The Eyes Have Me

Chapter 12

Six months have passed since mum's funeral, and I have come to terms the best of my ability with her death. Axel and I are still together, and we are now sharing a room together at the Inn. The room is slightly bigger than either of our previous rooms. We moved into our room four months ago, and our previous rooms were deep cleaned by the cleaning crew, and now are available to be rented.

"Hey baby, are you ready to leave?" Axel questions as he steps into our room where I have been changing my clothes after a shower for our date, and he is already dressed to leave.

"Yeah, I am ready," I reply as I stand from the bed where I had been lacing up my combat boots.

I am dressed in combat boots, black leggings, and an over sized pale pink sweater. Axel is dressed in a pair of ripped black jeans, black Vans, and a long sleeve black pullover shirt that he has the sleeves pushed up to his elbows.

"Awesome, let's go then," he answers with a smile as he holds out his left hand toward me which I gladly take with my right.

Exiting our room, we ride the elevator down to the main floor, where we find Mr. Brown in his office working on his laptop, and let him know we will be back later tonight.

"Where are we going since you planned this date?" I ask once we are in the car, and he is driving us toward our destination.

"Not happening, love," he chuckles as he lifts our still joined hands to his lips to place a soft kiss on the top of my hand.

Pouting at him as he grins while focusing on the road ahead of us. We arrive twenty minutes later to a brick building that does not have any sort of identifying markings that tell me what it is. My pout deepens when I realize this, and Axel chuckles good naturally when he notices that I have realized there is no sign for this building.

"You better be glad that I love you," I grumble at him as I climb out of the car, and I realize what I said to Axel.

With wide eyes I silently stare at Axel who is grinning at me over the hood of his car as he asks; "You love me?"

Biting my lower lip as my face wars at his intense stare as I confidently answer; "Yeah. I love you."

I swear if his smile widens even more, I am sure and worried that his face is going to split in half as he says; "I love you, too, baby."

Giving him a tiny smile as I bite my lower lip for a second before I ask; "You truly mean that?"

Axel quickly closes the distance between the two of us, gathers me against his firm, muscular body to give me a tender kiss on the lips. When he pulls his head back slightly, he confirms that he truly does love me. Grinning up at him, I close the distance between us to give him a slow, tender kiss that he happily accepts and returns.

When we pull apart when our lungs demand proper air, we are grinning broadly at each other. We head inside the building, and I suddenly stop when I realize what the building is. Axel stops, too since our hands our connected. He looks back at me with a raised right eyebrow in silent question at my action.

"You remembered I wanted to paint a pottery piece?" I ask in absolute awe of him remembering this trivial piece of information I had given him.

Axel blushes a deep pink color as he nods in response, and I can't help but coo at him; "Thank you for remembering baby. I appreciate this very much."

I had mentioned one night of wanting to do this five months ago in a conversation. We were talking about things we haven't done that we wanted, too, or have done before, but wanted to do again. I have never painted pottery before, but always wanted to try at least once.

"You are welcome, baby, " he replies with a small shy smile at me. "Now, let's go find our pieces to paint."

Happily we enter, greeted by an employee who encourages us to find a piece that calls out to us, and then grab the paint colors we want from the racks on the wall. There are about thirteen others in the small building with us, not counting the four employees. We search for our pieces with Axel finding a dragon statue that is breathing fire, and I pick a male fairy statue that is aiming a bow with an arrow hitched in it.

Picking out the paints we want, we find an empty table with two chairs positioned across from each other where we settle down. We start painting while we carry on a conversation about whatever topics come to mind.

"Axel?" a light feathery voice asks from my left, and Axel's right.

Both of us turn our heads toward the voice to find a pretty young female standing at the end of our table holding a vase in her hand. She is wearing a cheery smile as she stares surprised at Axel, who looks indifferent to the woman's presence which is weird.

"Hi Mary," Axel greets kindly as he quickly glances at me from the corner of his eye before focusing on her again. "How have you been?"

"I have been good, and how about you?" she returns with what I only can view as now a flirty voice and smile. "Are you currently dating anyone because if you are not, I though we could try since I am single now."

Feeling like I am invisible to her, so I remain silent as I want to hear what Axel's answer is to her.

"I am doing great," he answers seriously. "I am actually dating someone. I would like you to meet my boyfriend, Arrow Reid."

He directs her attention to me, and Mary's smile instantly drops as her eye roam what she can see of my body. Under her scrutiny, I immediately feel unworthy of dating Axel.

"You are dating this person?" she demands of Axel as she gestures toward me with manicured fingers, venom dripping from her voice. "You won't date me, but you will date this twink?"

Tears burn the back of my eyes as the fairy statue in front of me becomes blurry. Shrinking into my self, I try to decide how to leave without drawing further attention to myself or Axel since Mary's outburst has attracted a lot of unwanted attention.

"Mary, that is more than enough!" Axel lowly growls. "Arrow is the sweetest man I have ever had the pleasure of meeting. He makes me happy every single day since I met him by just being himself. He is sweet, kind, funny, sexy as hell, and has an amazing mind, so, yes, I am dating Arrow. I would rather gouge my eyes out that date someone who is whinny and superficial like you."

Mary's jaw drops in shock as does mine at Axel's answer, and she scoffs at him while tossing her long blond hair over her shoulder as she throws a glare at both of us before stomping away.

"Baby, I meant every single work I just said," he gently says as he reaches across the table to gently squeeze my smaller hands in between his much larger hands.