“Firstly, I’m paying his annual salary for Axel to stay here and secondly, I don’t have chicken legs.” I frown at my thighs, realising they’ve lost some muscle definition lately as I hop down from the bed and pull up my pants. Mamma laughs loudly, fixing the sheets around Axel’s body to hide that I’d been in there. Rounding the other side of the bed, I take his palm in mine, careful not the touch the cannula strapped on the other side. My shirt is stuck to my torso, my body odour off the charts and my mouth feels like something curled up and died in there.
“Mamma, would you mind staying with him for 5 minutes while I have a quick shower?” Her eyes crinkle as she smiles, and she inclines her head. Placing a kiss onto Axel’s forehead, I run my hand over the short brown hair that he’s going to freak out about when he wakes up.
“He’s lucky to have you,” Mamma muses to herself, adjusting the IV drip. I step into the bathroom, glancing back at his peaceful expression as I slowly close the door.
“No, he’s really not.” I quickly strip from my clothes, twisting the shower dial to scalding knowing from the past two showers, the water will barely reach above cool. Stepping into the spray, I smother myself in the shower gel attached to the tiled wall and work up a lather on my chest. Once the bubbles have expanded enough, I rush to spread them over my body, the fissure in my heart starting to open again from the distance between us. Forgetting about the swollen bruises lining my ribs, I groan from with the contact of my own hand in my haste. Washing the suds away and flicking the shower off, I grab the world’s smallest hand towel to dry myself.
A soft knock sounds at the door, my heart lurching that something’s happened to Axel or he’s woken with the instant need to take a leak. Although I’ve been begging him to open him eyes, the thought of him not being the first person he sees rattles me. “It’s me,” a soft feminine voice sounds, one I recognise as Avery’s. Holding the towel over my junk, not that she hasn’t see it before, I push the door open wide. Mamma is nowhere to be seen, Huxley is positioned in the corner like usual and Dax is in the armchair. Avery’s eyes widen, rolling across my exposed skin before visibly shaking herself.
“We brought you some clean clothes and toiletries.” She hands her backpack to me over the threshold, careful not to come too close. I don’t know who’s benefit that is for, but it certainly isn’t mine. I won’t be making sexual advances on anyone anymore, especially not when Axel’s unconscious in the adjacent room. If he wants to invite someone to join us sometimes, that’s his call but there’ll be no more fucking around for me. My eyes are set solely on the man I nearly lost, the one I’ll never let come to harm ever again. I might not be much, but what I am he can have - wholly, completely, exclusively.
Emerging with a fresh set of clothes and sparkling white teeth, I feel marginally better. Placing Avery’s bag down by Dax’s feet, I pull out the ladies’ razor I found in a hidden pocket. “Will you help me?” I ask of her, gesturing between the razor and Axel’s head. “He’ll hate waking up to that.” Her eyes flick across the room and back to me, her eyes full of understanding. Grabbing a plastic cup from beside a water jug, Avery fills it while Dax and Huxley move to either side of the bed to help. As carefully as possible, they lift his head so I can slip the hand towel beneath and hold him there. Dipping the razor into the cup, I slowly shave from his nape to forehead in a reverse mohawk style.
Section by section, the four of us take turns to remove all traces of hair growth from our different angles. It’s going to be a bit patchy at the back, but once he’s awake and sitting upright, I’ll take a strange sense of pleasure in fixing it for him. Avery carefully does around his ears and passes the razor to me to finish his hairline across the front. Removing the towel with our help, Dax takes it and the hair-filled cup into the bathroom while we assess our work. Axel looks good as new, now I just need for his incredible amber eyes to open and I’ll take the rest from there.
Huxley is the first to walk away, taking the armchair for himself for a change. His blonde hair shines in the sunlight gleaming through the window, his cheeks not as drawn and eyes not as bloodshot as before. Avery strolls over and settles herself into his lap, curling her legs into his chest and his arms circling her automatically. I raise my eyebrow as Dax returns, stopping in his tracks at the sight and turning back to join me.
“That looks cosy,” I whisper. Dax is close enough for his Afro to tickle my shoulder through the basketball jersey they provided me with to match the shorts. I’d smiled upon seeing our black and yellow team name scrawled across the back, actually missing our 5am drills before a big game.
“Mmm,” Dax growls in his chest. “They’ve been sharing a room again.” There’s a note of jealously in his tone, his posture rigid as he glances over to see Avery combing Huxley’s hair through her fingers. “She blames me for Meg being taken.”
“There’s nothing any of us could have done. We had
