18The silence in the room went on for a very long thirty seconds without an outburst of any sort.
Sugar stared as she tried to get a reading on how upset Axel was. She got nada. Her intuition either wasn’t working or the artifact was ignoring her concerns.
“Why aren’t you yelling at me? Or throwing a fit? Or…”
Axel held up a hand to stop the tirade. “Don’t misread my calmness as acceptance. I’m angry on the inside.”
Sugar laughed nervously. “I don’t think I like this calmer version of you. I can’t tell what you’re really thinking.”
Axel scrubbed a hand over his mouth to keep from smiling. This was not an amusing matter, but the genuine panic in Sugar’s eyes was priceless. Perhaps his father was right about there being something valuable in forcing yourself to have a calm first reactio
