Might as well.

Yikes.

Moving on.

“Okay. Then, is there …I mean, um … making up?”

“Yeah,” he confirmed.

“Don’t you have to kind of be together to make up?”

“Hattie, this is the longest non-relationship relationship in history. We’ve been together since the first time you shot me down for a date and I think you know that better than me.”

Hmm.

“But you had a girlfriend,” I reminded him.

“No, I saw a woman briefly when you were giving me nothing to go on. I liked her. She liked me. I couldn’t get you out of my head when I was with her, which was fucked up and uncool. I knew just how fucked up and uncool that was when you lost it on yourself that day in the studio and my reaction to seeing your pain shared clear I needed to focus on what was important. So I sat down with her to finish it. When I told her we were done in that way, she said, ‘It’s the girl you’re pining for, isn’t it?’ So I wasn’t hiding it from her either. Which was more fucked up and uncool. But she’s nice. She’s sweet. She talked to me about you. And she told me not to give up, you’d come around. We like the same kind of movies and she mountain bikes, and so do I, so we hit trails. Like I said, she’s nice and sweet, she’s also gorgeous, so she’s already seeing another guy. But we’ve become good friends in a way she won’t lose me, and I hope you aren’t the kind of woman who can’t handle the man in her life having female friends.”

My reaction to seeing your pain.

Focus on what was important.

The man in her life.

“I don’t think I’m that kind of woman,” I said.

Or, if I was, after he said all that, I wasn’t going to be any longer.

“Good,” he muttered.

“What kind of movies do you like?” I asked.

“Lots, but with Peyton, it’s horror.”

I pulled a face.

He grinned at me.

“I don’t mountain bike,” I told him.

“I don’t care,” he told my mouth.

I had a feeling we were getting to the making-up part.

My hands, still on his shoulders, squeezed.

His gaze came back to my eyes.

“I have to text Brett. He’s waiting to take me home.”

“His car took off before I closed the door.”

I felt my eyes get big. “He told me he was waiting.”

“And I told him he was relieved of duty.”

“You didn’t leave your house.”

“He got my message.”

The head gesture.

Men’s form of sign language.

Okay, again …

Moving on.

“Right then, can you take me home, uh, after we’re finished?”

“No, ’cause you’re staying here with me.”

Um!

“Pardon?”

“Hattie, if you’d shut up, we’d make out to make up, but I’m not doin’ you on my couch or in my bed before I’ve even bought you dinner. We’re gonna make out to make up. You’re gonna sleep in my bed. I’ll sleep on the couch. I got shit on for tomorrow, some of that trying to figure out who’s dicking with you, so I gotta take off early. You text when you wake up. Me or one of the guys will come get you and take you home. And we’ll go out to dinner tomorrow, finish talking through shit, and start getting to know one another.”

Oh boy.

I really wanted to do all that.

But we were already hitting a rough patch.

I started it with, “I have to be at work at nine.”

“Plenty of time for me to take you somewhere and that be someplace nice.”

“Well, yes, but I go to my dad’s every night to make him dinner.”

He didn’t miss a beat before he said, “If your father can’t cook his own meal, he’s getting delivery.”

“Axl—”

He put his finger to my lips.

That was a way better way to interrupt me.

“I know you don’t like it when I cut you off, baby, but this is a big deal. One kiss and a whole lot of mindfuck and we’re here. We’re here because we both want this, we both know it and we both know how bad we want it. I wanna hear about your dad. I wanna know about your life. I just wanna know you. But we just unfucked this. Give me twenty-four hours, at least, of unfucked before we court fucking it up again.”

“Okay,” I whispered against his finger.

“Okay,” he whispered back, taking that finger away, his gaze drifting again to my mouth.

And his head following it.

“I didn’t mean to mindfuck you,” I kept whispering.

His head didn’t lift, but his eyes did, when he said, “One kiss, Hattie, and it was all worth it.”

Oh my God!

So nice!

Then he slanted his head and gave me kiss two.

And he was right.

So right.

It was all worth it.

Totally.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Keep Putting in the Work

HATTIE

I woke feeling comfy and snuggly.

Also rested and refreshed.

That last was weird. I never woke feeling refreshed. I always woke feeling like I wanted to go back to sleep.

Or maybe it was just that I didn’t want to get up.

Now I felt …

Great.

I opened my eyes and saw dark gray sheets.

This confused me because I had pastel pink sheets.

Suddenly, I smiled.

I was in Axl’s bed.

And it was a great bed.

Best … mattress … ever.

And I could smell him.

So, obviously, even better.

Sun was coming from behind his closed blinds.

I wondered vaguely what time it was.

I wondered not-so-vaguely how life could get so good so fast when it seemed so bad for so long.

I wondered what was on my leg.

Wait.

What?

I looked down the bed and saw a cat, hind paws to the bed, front paws to my leg. Small, slender body. Dense gray fur. Big ears. Gold at the edge of her (his?) dilated eyes.

She (he?) studied me with curiosity and barely hidden feline distaste.

Then s/he turned and pranced off the bed.

Axl had a cat.

Axl had a pretty, dainty, gray cat with an attitude.

I would not peg him as a cat person.