Good news, Hattie seemed a lot calmer than when he walked into the house.
“You good?” he asked to confirm.
“Absolutely not. I’m totally freaking out,” she answered.
He glanced at her and saw none of that.
“You seem good,” he noted.
“I’m faking it.”
Back came his grin.
“Honey, it’s gonna be okay.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“It is. Most importantly, it’s going to happen, and that means eventually it’ll be over, we’ll be home, and it’ll be behind us.”
“Smart advice. I will now commence visualizing the ride home.” She then put her hands up at her sides, tip of her thumb to tip of her middle finger, and she began chanting, “Om.”
Now he wasn’t grinning.
He was laughing.
Fuck, she was something.
Yeah.
Cute girls totally did it for him.
She stopped chanting, dropped her hands and asked, “How was your day?”
“I had duty at the monitors,” he shared. “We take turns having to sit there and stare at them. I got three days of that and then I’m back out from behind my workstation. Which I already know will be the best day of the week.”
“Man of action,” she noted.
“Definitely not a man of sitting on my ass all day,” he replied.
She didn’t say anything, and at a glance, he saw her lips tipped up, looking amused, staring out the windshield.
It was a good segue, so he took it.
“Sometimes, depending on what jobs we’re on, I got night duty doing that,” he told her.
“All right,” she said.
“That’s not a problem?” he asked.
“Honey, I work nine to two in the morning. Is that a problem?” she asked back.
“No.”
“I can hardly be ticked at you that you have to work nights when I work nights.”
Right.
“Yeah,” he said through his chuckles. When he stopped chuckling, he asked, “Did you get to your studio today?”
“I was in the middle of a tourney of Pac-Man with Sly, and, by the way, he’s nowhere near as good as you, so I kicked his ass, when I decided the dress I picked to meet your folks in didn’t work. We went to four stores. Sly carries a gun. That’s the only reason it wasn’t five. I felt the need to make up for it, so I took him to Cherry Cricket for lunch. He was feeling the burn of me kicking his ass so he forced a short first to win two takes it all at the video machine, which I won. Commence freak-out about the dress, because I decided on a red one, but obviously, since I’m not wearing it, it wouldn’t do. So that would be a no on the studio.”
“Maybe tomorrow,” he replied.
They fell into a comfortable silence, and during that silence, Axl contemplated two things.
One, it was nice coming home to her.
Two, they were falling in love with each other.
With this in mind, he told her, “I’ve never lived with a woman.”
“Pardon?”
“I’ve never lived with a woman,” he repeated.
“Um … okay.”
“That said, my last long-term relationship, she was over a lot. We both preferred my place when one of us slept over. So I gave her a drawer.”
“A drawer,” she said, partly contemplative, partly teasing. “That’s big stuff.”
“I thought it was. She was ticked it was just a drawer.”
“If I had a diary, and therefore wrote in a diary, and you gave me a drawer, I’d have to go out and buy heart stickers and glitter washi tape so I could fully commit my ‘Dear diary, today, Axl gave me a drawer,’ memory as it deserved.”
He started laughing again.
“I haven’t lived with a guy either,” she told him.
“Seems so far we’re both naturals,” he remarked.
A wave of warmth hit him from the passenger side of the vehicle.
He then saw her out of the corner of his eye move in so she could kiss his jaw.
She sat back and it took a minute before she queried, “Can I ask why you mentioned that?”
“Never in my life came home to a woman.”
Hattie didn’t respond.
“Been comin’ home to you now for days, didn’t think on it, all that was going on. Had a second to think on it, and I like it. So I thought you should know.”
At that, she pushed the limits of her seatbelt again to give him another kiss on the jaw, this time wrapping her hand around the other side of his neck to give him a squeeze.
He felt her touch and smelled her perfume.
Yeah.
He liked her in his Jeep too.
Axl enjoyed her kisses, but he decided not to share that in case she did it again, and her touch prompted more action, the kind where he’d turn around and dis his mother on dinner.
They drove the rest of the way, back in their comfortable silence.
Until he pulled into his parents’ side drive.
“Holy crap,” she whispered.
As they passed by, he studied the sprawling house with its red brick, black shutters, white woodwork, and curved portico.
The green lawn was perfectly manicured. The front hedges flawlessly clipped. The dual elms on either side of the front of the house mature and towering.