6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Axel

M y kitchen smelled like bacon when I woke up, and my first instinct was to go for a gun and shoot whoever was in my house—probably because the scent brought back memories of all the times I'd woken up like this before.

My brain couldn't reconcile the fact that I'd fallen asleep on the couch last night talking to a ghost.

Only… the ghost was walking around my kitchen shirtless, in a body that looked different, and was apparently more than corporeal enough to cook me breakfast. I was torn between the instinct to lay there and watch his back, and some strange need to get up and throw him out of my house.

He was so much smaller than Xavier had been, but he moved like he knew exactly what he was doing. Worse, I noticed when he faltered, and I realized exactly why he did it. He rose on his toes to reach into the top cabinet and let out a low curse when he realized the cups weren't there.

I'd moved them a few years ago, but when Xavier had been alive, that was where they were.

When he opened the refrigerator, he examined containers with curiosity, and I didn't have it in me to tell him I'd stopped buying all the brands he'd introduced me to after he'd died because it hurt too much to look at them. It hurt too much to remember every time he teased me until I gave in and tried something new.

It hurt to know that he'd never get the chance to do it again.

If I let my vision go blurry, I couldn't see the difference between the man who I'd watched before and the one moving in my kitchen now… so calm.

So sure.

So impossible and different and exactly the same.

I didn't know if I had it in me to fight him anymore. To fight the impossibly obvious truth that was staring me in the face.

Somehow, this was Xavier.

Beyond all reason, he was here. He was in my kitchen. He was making me breakfast, and all I could do was stare at an unfamiliar body and feel my heart breaking all over again because I couldn't let myself have this.

I couldn't let myself have him.

He'd died before, and I hadn't been able to keep him safe.

He'd died before, and it had been all my fault.

I couldn't let it happen again.

But even as I stood, prepared to tell him that he had to get out of my house, I knew the words weren't going to form on my tongue.

Maybe I couldn't have him in the ways that I wanted—maybe I needed to make sure that I never pressed my lips to his again—but I could still keep him here.

I need an anchor.

If I focused, if I didn't let my guard down getting caught up in him … then maybe I could keep him safe. Maybe I could be that for him.

If he was here long enough, maybe I wouldn't have to let my vision blur to see the man I'd loved before. He was smaller, but I could see the similarities in his features. If he trained, he could be strong again.

If I helped him, he could protect himself.

I let my gaze finally focus to see him . I traced along the lines of his shoulders and the burn scars, then down to his chest.

His chest—this was the first time I'd seen him shirtless, and the sight of the birthmarks dancing across his skin felt like a knife in my stomach.

Red splotches on the left, in the center. Two over his stomach.

And the long red gash on his side.

I knew those marks—I recognized those marks.

I'd sewn them up with trembling fingers, knowing it was too late to do anything to save him.

It took me a second to realize they were birthmarks and not open wounds, but it was already too late.

Bullet wounds.

A knife wound.

I'd left that knife wound.

The thought made my chest constrict, made panic seize my lungs so violently spots danced across my vision. I couldn't breathe—a numbness slowly spread from my lips and tingled out to prickle my scalp.

I'd felt this way before.

I felt this way when I looked at his body, and I never thought it would be this bad again outside of nightmares. But with him standing there, with him so close, with him looking so fragile…

I wouldn't live through it if I lost him again. Were those marks there to remind me of how I'd failed him? Were they there so I would know exactly why I couldn't have him again? Why I didn't deserve to.

The thought made me sway, and that caught Xavier's attention. He paused with a pan in his hand. My blurring vision couldn't make out his expression, but the way his posture changed told me the instant he realized something was wrong.

The sound of metal clanging against the stove met my ears as I closed my eyes against the panic roaring through me.

And the feel of warm hands sliding up my chest made me collapse. I stumbled until I was sitting on the back of the couch so I wouldn't fall. It was painful, but I forced myself to breathe in huge gulps that sounded as desperate as I felt.

"Axel?" he whispered. I couldn't see him, and even though the voice was different, the tone was the same. The way his fingers danced across my shoulders felt the same, and it made me feel like my ribs were slowly collapsing around my lungs, my heart, compressing it all into nothing .

He was here, and he was whole—how could I have everything I wanted and realize at the same moment that it was the most terrifying thing in the world?

The soft sound of his voice murmuring soothing nonsense slowly broke through the dark torrent trying to suck me down, to drown me. I took another deep breath and forced myself to look at him, even though I could barely make myself focus on his face.

"Axel, are you okay?"

"I'm fine. I—"

"What just happened?"

Fuck, he was always cutting me off, wasn't he? He always had, though. There'd never been a moment where Xavier let me lie to him and get away with it.

"Nothing. I just stood up too fast."

It wasn't even a good lie. I'd had panic attacks before. We both knew what they looked like, though this one hadn't been as bad as the ones I'd had after he was gone. But I couldn't tell him the truth this time. I refused—telling him why seeing him shirtless had nearly broken me would mean telling him about the night he died.

No.

"Axel, cut the bullshit."

There it was. That voice, that tone, and with my eyes closed and the warmth of his hands splayed across my chest, if I'd still been trying to deny the truth standing in front of me, it would have slapped me in the face.

It was Xavier, and as I fluttered my lids open, I promised myself I would do everything that I could to keep him safe. To keep him alive.

Even if that meant keeping him at arm's length. It had to mean keeping him at arm's length, didn't it? There was no way I would be able to focus on protecting him otherwise.

"I'm old, Xavier, just in case you didn't get the memo with the gray hair. Sometimes us old people get dizzy for no reason."

It was a lie and we both knew it. I couldn't say it aloud, but I could ask with my eyes. Please, don't push this.

I wasn't sure if he could read my silent message or thought I was too stubborn to answer. Xavier had never been easy to read, but he was giving me this.

He rolled his eyes and let his hand trail up to gently brush at my beard. When his fingers tugged, I knew he'd found some of the gray hairs that I hadn't had the last time he saw me. "You aren't old, Axel. You're like a fine wine. Better with age, right?"

I was trying to figure out exactly how to tell him that he had to stop touching me when he turned and went back to the kitchen.

"Listen…"

"No. Sit down and eat breakfast, old man ." He threw me a look over his shoulder, and I nearly closed my eyes again. Softer face, a sweet face… and all those curls…

But that expression was all him.

"I can make my own breakfast," I grumbled. It didn't stop me from trailing across the room and letting myself collapse into one of the kitchen chairs. Yeah, I could make my own breakfast, but it didn't mean I was going to turn down bacon when it was right under my nose.

Or the coffee that he slid across the table before he turned back to make our plates.

My eyes flicked down to the cup, and the corner of my mouth twisted into a half smile.

Creamy, probably a little too much sugar. Exactly how I'd taken it when Xavier was alive.

I drank my coffee black now—but I didn't say a word as I brought the cup to my lips and took a sip.

"You can't remember half your life, but you remember how I take my coffee, huh?"

"It's the little things, right?" He smiled at me over his shoulder, all charm and intention. Xavier could be sweet when he wanted, but every move he made also had purpose and point. "It's funny. The longer I'm here, the more little bits and pieces come back. I'm never going to be a whole person until I can see the full picture, so…" He slid a plate in front of me and sat down at the chair to my left.

He'd used to always sit at my right.

"So you want me to remind you how I like my coffee?"

"When I started cooking this morning, I remembered. I think the more I'm around you, the more it will come back. Maybe you don't have to remind me." He paused and ran his finger around the rim of his coffee cup. "Maybe you just need to be here so I can remind myself."

The thought terrified me more than I wanted to let on, more than he needed to know. Right now, it seemed like he was remembering the good things—the moments when we'd woken up like this, the way he used to kiss me. He was remembering those first few months before he'd really let his guard down, and I'd shown him that I had just as much of a temper as he did.

He wasn't remembering what happened that last night before he left, or the things we'd said to each other.

My eyes flicked the length of his body—to every injury he'd taken that night staring me in the face… every bullet hole.

And the knife wound…

I…

"Maybe some of it is better off in the past." I kept my eyes on the food in front of me, though my appetite wasn't there. Funny how easy it could go when I thought about him back out in the world doing the same thing that had gotten him killed the first time. But it didn't have to be that way anymore, right? He didn't have to be that person. "You have a chance at a whole new life, Xavier. Shouldn't you be more focused on that?"

I didn't have to look up to feel his stare, or to guess that it wasn't as sweet as the coffee still lingering on my tongue.

"No. I want to know who I was. I want to be who I was. I want to feel capable enough that if something happens… again… I can keep myself safe. I don't think I'm going to get a third chance to come back and be me ."

To come back.

God, maybe I wasn't over thinking this had to be a dream, because the whole prospect of reincarnation sounded so…

"Don't say it's impossible." Xavier cut my thoughts off, and I had to force myself not to smile. It had been like this before—we'd been like this before.

I couldn't fall into thinking it could be that way again.

But something he said sparked a thought; there was a way I could keep him distracted, and it would give me a sense of peace, too. I knew I couldn't keep him trapped in my house forever, as much as I wanted to. I couldn't keep him behind these four walls, so what happened before never had a chance to happen again.

But there was no way I was going to let him out with how soft he looked, how fragile. The lean muscle that used to sculpt his body was nowhere to be seen. He looked like someone who had been in the hospital for months.

Maybe he would never be as tall as he was, but he could be just as strong. We could make him just as strong.

"I can't give you back everything, but we can at least work on making sure you can take care of yourself."

He stared at me, suspicion clear on his face. Maybe it was because I was giving in to his request too easily. Maybe he could hear the slightly eager tone in my voice.

"I could still kill you right now if I wanted to, Axel. You know that, right?"

I looked him up and down. I'd always known before that he was the more dangerous of the two of us. I'd rarely won a fight we had, real or sparring.

But he wasn't… himself.

Then again, I'd gotten older.

I shrugged.

"What if we avoid testing that theory? Instead, we can figure out where to start with getting you back in shape." If we were both training again, would things be different? We'd worked out together before, making sure we were physically fit and capable of handling anything life threw our way. When we had, I'd always known Xavier was the one who would stand in front of me if something happened, that he would be able to take out a group of people if they suddenly swarmed the house, because I was living with a hitman for hire.

Would I be the one taking care of him now?

The thought felt wrong in my head, but I shook it off. I focused on the food in front of me instead… that was easier. It helped that the years and something as silly as dying hadn't ruined his cooking abilities.

"I can think of a few things that would get my blood pumping, Sunshine."

I nearly choked on my coffee. That fucking tone and the way he was looking at me from beneath his lashes said everything that he hadn't.

I knew I was in trouble.