He stopped scrolling and looked over my phone at me.
“Can I ask why you don’t go there?”
It was careful and gentle, the way this question came.
But I couldn’t tell him why because I didn’t know why.
I also couldn’t tell him there wasn’t a “there” I could go to any longer, not after the way Axl threw down with me.
I’d blown it.
It was over.
And now all that was left was to torture myself with how huge a fuckup I’d perpetrated.
I grabbed my coffee cup off the lime green ceramic stool that sat between us and served as a table, looked out the slats toward the street and took a sip.
“Message received, sweetheart, but seriously, this guy is into you,” Brett stated.
I turned my gaze to him.
“He wants to be friends,” I shared.
“No, he’s into you.”
“He has a woman.”
Brett made no reply to that.
“So, again, he wants to be friends,” I repeated.
“And you got a problem with that?”
“He’s gorgeous. He seems really nice. I had a shot at him, I blew it. But in a perfect world, he’d be mine and now it can only be friends. Can you understand how that might be hard?”
Brett put my phone on the stool but did this with his eyes moving over me in my sleep set that was shorts and a short-sleeved pajama shirt that was pink with big, bright blue and green flowers on it. I was curled up, heels to the seat, knees to my chest.
But still, there was a lot of me to be seen.
And as he did this, he said, “I get the gist.”
Oh no.
“Brett,” I whispered.
His eyes came to mine. “It’s okay, baby, ’cause, see, the thing is, you give a shit about someone, you take what you can get.”
Oh man.
Maybe it was me who shouldn’t be out on the deck in my jammies.
Maybe I should find a turtleneck and some jeans.
Bulky ones.
“You’re incredibly sweet,” I said softly.
“Right, the other thing is, I’m not,” he stated matter-of-factly. “I’m really not, Hattie. But that’s what you’ll get from me. And sweet is all you’ll ever get from me. But the reason I don’t blow through Pantera and take what I want from you is because you don’t need that in your life. So you get the sweet. And only that. But you do knowing that there’s more. And the rest, well,” he lifted his broad (bare!) shoulders, “I’ll find a woman who can deal.”
“I’m sure she’s out there,” I informed him.
“I need to find a Daisy. Or better, an Anya,” he muttered. “I’m seein’ I like the quiet ones, not the ballsy ones.”
“Pardon?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Nothin’.” He then pushed out of his chair. “Gonna get a refill. Check the cupboards. See what you got. Makin’ you breakfast then I got shit to do.”
He was making me breakfast.
Yesterday, he had one of his henchmen bring doughnuts.
I was always in for a doughnut.
I was more in for someone (not me) making breakfast.
I seriously had to scan my friend memory banks (which weren’t all that hearty, sadly) and see if I knew someone who could “deal” who might make Brett happy.
I didn’t share these thoughts with him.
I nodded.
He held out his hand.
I gave him my cup for a refill.
Yup.
He was sweet.
He went inside and I watched the muscles of his back (and, okay, the movement of his ass) when he did.
He was bigger than Axl, not taller, and I’d regrettably never seen Axl bare-chested.
But I’d imagined it.
Repeatedly.
And other things bared.
Those repeatedly too.
On these thoughts, I let out a heavy sigh and looked out the slats so I wouldn’t grab my phone again and torture myself with the various ways I’d screwed up with Axl.
And it seemed I was really good at this, considering as I did it, I conjured up the image of Axl walking along the sidewalk in front of my house.
Though, the truth of it was, Axl was walking along the sidewalk in front of my house.
I sat up straight in my chair.
My movement must have caught his attention because he stopped, and his eyes caught mine through the slats.
Oh boy.
He shifted direction. No longer heading to the front walk, he was striding up the grass to the gate of my deck.
And then I lost sight of him because he was at the gate to my deck.
Oh boy!
I took my feet off the chair, put them to the rug and stood.
The deck door opened and Axl was there.
And man, he made navy cargos and a gray tee look like everything.
No offense to Brett, but better than Brett in practically nothing.
Crap!
I was so in trouble.
“Uh—” I started, panicked.
No.
Frantic.
Because he was there, and I really could not take him being mean to me again, even if I deserved it.
And …
Brett was there because I had a situation that might be nothing, but it also might be something, and I hadn’t thought Axl would ever find out I had this situation.