Axel: A Bad Boy Romance (2 page)

Chapter Two

Sitting up in bed Marie ran her hands through her long, dark hair. It was messy and needed to be washed. She had been too scared the last few days to take a long shower. Being in the shower meant leaving Cate to herself and Marie still hated letting her daughter out of her sight. Instead, she had just been tossing it up in a tight bun and ignoring it as best she could. But today, for the first time in seven days, she would finally have the time to wash, dry, and style it.

A thin strip of daylight was pouring through a crack in the faded and stained motel curtains. This was their second night at the Gilfoyle Motel. It was an old-fashioned motel set far back in the woods and well-hidden from the road. The sign for the motel showed a woodsman type man with an axe slung over one shoulder. He was winking as a large, wooden word-bubble inviting visitors to come by.

The walls were painted mustard yellow and they were scratched and marked and dented. The carpet was a mottled red and black, which was only a good combination if you wanted to hide stains. There was a dresser with an old TV on it, two twin beds, and not much else. It was sad and, yet, Marie could barely hide her smile as she looked around at it.

He still hadn’t found her. All those months ago, when she had first started thinking about leaving, she had never even dreamed she would get this far. She had been sure he was going to catch her before she even left Arizona. For the first few days on the road she kept seeing her ex everywhere. He was standing by the side of the road or waiting in line to check out at a gas station. But it had only been her eyes and paranoia playing tricks on her. It had been over seven days and there was still no sight of him. For the first time, she was starting to believe there was a chance she was actually going to pull this off, but she was still a little too scared to really believe it.

Marie looked over at the other twin bed and the sleeping face of her daughter, Cate. Her mouth was open a little and her blonde hair was splayed on the pillow behind her. Her little cheeks were pink and Marie had to stop herself from just staring. Cate was five years old and perfect. From the moment she had been born Marie loved her more than anything else. Everything she had done had been for Cate.

Marie leaned over and stroked her daughter’s cheek, feeling the warmth that resided there. At five, Cate had a million questions about everything. She wanted to know the name of every tree they passed. She liked to lie on her back on the ground and count all of the birds that passed overhead. She liked slowly working her way through a picture book, noting each detail of every image on all the pages. She was curious and inquisitive and sweet and nothing at all like her father.

Marie got out of bed silently and moved the curtains aside so she could take in the parking lot. Last night she had memorized every car that sat there. A green Mazda, a red Ford, a grey Camry, they were all still there and there were none that were new. Letting out a breath she didn’t know she was holding, Marie waited at the window to see if anything looked suspicious. But it was a typical, quiet, early morning.

She closed the blinds and checked the lock. Cate was still sleeping soundly as Marie moved to the small motel bathroom. There was a shower stall that at least looked clean, which was a pleasant surprise. Marie slipped out of her baggy t-shirt and sweatpants letting them fall to a pile on the floor. She rolled her shoulders and wondered when she would finally stop having to worry about Austin finding her.

She let the hot water stream down her hair and face and over her shoulders and down her body. She liked the water scalding, hot enough to cook a lobster, as she liked to joke. The bathroom filled with steam as she closed her eyes and washed her hair and her body with the soap she brought from home.

She had always liked showering, though Austin had always gone out of his way to try and ruin it for her. Somehow taking a long, relaxing shower was selfish in Austin’s eyes. He used to demand to know who Marie thought she was spending so much time in there for. Didn’t she have any work to do around the house? Weren’t there better ways she could spend her time? She was still expecting to hear Austin screaming at her through the door. He used to love to bother her when she was in the shower.
Where’s dinner? Where are my shoes? Deal with Cate!
There was always something for Austin to be screaming about.

She stepped out of the shower and smiled to herself. Not anymore. She was gone, she had left and Austin was never going to scream at her or hit her again. She had done the thing she had been threatening to do for years: she left him. Seven days ago she had just up and left. No forwarding information, no reason given, just a note saying she was taking Cate and he would never see either of them again.

The last time she had seen Austin it was through a black left eye. She had been packing his suitcase for him and he had been standing over her, berating her about the terrible job she was doing. He was the one who worked, as he was always reminding her. She was the stay at home mom so things like cooking, cleaning, shopping, watching Cate, packing were all her jobs even when she had to do all of those things at the same time. He was never happy with what Marie did. She was never good enough; there was always something she was messing up.

Austin worked as the head of Security for Gregory Peters, a billionaire investor. Gregory had a big investment conference in New York City. He would be gone for three whole days and Austin needed to be there to personally protect his boss. Marie had been folding Austin’s underwear when the plan began to form. She had been saving up money secretly for years. She had five thousand dollars tucked away; it was enough. It would have to be. Austin never checked in when he was out of town for work. He always claimed he was too busy to call, but Marie was pretty sure he was spending his time with other girls. But she didn’t care about that now; she hoped he spent every second in the arms of another woman not thinking about Marie at all. She was happy for the radio silence. It gave her at least a three-day head start to take her daughter and go.

She had heard about the job on a mommy message board. It was in the middle of nowhere in a small town in Pennsylvania. Buried deep in a large forest was the small town of Harksburg. In the small town of Harksburg was the Harksburg Historical Home. It was the ancestral home of the town’s founding family, the Hawks family. The house was over two hundred years old and had been turned into a museum in the seventies. The museum needed a caretaker. Someone to live in the apartment in the attic and run the museum and gift shop and make sure that nothing inside was damaged. It was the perfect job.

“Hi, Mamma!” Cate said as Marie stepped out of the bathroom. She was wrapped in a fluffy pink robe and her wet hair was wrapped up in a towel. Cate was sitting cross-legged on the bed eating a cereal bar and watching Sesame Street on TV.

“Hi, baby,” Marie said, walking over and kissing Cate on the head. She had been so good through all of this. The little five-year-old had just left everything she knew behind and she was handling it so well. Cate hadn’t asked about her dad and Marie wasn’t sure how she was going to answer that question when Cate finally wondered why Austin had not come up with them.

She called about twenty minutes after Austin had left. They told her the position was still available. She sent over her résumé and without waiting for an answer she packed herself and her daughter in her car and took off. They called the next day and offered her the job. She wasn't sure what she would have done if they had said no.

Dressed in her nicest clothes, a black pencil skirt with a pristine white top, Marie curled her hair into large loose curls that fell elegantly onto her shoulders. She put on a simple bit of makeup and then took a deep breath as she looked at herself in the mirror. The woman staring back at her had tan skin, brown eyes, and long, sleek, dark hair. Marie smiled at herself in the mirror. This was it, the chance to start a whole new life free from Austin.

“How do I look?” she asked Cate doing a quick twirl in front of her.

“Beautiful, Mamma!” Cate squealed clapping her hands.

“Time to get packed, little lady,” Marie said as she began to hustle around the room and pack up their sparse belongings. They had spent the last six nights in a series of cheap motels across the country all paid for in cash. Marie was tired of the scratchy towels and dirty bathrooms and strange noises at all hours. She didn’t just want a place to crash; she wanted a home where she and Cate could really settle down. She was hoping the Harksburg Home could be that place, a place to hide and recover and figure out what her life would be like now.

Chapter Three

“Put a shirt on! You know how I hate those tattoos! Your body is God’s temple and I think the good Lord knows how he wants it to look. How are you going to feel when you’re at the gates of heaven and you’ve covered the body he gave you in tattoos?”

Axel grumbled under his breath as he pulled a black t-shirt over his head and pulled it down.  “Happy?” Axel asked as he sat down at the table across from his aging mother. “I mean, I did get into heaven after all, which I was not expecting.”

“You watch your mouth. That’s God we’re talking about,” his mother said as she set a plate down in front of him. Scrambled eggs, hash, bacon, beans, and coffee, it was an old-fashioned Irish breakfast. The smell of the freshly cooked food wafted up into his nose making his mouth water. The delicious food his mother prepared for him almost made the lectures worth it. She sat down across the table from him with just a cup of coffee in front of her.

“Thanks for breakfast, Ma,” Axel said. “It’s delicious.”

“My sweet boy,” she said. “You always did have a good appetite, even as a baby. I never had any problem getting you to finish your meals.” Mrs. Connelly had been beautiful back in her day. Her age had taken some of it, but she was still poised and strong. Her lined and wrinkled face still held a smile easily and she kept her hair set and permed with weekly appointments with the hairdresser. She kept her house clean and open, refusing to let an “old lady” smell fester. “What do you think?” she asked holding up a satin boxer’s robe. It was red on the outside with blue lining on the inside. She was stitching his name in gold thread on the back in large elegant cursive letters. So far she had his first name and first three letters of their last done already.

“It’s beautiful. The letters are big enough, the lines straight and even; it’s a masterpiece,” Axel said. He could see his mom preen a little. She took a lot of pride in her craft. Axel could have sent away to have the lettering done – it would have been completed faster – but his mother liked doing it, and he liked wearing it. She had lettered all of his MMA gear personally and he considered all of those pieces good luck.

“It’ll cover up those horrible tattoos,” she said shaking her head at him.

“They’re art, Mom,” Axel argued. “The one on my left bicep is your maiden name!” he shouted as he pointed to the four-leaf clover with his mother’s name tattooed in dark calligraphy along the stem. He had full tattoo sleeves on both arms that went all the way down to his hands and up his neck. His chest and torso were covered, as well. He couldn’t get enough of them. He liked to get a tattoo to commemorate every win. Major matches won, dozens of Irish knots, the crest of his mother’s family, names of the people he had loved, all total he had spent over two hundred hours in the chair to get all of his tattoos done. His body was a temple, all right, but it was a temple to Axel, a monument to his skill and power in the ring.

“I never asked you to do that,” she said shaking her head.

“I know,” Axel answered.

“You know, if you had a girlfriend she could do this for you. Wouldn’t that be nice? A sweetheart to sew your robes for you?”

“Mom, women don’t really do that kind of thing anymore,” he said as he took a big bite of bacon and eggs and washed it down with some coffee.

“They just don’t know how. I could teach them. It’s not too hard,” she replied with a wave of her hand. “Will you look at the second drawer over there? It’s been sticking.”

His breakfast finished, Axel stood up and put his plate in the sink and then leaned over the drawer. He tugged on it and felt the wheel catch. He quickly pulled the drawer out and grabbed a screwdriver. Reaching into the cabinetry, he loosened the wheel inside until it fell into his hand. It was coated in about seventy year’s worth of dust and grit. He washed it and replaced it, opening and closing the drawer a few times to make sure it was fixed.

The house was ancient. He had offered her another one, a nice condo in town with a pool and a full maid service. He promised he could help her pay for it, but Mrs. Connolly refused. She wasn’t that type of woman. She had worked her whole life and raised Axel herself. She didn’t belong in some fancy condo with a bunch of rich folk. So, instead, Axel spent his weekends at his childhood home fixing drawers and shutters that had been installed a lifetime ago.

It would have been easier if he had fond memories from his childhood. But Axel wasn’t so lucky. The only time he could remember having money as a child was when his father had been alive. But Mr. Connelly had been a real son of bitch. The only good memories that existed were the rare days when he and his mother managed to get away from his father and have fun on their own. But those days were few and far between.

The old man had died of a heart attack when Axel was ten. He passed out right on the kitchen floor. He left them less than nothing. He left them debt. Both Axel and his mother had gone to work, she as a cleaning lady for some of the richer folks in town and Axel wherever he could. There was never enough of anything. All the money went to bills. Renting a movie was a treat. They knew all the ways there was to stretch a dollar. They had let the house go during that time. Maintenance and repairs had been ignored or just patched up, as they couldn’t afford to do much else.

But now Axel was doing well and he was determined to make sure his mom had it just as good as he did. She deserved it. Over the last few years he had fixed up the house, repaired the roof and the cracked cement patio, ripped up the old carpet and put in new hardwood flooring. He put in central air and heating and had the whole place repainted. It was practically a brand new house. That was what he told himself anyway. This was a new house with none of the bad memories of the old.

Now his mother was starting with the grandmother talk. He was only twenty-seven and already he was getting the Irish guilt. But Axel had no interest in having a kid or a steady girlfriend. He liked getting to do whatever he wanted whenever he wanted. He never had to ask permission or check in. If he wanted to stay out late, he did. If he wanted to go home with the first hot girl he saw, he did that, too. He couldn’t imagine why anyone would get hung up on one woman when there were so many out there.

“Is it gonna be ready in two months?” Axel asked referring to his robe.

“Is that when the big fight is?” his mother asked warily.

“It’s the Northeast Supreme Belt. It’s a very big fight. It’s
the
big fight, Mom. If I win it I am guaranteed my sponsors for another year, plus five hundred thousand dollars in prize money. I need my new lucky robe if I’m going to win.”

His mother shook her head and reached for the robe. “I wish you would choose a different career,” she said. “I worry too much about you to enjoy any of this,” she said gesturing to the house. “What if something happens to you? What will I do then?”

“Nothing is going to happen and I’m not having this conversation with you again. MMA fighting is my career. I’m not going to do anything else. You don’t have to worry. I’m good at it.  Nothing is going to happen.” He knew she wasn’t listening. He had given a different version of this speech dozens of times for the last ten years. If it hadn’t stuck yet, it probably never would.

He walked towards his childhood bedroom. The dark hallway was covered in wood paneling and there were no windows and only one light bulb in the far corner by the door to the attic. Underneath that bulb was a picture of his late father. His face was grey and jowly and he looked stern under an ancient brown fedora.

“Bastard,” Axel said to the framed picture. His mother refused to take it down, but one of these days Axel himself was going to rip it from the wall. He was glad the old man had died early. Even though he and his mom didn’t have a lot it was still much better with Mr. Connelly gone. Once it was just the two of them, they were allowed to watch whatever they wanted on TV and they could laugh as loud as they wanted without having to worry about waking anyone up. Given the choice, Axel would have chosen to starve rather than have his father back.