“Okay,” I said softly.
“That and to ask if you’ve had anything to eat.”
“Just coffee.”
“You want me to swing through someplace?”
I knew he was gorgeous.
I knew he was brave.
I knew he owned a Jeep.
I knew I wanted him.
I sensed he was nice, what with how cool he’d been through all of this (mostly).
But man, it felt great knowing he wasn’t just nice.
He was seriously super nice.
And I could murder a bagel, but I could do that mostly to draw out the time I spent with him.
He was busy, however, and that’d be uncool.
“I have stuff at home,” I told him, not exactly the truth, since I made a grocery list the day before, but I didn’t go out and get any of it.
I still could scrounge something up.
“Right,” he said, then he asked, “You tell your dad he’s on his own tonight?”
Ugh.
Another joy killer.
“No,” I answered and explained, “The less time I give him to hassle me about it, the better. I’ll tell him later.”
“Right,” he muttered.
Okay.
Well, there was something to talk about.
Not that I wanted to talk about it.
But it was something we should discuss.
“We need to talk about him, Axl,” I noted.
“We will tonight,” he agreed. “Or maybe tomorrow. Maybe the day after.” He paused. “What I’m saying is, it’d be good to have some time with just us before I get aggravated about your father.”
Oh boy.
“Okay,” I gave in, but importantly pointed out, “Though, just to say, when we talk about it, like you said, he is my father.”
He glanced at me then reached my way, not to touch my thigh, with his palm up. Thus, I knew he wanted my hand.
I gave it to him.
Then he rested our clasped hands on my leg and said, “It won’t be you I’m aggravated with. It’s important you get that, Hattie. I told you when I was bein’ a dick to you, I understand the pull a parent has, even when you wish they didn’t have it. Yeah?”
I had not forgotten what he’d said about his dad.
But I also kinda did.
“Do your parents live close?” I asked.
“Cherry Creek.”
“Oh.”
Yup.
That was close.
And a ritzy neighborhood.
The monogrammed notepad was even further explained.
Axl kept going.
“Mom hasn’t worked since she gave up her job when she had me. There are women who are good to do that, some born to do it, but she’s a woman who shouldn’t have done it. After she did it, she felt she had to become Supermom and Superwife. And that was her, the way she was. An overachiever. But Dad played no small part in validating it for her.”
I already suspected I wasn’t going to like his dad all that much.
I was thinking I might be liking him even less now.
Axl continued.
“Eventually, when I got in high school, outside coming to meets, she had nothing to do. They have a big house. Dad requires all the trappings of the status he’s earned, so they also have a lady that cleans and runs errands and stocks the kitchen and sometimes cooks. Mom does some charity work because that’s what Dad thinks she should be doing. Mom does not go back to work, because that’s not what Dad thinks she should be doing. Bottom line, she’s bored out of her mind, has been for twenty years, and it’s torture, because it’s like watching the slowest death in history.”
Oh my God.
Yikes.
Awful.
“I hate hearing that, Axl,” I said softly.
But I didn’t ask if there was some more sinister reason why his mom didn’t stick up for herself and do what made her happy and fulfilled regardless of what his dad wanted.
“I hate sayin’ it, but it’s the truth,” he replied. “She’s like … ” He shook his head. “Vacant. A robot. She switches on when she’s conditioned to do that by Dad. Say, he has some dinner party he wants her to give. But that’s rote. And she switches on for me. And that’s genuine. I bought that house, and I had some idea of what I wanted it to look like, but I worked with her in doing it. She handled the bathroom refurb and the painters and the guys who put in the blinds. Shit like that.”
“I bet she enjoyed helping you,” I remarked hopefully.
“Hattie, she was in software tech before she quit. In the ’80s. When home computers were just taking off. Her field was highly competitive. Way more than now. It was emerging and there weren’t many like her. You had to be sharp, one of the best, to land a job like that. She’s kinda like Evie, just not on that scale, though not far off. And from what I can tell when she talks about it, she really liked doing it. Now she’s forced into being nothing but the wife of a successful, prominent attorney who flirts with political ambitions. And that’d be okay, if that was what she wanted. That isn’t what she wanted. The life she leads has choked any true enjoyment she could have out of her.”