And then she was off, walking with a purpose toward the stairs.

Ryn came to stand at my side so we could both watch her go.

When we couldn’t see her anymore, Ryn said, “She totally has a plan.”

She totally did and that concerned me.

Because not only was she Lottie, and one of her plans meant I was sleeping beside Axl every night, but also because she was headed to Dorian.

And as I’d previously noted, Dorian was an action man.

“Totally,” I agreed.

“I’m glad I’m not the last one standing, that would suck,” she went on.

It seriously would.

“Totally,” I repeated.

I mean, it was bad enough seeing how happy Lottie, Evie and Ryn were when my guy was within reach and I wasn’t reaching.

It’d be so much worse if it wasn’t just being scared to take the risk but feeling like I couldn’t reach.

“Maybe we should tone down the domestic bliss,” I suggested.

“Maybe, I don’t know.”

I looked to her. “Why don’t you know?”

She turned fully to me. “I was in the offices when Gwen brought all her and Hawk’s kids in. And all three of them, like a shot, the two boys and his little girl, went right to Aug.”

“Oh man,” I said.

“Yeah, he loves kids. Like, a lot. And they love him back.”

And thus, one reason Lottie picked him for Pepper.

“My mom said something to me, when shit got real with my brother,” Ryn continued. “About how happy she was that I finally had someone in my corner. Pepper’s got it going on, but she also takes a lot of shit from a lot of directions. It’d be good to see her have someone in her corner. And not just us.”

Pepper did take a lot of shit.

So it so would.

And this got me to thinking, maybe I was wrong.

Mag stepped in, and the stuff with Evie’s family had been extreme. They put her in some serious shit. Mag got shot in the middle of it.

And now they were getting married.

Ryn’s sitch hadn’t been that dramatic, but she definitely had some baggage, including, I’d recently discovered, a past partner breaking trust with her in a fundamental and fundamentally terrifying way, and she and Boone were completely solid.

Shit had been real from the beginning with Axl and me, and except for us not very successfully navigating the situation with his sadly departed friend, that had been brief, and other than that, between him and me, it was all smooth sailing.

Lottie hadn’t just wanted to see her girls and her guys happy.

She’d been very deliberate about all this.

And she was not unaware of Pepper’s past, and the important aspect of Juno being in that mix.

I’d been so deep in all the things I was dealing with, it hadn’t occurred to me to look more closely at what Pepper’s day-to-day life would be like.

And my friend really needed someone in her corner.

And not just her girls.

So, to communicate I agreed, I repeated myself again.

This time with feeling.

“Totally.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

She Was Mine Before

HATTIE

Having left the club, on the way to my studio, I called Axl.

I was kinda bummed because, after that scene with Pepper, I wasn’t thinking about the piece I was working on.

I was thinking about my friend and that maybe I needed to spend more time in her corner.

Like, say, after we inadvertently upset her (a lot) and she’d gone off on her own, instead of going to my studio to work on my art, find her and share I was in her corner. Also admit I might not have been real good at doing that in the past. But now I was all in.

So, yeah.

I was bummed I wasn’t in a work-at-the-studio mood.

But more bummed that my friend was in a bad place.

And I decided, once I got to the studio, I’d text her. See if she wanted to meet for a coffee.

Or something.

On this thought, Axl picked up.

“Hey, babe.”

“Hey, uh, heading to the studio,” I told him.

“Cool,” he replied.

Okay, now …

Um …

Where to begin?

“You good?” he asked.

“Well …”

In truth, I knew where to begin.

I just didn’t know if I should begin there.

That being, feel him out about what to do about Pepper and Auggie.

And by feel him out, I meant enlist his services to get Auggie to get the lead out in going for Pepper.

“Hattie,” Axl prompted.

“Okay, well, the meeting was about Smithie’s closing for three weeks,” I told him. “They’re doing some renovations. VIP seating and putting in a kitchen because they’re going to start serving food. It’s all good, including for us. We’ll keep getting paid. And Smithie covers tips. Truth, I can have better nights than he covers, but I won’t be hurting.”

“Right, then yeah. All good,” he said. “And that gives you free time to be in the studio.”

I hadn’t said anything outright, but he sensed I was jonesing to get back to it.

My guy.

Such a good guy and so tuned to me.

“Yeah,” I agreed.

I said no more.

Axl waited.

Until he was done waiting.

“Babe,” he pushed, knowing there was more to say.

“Okay, we had a blowup with Pepper when we pushed her about getting together with Auggie.”

“Shit,” he muttered.

And the way he did, I knew now he had more to say.

“What?” I asked.

“I take it she was resistant to going there with Aug?” he asked back.

“Very,” I answered.

“Right, well, not too long ago, I got up in Auggie’s shit about this same thing. And, babe, prepare. Because she’s not giving him anything and he gets why she isn’t. He digs her and wants to go there, but you don’t push a woman with a kid. So my guess, he’s going to be moving on if he isn’t in that zone already.”

That wasn’t good news.

But I was stuck on something else.

“You don’t push a woman with a kid?” I asked.

“There’s more going on there,” he said as answer.

“I know, but she’s still a woman, even if she has a kid,” I said.