“I’ll shut up.”
I didn’t want him to, but I did want him to sleep. He’d had a trying day.
So I didn’t say anything.
Not much time passed before a certain feline made her way up our bodies.
Cleo stopped with a pair of paws on me at my upper arm, and the way I felt them, the other pair was on Axl.
I felt her censure through the dark as she stared down at us.
She then jumped clear and I suspected she was done with us and had gone to sulk somewhere free of the humans until Axl said super quietly, “She’s at my feet.”
“She still loves her daddy.”
He gave me a squeeze.
And with the gang all there, settled in and safe, finally, I fell asleep.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Tripped
AXL
It wasn’t the time.
He wasn’t ready for it.
He wasn’t sure Hattie was ready for it.
But it happened.
The next morning.
After a quick fuck, a quick shower, and Hattie launching into getting ready for Lottie’s brunch bridal shower at Jet Chavez’s, Axl made some calls.
First, they had to hit Hattie’s place to get her present, then he was going to drop her at the party, and with all the women there, the men were going to meet.
It was time to go, but when he went to the bathroom to hustle her ass up, she wasn’t there.
She wasn’t in the bedroom either.
He used that door to the living room to see if somehow she got past him and went to the deck, when he saw her in the living room, the handle of a cat toy with a feather on the end of it in her hand.
Cleo was nowhere to be seen, and he was about to tease Hattie about her ongoing efforts to steal his cat’s affections when he noticed why Cleo wasn’t playing (if there was one thing his cat loved, she loved to play).
Hattie had lost focus on the toy and was staring with not a small amount of interest at the piece on the chest in his front window.
He felt a clutch in his chest, and it wasn’t the first time.
He shouldn’t have bought it.
He should sell it.
He just couldn’t.
“Babe, we gotta go,” he called, and he hadn’t managed to hide that clutch sounding in his voice.
She started, and her head turned his way.
“You okay?” she asked.
Yep.
She heard it.
“Yeah, but we gotta get on the road.”
Her study of him became acute. “You sure you’re okay?”
“Yeah,” he repeated his lie. “Ready to go?”
She nodded.
And she was.
That day, it was the red dress day, he saw, and unfortunately, no matter how gorgeous she looked in it, he had to agree it was a good call she didn’t wear it to his parents’.
Because it had a short, flirty skirt, a halter-like top with a straight edge under her collarbone and slender straps, and those straps crossed over her bare back. She wore her big gold hoops with it and a less-dressy pair of gold high-heeled sandals.
And unlike the yellow dress she’d worn to meet his folks—which his mom was right, was effortless and chic—the red dress said she was an adorable, but hot fuck.
And she was.
But his father would have torn that apart like a vulture.
Due to the way that night went, the discussion of what Hattie did for a living didn’t come up.
That red dress would have pushed it in that direction, and it would have been Hattie in the firing line and Axl blowing his stack.
So yeah.
It was good they avoided that.
They got in his Jeep and she picked Supreme Queen Grayfur to call out good-bye to Cleo so he was smiling when he got behind the wheel.
But that smile didn’t last long.
Hattie didn’t miss it.
“You’re not okay,” she said.
“I’m fine,” he lied.
“I’m sorry this stuff is hanging over all you guys’ heads.”
That wasn’t what he was thinking about.
“Yeah,” he agreed.
“Like you said, it’ll all be okay,” she assured him.
Shit.
“I know. That’s all good. I’m not worried about that, Hattie.”
“Okay,” she said hesitantly.
Shit.
She did not need to think he was worried about that, because she was being super chill about all that was going down. She hadn’t freaked once.
But if she thought he was worried about it, she might start worrying about it.
“That piece is titled ‘Tripped.’ ”
“Pardon?”
“The one in the window. It’s titled ‘Tripped.’ ”
She said nothing, but he felt her gaze keen on him.
“I had a buddy in the service. We were tight. He stepped on a land mine.”
She gasped.
Yeah.
That was not even close to it.
“Axl,” she said gently, her fingers curling on his thigh.
“He was in front of me. I saw it.”
“Oh my God, Axl.” Her fingers squeezed tight and didn’t let up.
“So,” he cleared his throat, “yeah.”
“So that piece … called ‘Tripped’ …is a representation of a land mine exploding?”
Yep.
She got it.
“Yeah.”
“Why …I …it’s …” She pulled it together. “It’s an amazing piece, but why do you have it?”