And when he spoke, his tone was conciliatory.
“I see now that this is emotional for all of us. We’ll give it some time. Time for both of us to cool down. And then we’ll talk it through.”
“No, we won’t.”
“Axl—”
“Good-bye, Dad.”
At that juncture, the man had the absolute fucking balls to look at Hattie and request quietly, “You’ll talk to him?”
“Get your eyes off her,” he growled.
Hattie came forward and stood between him and his dad.
“I’ll talk to him, Sylas. But I think you should leave now,” she said. “Okay? I’m sorry, but it’s for the best right now.”
Sylas studied her.
Nodded.
Looked to Axl.
Axl saw written stark in his father’s face that the man was wrecked.
He still felt nothing.
Because Sylas wasn’t wrecked that he lost his wife. He wasn’t wrecked at the things his son said to him, the way he fathered making his son feel those things. He wasn’t wrecked because their family was wrecked.
He was wrecked because he wasn’t getting what he wanted.
He was wrecked because he was walking away a loser.
Those were the only reasons he was wrecked.
Sylas left.
Axl set Hattie aside, closed and locked the door.
He turned to her and she was again plastered to him, this time front to front.
“Okay, take a breath, okay?” she urged.
“Babe—”
“I don’t care he said that about me. I honestly don’t.”
“Well, I do.”
“Okay,” she said quickly.
He put his hands to her waist. “It’s been coming, and I think you know that.”
“My dad seems to be turning around,” she reminded him. “That’s like, a miracle. Your dad could too.”
“Your dad loves you,” he returned. “He’s always loved you. He wanted the best for you. He thought you were special, and he was right. He just got it wrong what was supposed to make you special. And he got fixed on that. He’s like one of those soccer dads who stands on the sidelines screaming at the refs and the coaches. I gotta believe, somewhere deep down inside them, they know they’ve got it wrong. They just got obsessed with this thing with their kid. Because they love them. That is not my dad. I have never been anything to my father but a reflection of him. That’s why I had to be the best. That’s why I had to win. That’s why I had to toe the line. The same with my mom. She wasn’t a wife. She was an accessory. I can’t even imagine how it would feel to know some asshole conned me into thinking there was love there, and then I lost all sense of self trying to twist myself into being what he wanted me to be to earn the love that should already be mine.”
He thought about that.
And then he said, “No, I actually can imagine it. It’s just that I gave up on it way before she did.”
Her body melting into him, Hattie lifted her hand, started stroking his jaw, and was silent a beat before she said, “That’s so incredibly sad, I hate that so much for you, I have utterly no idea what to say.”
“You don’t because there’s nothing to say. That wasn’t fun, but now it’s done. Mom has moved on, and not that I needed it, still. He just gave me permission to move on too. So I am.”
She let him have that a second.
And then she advised, “Just … don’t completely close the door. People can surprise you.”
His father wouldn’t surprise him.
Sylas Pantera had a ridiculous number of flaws.
His fatal one would be that he was predictable.
Hands still at her waist, he started walking her backward, their destination clear.
“I won’t close that door,” he assured, even knowing Sylas would never walk through it.
It’d make Hattie happy to think that possibility existed.
So he’d let her do it.
“Good,” she murmured, but stopped their progress by again throwing back a foot.
“Babe, it’s Sunday,” he reminded her.
But she knew.
She only stopped them so she could hop up and wrap her arms around his shoulders, her legs around his hips.
Okay.
Now that shit was done.
Over.
Behind him.
Them.
And moving on.
He put his hands to her ass to assist in holding her there.
But he didn’t kiss her until they cleared the door to the bedroom.
Because he didn’t want to run into anything.
He wanted to focus on nothing.
But kissing his Hattie.
* * *
Hattie plopped the bowl on his stomach before she plopped her body in bed beside him.
“Nachos à la Hattie,” she declared.
He looked down at the bowl piled high.
He looked back at her while grabbing it and shoving up to sitting on his ass under the sheets in his bed.
“Babe, this is just tortilla chips you melted grated cheese on in the microwave.”
“With artfully dispersed dollops of salsa,” she added.
He started laughing.
When he was done, she was grinning and pulling a wedge of “nachos” with the long string of cheese it created from the bowl.