Page 16 of Guarded By a Broody Biker

The market hall is quiet when it first opens for business, with the rattle of metal grates echoing off the brick walls. Vendors open up their stalls, heaving cardboard boxes of stock onto tables and rummaging through, or cursing at their card readers and shaking them like that might help. Over in the corner at Melted Hearts, Axel and I raise the metal grate then slide behind the table, careful not to let our bodies brush.

There’s no mention of what we did last night.

No words shared about Peter.

Nothing.

You’d think the hours since we were last here were completely uneventful. The longer we sit in strained silence behind my stall, the more fidgety I get, plucking at the frayed tablecloth.

“You don’t have to stay,” I blurt at last, flushing with misery to the roots of my hair. These words taste sour on my tongue, but Ineedto say them, because I can’t spend a whole morning and half the afternoon here, knowing that Axel is counting down the minutes until he can go.

Does he regret what we did together? Does he wish he could take it back?

I grip the edge of the table, feeling woozy.

“What?” Axel looks kinda green around the edges too, turning to face me square on. His dark hair is still damp from the shower. “You want me to go?”

“No.” I will never, ever want that, and I don’t have the acting skills to pretend otherwise. Every time I look at the big clock hanging on the market wall and see that 3pm has ticked closer, Iwant to crawl under the table and weep. “But… Peter’s gone. He was the whole reason I needed a bodyguard. So if you want to end your shift early—”

“I don’t,” Axel clips out. “You paid for the full twenty four hours.”

Yeah, I guess. Drawing my feet up onto my chair, I rest my chin on my knees, feeling so sad and relieved. Even if we spend the rest of the shift in awkward silence, being super careful not to touch each other, even if we have nothing to say and the tension gives me a stomach ache…

I want Axel here.

Ialwayswant Axel here. And I’m gonna savor his warmth beside me while it lasts, damn it.

The first few customers spill through the market doors and start browsing along the stalls. They shake out umbrellas and brush silvery raindrops off their coat shoulders, laughing in the hush. A radio seeps music nearby, and the scent of roasted coffee beans is strong.

“What’s your next job?” I ask, hugging my legs. My bare skin peeks through the rips in my jeans, and sometimes I swear Axel glances at those patches out of the corner of his eye. Maybe it’s wishful thinking, but either way it makes me bolder, wanting to chat.

“Don’t know yet.” Axel sniffs once, then shifts in his chair, the metal squealing. He’s dressed all in bike leathers again, the leather dotted with rain and creaking whenever he moves, and the whole sensory experience makes me want to fan myself. Thosemuscles.Holy hell. “I’ll wait for another call from Cerberus.” He slides a look at me, suddenly cautious. “Unless you want to hire me for longer, anyways. You’d get first dibs.”

Ha! If only.

“I did look,” I say, shaking my head and scoffing at myself. Axel will find this funny. “I tried to figure out if I moved somesavings around, maybe sold my TV and armchair, if I could afford another day, but…”

I shrug.

Axel stares. He’s not laughing.

“What,” he says flatly, and my smile fades. Okay yeah, maybe it’s not that funny of a thing to admit. Maybe it’s mostly tragic. Crap, why the hell did I tell him that? HeknowsI’m poor as a church mouse and nursing a pathetic crush, he doesn’t need me to turn it into a punchline.

“Sorry.” Candles thud against the table as I leap to my feet and rearrange them, suddenly desperate for something to do with my hands. “Hey, did you want coffee? Pablo gives the vendors discounts.”

“Jem.”

“Just don’t ask for any kind of flavored syrup or he’ll charge you double as punishment. He’s a coffee purist.”

“Jem.”

I pause, holding a thick beeswax candle that smells like orange blossom. It’s heavier than it looks, and hey, maybethat’swhy my whole body is trembling.

“Is that true?” A big finger hooks in the waistband of my jeans, drawing me close to Axel’s side, and I let him pull me wherever he wants. You’d better believe I let him. “Did you really want to buy another day with me?”

I give a lopsided shrug, becauseduh.Obviously.

“As your bodyguard?” Axel presses. “Or as more?”

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