Page 39 of Enemy Ex's Secret Baby

I take his hand. “Shake on it.”

This isn’t a shake like people making a business deal, though. This is just our hands folding together. Squeezing tight. All my nerves and synapses are remembering his touch once again.

We can’t keep doing this.

Or else I might just die.

“You’ve got a grip like a man,” he mumbles.

I gasp. “I do not!”

“Yeah, you do. Have you taken up wrestling or something? Your strength is brutal, Gillian.”

I jerk his hand closer to me; Axel winces. “That’s what you get for testing my strength.”

“Damn! Okay, I get it. You’re strong. What do you want, an award?”

I relax my hold on his hand, so we are just sitting palm to palm again. I look down at our hands, watch as his thumb traces back and forth over my skin. Yeah, this is real “just friends” territory, isn’t it?

Well, it has to be. Until I’m told otherwise. And Lola miraculously changes her mind on the whole “don’t date my brother” thing.

“Gill.”

I lift my eyes to his. God, he’s way too close. I can smell his cologne. Much more grown up than he used to be. Intoxicating. Makes me ravenous for his lips. For everything.

No. If he’s not going to stop it, I will. Right fucking now.

I pull my hand away and put it sternly between my knees. “Well, anyway. That will certainly save everyone a lot of heartache, huh?”

“Y-yeah…Lola will be thrilled to know we’ve given up the ghost.”

Silence washes over us once more, just like the tide lapping at the shore. Each moment, the world gets darker, the sun sinking lower.

And just like that, another opportunity to let Axel Hitchins know what he really means to me slips out of reach.

14

AXEL

A couple weeks have gone by as easy as breathing. We await the city council’s decision with bated breath, but everything has changed.

Mostly because, though Gillian and I are on opposite sides of this issue, things don’t feel like they’re on fire anymore. I’ve managed to quell Dad’s temper (although I think I owe most of that to Lola…she’s a saint for putting up with him) and now that the lot and our plans for development isn’t on the nightly news, I think he’s off my back for the time being.

At the end of the day, Gillian and I are friends. If we are well and truly able to come back from a seven-year hiatus after one steamy summer, then we certainly can make it through whatever drama comes with the Seton lot.

However there’s one thing I can’t really ignore.

There’s still that spark there.

Between Gillian and me.

I remember the very first time I felt it. I was sixteen and Gillian had skinned her knee while she and Lola were rollerblading. I was at home minding my own business when they burst inside, tears streaming down both their faces because Gillian was in pain and, to this day, Lola can’t stand the sight of blood.

So, I had to be the big brother and take care of it.

Gillian and I were curled up in the downstairs bathroom, her sitting on the edge of the sink and me pasting a big bandage to her knee.

I remember the moment so clearly when she reached down and touched the back of my hand. “Thanks, Axel.”

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