Unofficially Mine

Chapter 15

I could feel my body getting jostled slightly and snuggled deeper onto the hard and warm pillow.

"Alisha."

Why am I hearing Axel's voice? Is this some specially customised pillow? I don't remember buying it.

"Alisha. Wake up woman."

Suddenly I felt someone tickle my ear and I shot up hitting my head on a chin...?

A hiss came from above me and Axel looked down at me, annoyed.

"I've been trying to wake you up for the past 15 minutes."

"Oh, I'm so sorry. Put me down please."

He put me down unceremoniously and I almost fell on my butt. I caught his arm to steady myself.

"Wait, why are we at your place? I need to go back to my dorm."

"You stay here for tonight. It's midnight and I'm not going to drive you to your place nor am I letting you go alone. I tried asking you where you stayed but you wouldn't wake up. I know you told me to stay away but you called me first and right now I'm too tired to give a f*ck about it."

I didn't say a word. He did me a favor so I'm going to be nice about it.

His place looked like an expensive bachelor pad. It was clear that he wasn't the overly neat type. But it wasn't totally messed up either.

I remember Axel's grandma complaining about how untidy he was. I also remember walking into his room once and seeing bright red briefs and a pink angry birds one. I died laughing that day.

"You can sleep in the room. I'll sleep on the couch. And shower please. You stink. I'll let you borrow some of my clothes."

He gave me a t-shirt and a pair of boxers.

"The bathroom's attached to my room."

I took a nice warm shower and got out smelling like Axel 2.0. His clothes were too large on me, that the t-shirt fell past my thighs and covered the boxers.

I went out to the hall searching for Axel. He was heating up something on the stove.

"Hey"

He turned around looking at me and immediately his eyes darkened, his jaw clenching. His eyes ran down my length and back up. I raised an eyebrow when his stare finally landed on my face. He cleared his throat and turned around to stir.

"I made some soup. Thought you'd be hungry."

If he keeps doing things like this, I won't be able to maintain my heart of stone.

"You can cook now?!"

"You must've forgotten everything about me. But I do recall me telling you that I would learn to cook before I left India. I need to fend for myself."

"I haven't forgotton anything about you."

Abort conversation. Dangerous for a heart of stone.

I went and stood next to him, took the ladle and stirred the soup. I tasted it, added a pinch of salt, stirred it once more, waiting for the soup to thicken.

I could feel his eyes boring holes on my face. And other parts.

"Why don't you shower? I'll get the soup ready."

He nodded and went to his room. I occupied myself with stirring the soup occasionally and checking out his kitchen. It was stocked and I was proud to see him maintaining everything in order, more than I ever expected of him.