He was more rough, though I’d prefer to call it roguish. With a high forehead, heavy dark brows, hooded eyes that were quite deep set and downturned at the ends which gave him a look like he was always alert, always assessing, didn’t miss a trick.
I had no idea where he got that silver hair. He couldn’t be much older than me.
But he worked it.
“How did you—?” I started to ask how he knew about my studio.
“Stood them up,” he stated. “Again.”
What?
“Pardon?” I asked.
“Lottie’s big thing. Gearing up. That was last night. Shower is coming up. Bachelorette party after that. Next day, wedding. And last night you’re … what? Kissin’ your dad’s ass?”
And for the second time in less than twenty-four hours, I found my body stunned still.
This time it was to fight the pain.
“Told myself to have patience,” he continued. “This shit isn’t easy. I know. My dad didn’t hide the fact he wasn’t all that thrilled with the way I turned out either.”
Uh …
What?
He was …
Well, Axl was …
Perfect.
How could his dad not be thrilled with how he’d turned out?
“You, it was dance. Me, track and field. Dad was a track star. Sprinter. Long jump. I was the same, but better. A lot better. Didn’t make the Olympics, though, and you would have thought me not doing that when the vast majority of athletes can’t, I was patient zero with the coronavirus.”
“I—”
“And I still see him. He’s my dad. Now he thinks I’m an idiot to quit school to go into the service. I wasn’t a gold medal winner with millions in endorsements, he wanted me to be what he became. An attorney. Work at his firm. He’s in the thick of it. He gets off on it. He doesn’t see or tries to ignore or just enjoys the fact the prosecutorial system in this country is fucked to the point it’s a joke. The penal system is the same. And I don’t find justice a game where you rack up wins and losses on your personal score sheet and that proves how big your dick is when sitting next to you is a person whose life is at stake. He does not appreciate my opinion on these subjects, but he’s a scrapper. His description of himself. So he brings it up all the fuckin’ time. Just to get a rise out of me. I try not to take the bait, but he won’t let it go until I either walk out or double down.”
“That doesn’t sound—”
“Good?” he interrupted in order to finish for me. “No. It isn’t. I hate it. It drives my mother crazy. But I love her and I want to see her and that comes with seeing him. And he’s my dad. There’s a pull. Nearly impossible to fight. So I get it. How it’s hard to let go. Hard to stay away. But my father never hit me.”
All right.
I was beginning to rethink my friends being much better friends than me. Because it seemed everyone knew what I didn’t quite openly share (but I still shared) during our kidnapping. This being about my dad getting physical.
And really, what happened during a kidnapping should stay with the kidnapping.
“Axl—”
“He never drove me to harming myself.”
I closed my mouth.
He looked down and touched “After,” a piece that came to his hip, and then his attention returned to me.
“This breaks my fucking heart,” he declared.
I held my breath.
Oh yes.
He knew that this studio was where I expressed things.
“It’s you as a girl and it’s you as a woman, cast in cement, formed of iron, and I get it’s hard to break free. What I don’t get is that it isn’t hard to come out of yourself and take someone’s hand. You got at least half a dozen of them extended to you. Why the fuck would you not only avoid them, but slap them away?”
Since he wasn’t letting me talk, even if he asked a question, I didn’t say anything.
“Lottie’s hurt, Hattie,” he shared.
Oh no.
I closed my eyes.
“Yeah,” he said.
I reopened them.
He kept going.
“She likes you. You mean something to her. Last night was so important, everyone’s gathering, Elvira’s pulled out her boards, all so they can celebrate one of their own, and where the fuck are you?”
“I had something come—”
“Don’t give me any of your shit.” He shook his head sharply. “I don’t buy it.”
I shut my mouth again.
“Mac has a heart of gold.” “Mac” being what the guys called Lottie, seeing as her last name was McAlister, at least for the next few weeks. “What the woman doesn’t have is the patience of a saint. So you blew it last night, Hattie. Fuckin’ huge.”
With this statement, suddenly, breathing felt alien to me.
Axl walked my way.
He got close.
He stared down his nose at me.
And breathing was a memory.