen, to have a perfect, charmed life, just for someone ordinary like me?
"You're right," he said, and my spirit sank even lower in my chest. "If I'm going to stay with you, I'll have to give up everything. No more making sure that all the junk food I eat doesn't go to my waist."
The weak little joke brought a weak little laugh to my lips. "No more fancy cars or penthouse apartment," I said.
He shrugged. "Actually, I can probably keep those, if I manage my investments decently. But no more perfect luck, no more charming my way straight to the front of the line at every restaurant or coffee shop."
"No more guaranteeing that everyone likes you," I pointed out.
"No more front-row seats at sold-out shows."
"No more charming our way into restricted areas," I said.
"No more instant cures for hangovers the next morning."
"No more meaningless sex."
For some reason, that last comment of mine made him smile. "Hell, it's not like I'm having much of that anyway, as of late," he said. "I've kind of had all my attention focused just on one woman in particular."
I looked up at him in surprise. Me? Even after we broke up, he hadn't gone out to find another woman? "Really?"
He rolled his eyes. "Yes, really. I'm crazy about you, Paxton. I just told you a secret that I've never revealed to anyone else in my life, the deepest, darkest one that I have. You think I'd do that if you were at all ordinary?"
"But I am ordinary-"
"No, you're not," he interrupted me, his voice quiet but filled with certainty. "You're not ordinary at all, Paxton, and I swear that I'll make you shut up if you try and say that you ever are again."
"You'll make me shut up? How?"
He answered that by leaning down, his arms tightening from my shoulders to my waist and back, drawing me in against him and tugging his lips up to meet mine. He kissed me powerfully, passionately, strong enough to leave me breathless.
"Like that," he answered, sounding a little out of breath himself as I stared up at him afterwards, my eyes probably bugging almost all the way out of my head.
"You kissed me," I said, stating the obvious like an idiot.
He nodded. "No magic involved." His nose wrinkled. "You know, you're the very first woman I've ever asked out without the benefit of magic?"
"What?"
"All the other women that I've been with – I've gotten them with my powers, or with the benefit of my power in some way," he said, sounding like he'd surprised even himself with this realization. "Except you. I asked you out all on my own, taking the biggest risk of my life – and you said yes to me."
"No magic involved," I repeated.
"So I guess that it's fitting that, now that I've got another serious question to ask you, I once again can't use any magic," he continued. "Paxton..."
My eyes widened. "Oh my god, Alex. You're not asking me to marry you, are you?"
His eyes also widened at that. "What?" he choked out, coughing and reeling back. "No! We've only been dating a couple weeks! Of course not! But I do want to keep seeing you," he continued, as my heart rate began to descend back down after abruptly shooting up into the stratosphere. "And in another few weeks, maybe after a couple months, I'll probably let slip that I'm in love with you."
That last bit made my jaw drop open. "Eh?"
"Strange," he said, smiling. "It doesn't feel nearly as scary to say it out loud, not compared to what I expected."
"Back up. What? I mean... what?"
He laughed. "Paxton, I told you my deepest secrets. I threw myself on your mercy, came back to you, am willing to give up my powers to be with you. You think that I'd do all of that for someone that I just liked dragging into bed?"
My head felt like someone had emptied out all the brains inside my skull and replaced them with cotton wool. "Oh my god."
"That's what I want you to keep saying," he murmured, as he once again pulled me in against him, so close that I could feel his heart thumping. Compared to my own jackrabbit inside my chest, his was slower, steadier, calmer. I wanted to listen to it for hours, just pressing one ear against his bare chest. "Now, look up at me."
I tilted my head back, and he kissed me again. This one was softer, less demanding than the first one, but I still felt him pulsing with need. That need amplified in my own body, reflected back tenfold as I pushed myself against him. We didn't break away until we were both almost breathless.
"So," he said, as we panted, still tangled up in each other's arms and unwilling to let go, "is there anything that you want to tell me?"
"Actually, I do want to ask you something," I said.
"Go ahead. I'm ready."
I took a deep breath. "Hammy," I said.
"What?" He blinked, leaning back a little to look down at me.
"Your nickname in high school. You weren't fat, though, at least not in the picture. So why'd they call you that?"
"Seriously?" He sounded both amused and shocked, as if he couldn't decide whether to gasp or to laugh at the unexpected shot out of left field.
"Tell me."
"Ugh." He rolled his eyes down at me. "Alexander Hamilton. Hamilton got shortened down to Hammy. It was a stupid nickname that made no sense, but the guy who made it up was the biggest and dumbest of the football jocks, and no one wanted to disagree with him. So I became Hammy, from second grade onward."
I laughed. "I'm going to keep calling you that."
"Please, god, no," he said – but then paused, his eyes suddenly sparking with Puckish light. "But on the other hand, if I keep you from talking, you won't be able to call me that."
"And how do you plan to accomplish that?"
He swept me up in his arms once again, this time lifting me entirely up off my feet. I laughed as I threw my legs around him, clinging to him as he carried me back towards Davies Books. "I've got some ideas," he whispered in my ear as he walked, the hot touch of his breath against my earlobe sending a delicious thrill down my spine.
But there was something else that I needed to say before I got too distracted to put words together into sentences any longer. "Alex," I said, and he paused.
"Yes?" he asked, and I heard concern in his voice, uncertainty. He really didn't know what was going on in my head, what I wanted to ask.
I took a deep breath. It was going to be hard for me to get out, but I had to say it. Just push it out, Paxton. You've never said it before, so how hard could it really be?
"I think I'm falling in love with you," I blurted out.
There. I'd managed it. God, the words sounded so weak and defenseless, out there on their own! I felt Alex stiffen beneath me, but for one long, heart-stopping second, he didn't speak a word in reply.
"Alex?" I got out, the single word quivering in the air.
And then he sighed, tension flowing out of him as he drew me closer against him. "I think I'm falling in love with you, too, Paxton," he said, and I couldn't keep a smile off my face as my heart suddenly surged upward in my chest. "Totally by accident. How crazy is that?"
"So crazy," I agreed, as birdsong chirped in my ears, as the whole world seemed brighter. I buried my face against him. "Now, how are you going to prove it?"
He didn't answer, but he once again moved forward, striding with purpose, carrying me with him. I clung to him, my heart singing with more volume than I could have believed possible.