Completely Yours [COMPLETED, 18+]

Chapter 16

"Why was I single?"

I drag my index finger across the fabric of his T-shirt, aimlessly drawing little circles. Then I look back at him. "Yeah. Honestly, you're a little too perfect Axel. It doesn't make sense. So if you've got some dirty laundry, feel free to spill it now. You get a free pass." A curtain of hair falls into my eyes, and Axel tucks it behind my ears.

He laughs, and I frown. I'm being serious, and he's taking this like it's a joke. "Axel, I'm not fucking around."

My tone gives it away. Flat and demanding. I need him to tell me the truth so I don't regret choosing to be with him. To live with him.

"You're serious? Mer, I don't have a deep-held secret that I'm hiding from you. I don't have a shady past. Everything I've told you is the truth. Why are you questioning that?" He's starting to sound offended that I would question him like this, and that's partially what I was afraid of. I didn't want him to think that I was questioning his character...even though thats kind of what I was doing.

"Okay, promise you won't get offended, okay?" I get up so that I'm no longer lying down on him. I want to be able to better look him in the eye when we talk about this. Axel sits up criss-cross applesauce style, which is the opposite of what I expected him to do. I expected him to stand up in the kitchen and put on his sweats again. Instead, he beckons me toward him. I crawl toward him naked on all fours, and then watch him gesture for me to sit on top of him. So I sit cross-cross too, wrapping my legs around his back. Now we're so close to each other that I'm breathing the same air he's exhaling.

His arms wrap around my back, and I fiddle with my hands. How am I going to say this without hurting him? "You're not afraid of commitment—if anything I'm the one whose scared. You're great with my friends and family. You want kids. You have a stable job and you make good money. You're hot as hell. Why hasn't anyone snatched you up? There has to be something dark and twisty wrong with you."

He hugs me toward him and kisses my cheek. "Baby, no. That's what's worrying you? You're forgetting that people don't just get snatched up—they have to want to be snatched."

"So what are you saying?"

"I never met anyone before who did it for me. Who made me want to settle down. Mer I want the whole dream with you. A big house with a white picket fence, tons of animals to call home, and little babies walking around. You're the first woman and the only woman that's ever done it for me."

"That doesn't make sense." My head falls forward on his shoulder.

"What doesn't make sense?" He asks softly.

"The fact that it's me you want to be with! Why Axel? My job is unstable, I'm broke, I'm average-looking at best, and I obviously have issues that I need to work out, and these are all awful things."

"Those are the worst things about yourself?"

"Yes."

"Meredith." I know it's serious because he hardly ever uses my name anymore. My full name, that is. "I'm going to do my best to show you how beautiful you are every day of our lives, but it won't matter until one day you believe it too. About yourself. And money comes and goes—that's no reason to be or to not be with someone. Something could happen to my job tomorrow, and I'd be jobless. Could you be with someone like that? And everybody has problems to work through; it's not just you."

"But-"

"Meredith, can't I just love you for who you are? I love you because you care about your family, because you're not afraid to share your fears, because I think you'd make a great mother, because it's the sound of your laugh or the way you're always fiddling with your hair. It's all the big and little things that I love about you, and I can tell you about them any time you ask. But it won't matter until you learn to love yourself."