Afraid to Love

Chapter Nine

"Ariella,"

"Ariella,"

"ARIELLA!"

I woke with a start, my body jerking upright and my hair falling into my face. I pushed my brown locks out of my eyes and looked around. I was still in Axel's apartment. I yawned, stretching my legs and arms outward and upward.

"What the hell are you yelling for?" I questioned.

"I've only been trying to wake you up for the past fifteen minutes. You sleep like a freaking rock." Axel commented.

I groaned, falling back into the sofa and noticing how Axel hadn't move the entire time I had been sleeping. I tilted my head towards him and shivered at the sudden coldness that enveloped my body.

"Did I sleep on you the entire time?" I questioned, looking at Axel and then back at the television and seeing Sixteen Candles paused on the screen. It was obviously the end of the movie, Jake leaning against his car outside of the wedding.

"Yeah. You started on my shoulder, but then I moved you down to my lap and made you more comfortable." Axel said, scratching the back of his neck and brushing it off like it was no big deal.

I cautiously placed my hand over his and gave it a squeeze. "Thank you. You could've just as easily been a douchebag and thrown me off the sofa. Maybe there's a heart in there somewhere. Although, I didn't think robots had hearts."

Axel laughed at my comment, "Oh yeah, well why don't I just throw you off the sofa now!"

Axel leaped over to me, which wasn't very far, and grabbed me, rolling me onto the fluffy rug that was beneath the sofa and the wooden coffee table.

I screamed in surprise and I began to shake with nervous laughter. "Axel no!" I yelped and laughed even harder as he began to tickle my sides.

Axel was grinning down at me like a Cheshire cat, his knees braced against my sides as he tickled my neck and armpits

Thank god I shaved.

"Say mercy!"

"I won't do it!" I said through breathless screams.

Axel stayed straddling me, the gold chain dangling from his neck. He took his hands away from my sides and began to let me catch my breath for a moment. My sides heaved, my lungs gasping for air as the smile that graced my lips was never fading.

"Oh my god, I can breathe," I said, flicking the gold chain so that it hit Axel in the chin. He stared at me with a cheesy grin on his features, bringing the gold chain between his teeth and holding it. He flashed his pearly whites at me as the chain dangled from his teeth. All while he's straddling me.

My god if that isn't the hottest thing I've ever seen.

I pushed those thoughts out of my mind, and with the power of surprise, I kicked Axel onto his back. I sprang up quickly and straddled him, squeezing his sides with my legs and grinning down at him. I held my fingers up and wiggled them in Axel's direction.

"Are you ticklish!?" I exclaimed.

Axel brushed off my question with ease. "Pfft...no way," he waved his hands away in a dismissive manner. "But, I am enjoying this position we're in right now."

I smacked his chest hard, "Don't be perverted. You're nothing but a friend to me."

Axel's expression dropped for a half second, he knew he had been friend-zoned. His expression turned to one of horror as I raised my hands up and began tickling his neck. Axel then began to squirm side to side beneath me kind of like a fish out of water. His laughs graced through the air and I began to giggle with him, having not heard him laugh like this before.