Axel:A Bad Boy Romance(20)

Marie lifted her arms and the woman slipped the dress onto her. Marie's  arms moved easily through the silk sleeves and the dress settled on her  hips and chest as if it were custom made for her. She turned to look at  her reflection in the mirror and, for a moment, she didn't recognize  herself.



The purple dress brought out her dark hair and tan features. The white  lace made her eyes pop. The dress rustled as she moved and she appeared  to float over the ground, not just walk over it. She spun around and the  dress floated out and then sank around her.



"We'll pin your hair up," the woman said, pulling back Marie's hair.  "And we have a green necklace that will match perfectly. You're going to  look ravishing."



Ravishing, that word had never been used in reference to her before. She  was sure of it. But she had to admit she looked good. The training had  toned her arms and legs and her skin was dewy and soft. She didn't feel  nervous or uncomfortable in the dress. She wore it with swagger.



"Well, well, well," Ingrid said as they left the shop a few minutes  later back in their normal clothes. "Look at the smile on your face. I  saw you talking to Thomas Middlemarch. You know he didn't buy a ticket  to the fundraiser, right?"         

     



 



Marie ignored the hint of disappointment in Ingrid's voice. "We were  just talking," she said with a shrug. "He seemed nice. He asked me out  on a date." Her smile grew bigger. It was almost hurting her face. A new  job, a date, and she was done crying over Axel Connelly. She actually  smirked at the memory of him giving her to another trainer. Not even a  phone call or a text as a courtesy to let her know. She was a little  surprised the MMA fighter had turned into a coward.



She didn't care. She liked Lori. The other girl was fun and didn't push  her as hard as Axel had. She had even seen him at the gym and she hadn't  responded to him in any way. She treated him like the stranger he was.  The wind kicked up, sending her hair flying behind her and Marie  breathed the fresh, wet air of the Pennsylvania town. So different from  the arid temperate back in Phoenix.



In her pocket she felt her phone buzz and when she pulled it up she saw  that it was Thomas texting her to see when she was free. Her smiled got  even bigger.



Take that, Axel, she thought. She wasn't going to cry or think about him  at all. She might occasionally think back on the things he had done to  her, the way he had made goose bumps erupt on her flesh, the way she had  literally ached for him, but she was able to remember it without  feeling any shame or embarrassment or regret. It was a step she had  taken, one of many to come. It wasn't easy leaving her entire life  behind and starting new, but she was doing it. She was stumbling forward  and that was some progress, at least.





Chapter Twenty



The cars were gone. A repair shop had taken them the other day. Axel had  managed to get seven hundred dollars for the both of them. He shook his  head at the thought. Those cars had been sitting out here for years  and, together, they were worth less than a thousand dollars. Why had his  father even bothered with them?



His mother hadn't been happy about it, but she didn't have any real  objections. No one was going to fix up the cars. They were nothing more  than a nuisance and an eyesore. But still, her expression had been sad  as the cars were towed away. "They were your fathers," she said simply.  As if that were supposed to mean something to him. He didn't miss his  father. Not even once had he ever missed that miserable old man. But his  mother still did for some reason. "He could be sweet sometimes." That  was her only explanation.



The garage was almost empty now. There were a few tools here and there  that Axel had thought were worth preserving, but everything else had  been hauled away. The room was bigger than he thought and he was already  renovating it in his mind. He would need to patch the roof and the  walls and the floor, put pegboards on the walls, build some shelves. It  would be good honest work.



Plus, it gave him plenty of time to be alone. He wasn't in the mood to  be with other people. Everyone around him was annoying him and he didn't  know why. He needed some time to work and clear his thoughts. He got a  ladder and some spare shingles and made his way to the roof of the  garage. With a staple gun in one hand, he began to tear out and then  replace old and broken shingles.



Marie DeSantos, no matter what he did his thoughts kept coming back to  her. Whether he was working out or working on the garage, he was always  thinking about her, even when he wasn't aware he was doing it. Why? What  was so great about that girl? Other than her work ethic, her body, her  personality, her smile. Everything about her was great and she most  likely never wanted to speak to him again. He had hooked up with her and  then ditched her. He was every clichéd jerk that had ever broken a nice  girl's heart.



"Looks like more woolgathering up there than work," his mother's voice  carried up to him as he sat on the roof. He looked down at her realizing  she was right. He had been sitting up on the roof and staring into  space. "Why don't you come down? I've made you some lunch."



Axel nodded and started down the ladder. Once inside he washed his hands  and got some of the construction dust off his shirt. He sat down at the  table where his mother put a plate of her homemade meat loaf in front  of him. "I know you're training, but you can have some of your mother's  meatloaf, right?"



"Always," he said as he began to dig in.



"What were you thinking about up there on the roof?"



Axel swallowed and said, "nothing," but the word caught in his throat and it came out in a long stutter.



His mother raised an eyebrow at him, but said nothing for a moment, letting him eat in peace.



"Something has been different with you these last few days," she said after a while.         

     



 



"Nothing's different," Axel said, but he found he couldn't look his mother in the eye.



"You're over here almost every day. You're staring off into space. You  always seem to be thinking about something else. I can see it in your  eyes."



"See what?" he prodded after a moment of silence.



"There's a girl," she said knowingly. "A sweet girl who's driving you wild. Who is she?"



"There's no one," he said. "I'm in training. I can't date anyone when  I'm training, you know that. I need to give my career my full  attention." His voice was growing short. He was sick of people poking  into his personal life and demanding answers. None of them were under  the same pressure he was. None of them knew what his life was like.



"So you're kicking and punching, you're fighting and training. But  really, you're just pushing your feelings down. But you can't do that  forever, Axel. You need to deal with them. If you like this girl so  much, you should be with her. I never believed that nonsense you and  Hayden spit about women and fights."



"Hayden and I know what we're doing. The plan works. I'm at the top of  my game, because of my training regime. I can't change anything now, not  with the Northeastern Belt coming up."



"Why not? Why do you assume that this change will make you weaker  instead of stronger? There's no weakness in loving someone, Axel. It  takes strength to do that."



He looked up into the blue eyes of his mother. But how could he trust  her? She had married his father and stayed with him through everything.  He had hit her, spent her money, said horrible and cruel things to her  and she still loved him. Had that love really made her stronger? He  opened his mouth, but he knew he could never say those things to her. It  would be too cruel.



"I know you didn't have the best example of love growing up," she said  reaching across the table to squeeze his hand. "But I promise you, real  love is out there. Sharing your life with another person, raising a  family, those are gifts and you shouldn't toss them to the side. Love  could make you so happy, Axel. If you would only let yourself have it."



"It's just not in the cards, Mom." Axel said with a shake of his head.  "I like my life. I work hard, I play hard, my time is my own. I don't  want to change that. I like my career and I've worked damn hard at it.  There will be time for all that relationship stuff later."



"You think love is going to be sidelined? It's not about the time; it's  about the person. What if you've met the perfect woman? You're going to  let her go because the timing is a little hard for you? Love is worth  hard work."



"I already do hard work. I don't have the energy or the time for anything else right now."



"For a busy man you're certainly spending enough time working on an old  garage that no one uses," she said with a bit of an attitude. "Listen to  me, my sweet boy, I know your life has been hard. I know you haven't  seen what true love looks like. But you deserve to have it. You need to  have it. I know how strong you are. I know how you can fight and lift  and run, but that's not real strength. You need to learn to love someone  outside of yourself. It takes strength to care about someone else, to  put their needs in front of your own. It takes great strength to open  your heart to another, but I know if you did it you would be happy.  Really and truly happy. Don't let your work take over your whole life.  Promise me you'll leave some room for love?"