Like now.
He just jerked out his chin.
Don pressed on. “You see any action over there?”
Axl felt his neck muscles tighten. “Had a few tours.”
Don looked him direct in the eyes and said quietly, “Right, son. Right.”
Don then nodded, not losing eye contact, and …
Fucking hell.
“You serve?” Axl asked.
Don nodded again. “Right outta high school. Didn’t know what to do with myself, enlisted. I was army too. Just did my four years and got out. Knew myself better by then.”
“Yeah, tend to learn a lot about yourself when you’re in.”
“Yeah,” Don confirmed.
“You guys doing all right?” Hattie yelled from the kitchen.
“We’re good, honey!” Don yelled back, took a sip of beer and looked to his knees.
“Listen, Don—” Axl began, and Don’s head shot up.
“She dances. You seen my girl dance?”
“Yes,” Axl replied.
“You, uh …know where she dances?”
“Sat through her show last night.”
Don blinked.
“She was magnificent. Danced ballet to a punk rock song,” Axl told him.
Don’s chin shifted to the side. “She what?”
“Joan Jett. She danced to Joan Jett and the Blackhearts. She had four other numbers last night, she’s always great. But that one blew the audience away.”
“I … ” Don looked toward the doorway to the kitchen and back to Axl. “You’re, well … good with her working there?”
“It’s her life, she can do what she wants,” Axl said on a shrug. “But I think she likes it better now that they’ve switched to a Revue. She can be creative. And she’s really good at that. Shines. Headliner used to be a friend of ours, the one who set us up, Charlotte McAlister. But Hattie’s the main headliner now.”
“She is?”
This news visibly rocked him.
Good.
Axl nodded and drew back more beer.
Then he told him, “You should follow the club on social media. Sometimes, they post videos. Can’t say I have time to check very often, but from what I’ve seen, management uses a lot of Hattie. She’s drawing a big crowd for them. Always had a velvet rope, now they have to turn people away. Even if the cover charge has tripled.”
“Well, I’ll be damned,” he said under his breath. He took a second to think on that, then back to a normal voice, he asked, “How long you two been seeing each other?”
“We’ve known each other awhile now,” he hedged.
“You meet Sharon yet?”
Sharon was Hattie’s mom.
He shook his head. “Not yet.”
It was the first time since he met the man that he saw something overt he didn’t like.
A smug smile.
He got to meet the boyfriend first, and that meant something to him, like it was a competition.
Axl had a lot of experience with that and he didn’t like any of it.
“She doesn’t have to go make dinner for her mom,” Axl pointed out.
The smile died.
“And she asked me to spend the day with her, I promised I would, so here I am,” he went on. “But thanks for letting me crash your party.”
He said that last, but after what he’d said before it, it was clear that it was Don who was crashing the party.
“She takes care of her old man,” Don told him.
“Unh-hunh,” Axl replied. “She’s a good woman.”
Don looked a touch ashamed.
Hattie came in, right to Axl, sitting on the arm of the couch next to him, and sharing, “Waiting for the water to boil and the oven to heat up. We should have you sorted in about twenty minutes, Dad.”
“Well, that’ll be good, honey. Though, you get those pigs in the oven and the pasta on to boil, I’ll finish up,” Don said.
Hattie’s back went straight.
“But what about cleanup?” Hattie asked.
“I’ll clean up after myself tonight. You and your man go off and have fun. Okay?”
“But your fee—” she tried.
“I got it, darlin’. Okay?”
“Okay,” she replied and looked down at Axl.
He shook his head slightly, indicating he hadn’t gotten into it.
She then asked him, “You okay?”
He nodded, murmuring, “I’m good, baby.”
Her gaze moved to the television. “How are the Rockies doing?”
“There’s ups, there’s downs,” Don didn’t exactly answer.
They all sat in uncomfortable silence before Hattie got up, saying, “Going to go check the water.”
Axl watched her walk out, threw back more beer, then he made a decision.
This man loved his daughter. It was fucked up how he did, but he did.
And Hattie wanted a healthy relationship with her father.
Axl couldn’t tell the future to know if that was a possibility.
Though it was more.
A good deal more.
Because, since he didn’t know if that was a possibility, he also didn’t know if she should continue to hope, and onward from that, if he should champion it for her, or try to find a way to cushion her by leading her to the understanding it wasn’t going to happen.
And if she continued to hope, Axl wasn’t certain what part he should play in helping her try to find that way.
But in the now, she had hope.