Axel: A Bad Boy Romance Read Online Free PDF Page A

speed walking matched up with Axel’s normal pace and he fell into step beside her as she pumped her arms and continued to move.
     
    “You find someone to live in that creepy house?”
     
    “It’s not creepy,” Ingrid chided him.
     
    “Didn’t a lot of people die in that house?”
     
    “Back in the old days it was normal for people to die at home. People passed peacefully in their beds in that home. It was perfectly normal and we should be so lucky.”
     
    “So who is living there?”
     
    “A lovely young woman named Marie. She just moved here from Arizona with her very sweet young daughter and I think she’s going to fit in just fine. You’ll have to meet her soon. She doesn’t know anyone in town and I don’t want her to be lonely.”
     
    “I’m sure she won’t be lonely in this town. There’s never a moment’s peace here. Everybody knows everybody and you can’t do anything without running into someone you know.”
     
    “Well now, things are different for you, Axel. You’re our town celebrity and everyone knows you. But she’s just a nice girl. I’m sure she’ll be able blend right in.”
     
    “Let’s hope so, for her sake.”
     
    “We’re going to have the annual fundraiser soon. I’m sure I can depend on you to buy some tickets.” It wasn’t a question. “I’ll talk to your mother about it.”
     
    There it was. Axel’s mother was a sucker for any history, especially the Hawks family. The Hawk patriarch, the founder of the town, was from Ireland and his mother claimed a special attachment to the man. She was on the historical society board, which basically meant Axel was, too.
     
    “Great talking to you, Ingrid,” Axel said and with a nod he took off on a jog down the lane leaving Ingrid behind. He would have to find some way to get out of the fundraiser. Those historical society functions were so boring. Tickets were a hundred bucks a pop and all it got was a cheap dinner in a hotel ballroom. The same forty people came every year. They gave each other awards for things like Member of the Year, Best Volunteer, but really it was given to whoever donated the most. His mother had never won and it broke her heart every year to see statues go to someone else. .
     
    He jogged past the brightly lit windows of his gym and saw rows of treadmills filled with early morning gym goers. He went into the entrance and waved at the trainer sitting at the desk as he made his way downstairs to the boxing gym.
     
    The air in the basement was different than upstairs. Upstairs was bright and friendly. It was filled with young hipsters in expensive working gear on complicated machines. The basement was darker. There were no amateurs down here. There were professional boxers and their trainers working out in every corner. The uneven rhythms of fists hitting mats and pads echoed in the air around him. The air was fresh, something he demanded. Fresh air pumped in and the temperature kept at a comfortable seventy-two degrees.
     
    Axel jogged down the stairs and found his trainer and the manager of his gym standing and waiting for him. Hayden Walker had been Axel’s best friend since the ninth grade. They had done everything together. They had both taken up boxing in school, but Axel was the one to stick with it. Hayden just couldn’t keep up. He was slower and shorter. He had trouble recovering from a hit and eventually he quit. But he had learned enough in that time to become a damn good trainer and now he spent his time helping Axel. After his first big win Axel finally made enough to officially hire Hayden as his coach. When Axel bought the gym, he made Hayden the manager.
     
    “You’re late,” Hayden said as Axel took the last step down onto the floor.
     
    “Sorry, got held up on the way in,” Axel said. “What’s new?”
     
    “The match-ups came in for the Northeast Supreme Belt.”
     
    “When?”
     
    “About two minutes ago.”
     
    Axel and Hayden stepped into the office and