Hawk paid well, but Axl would rather go to Mustard’s for a hot dog or Brother’s for a hamburger than go to a snobby joint with white tablecloths and pay through the nose for lunch.

Though, he’d consider taking Hattie here for dinner so he could see her in another of her dresses.

Just not on a Sunday.

His lips quirked at that thought.

“I don’t even know if you’ve been here.”

At her tone, as well as her words, Axl’s attention cut back to her.

And the waiter was at the table.

“Drink for you, sir?” he asked.

“Same as my mom,” Axl ordered.

“Anything to start?” the guy pressed on.

“We’ll have the large bowl of mussels to share,” his mother said.

“Right away,” the waiter murmured and took off.

Axl’s attention went right back to his mom.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Right now, Lisa is coordinating the movers who are moving me to my new condo. It’s close to the Federal Reserve building. Lovely. About twenty-five-hundred square feet. They have a fitness center, a rooftop pool and hot tub and a dog run. I’m thinking of getting a dog.”

Jesus Christ.

His mother wasn’t going to move out.

Right then, she was moving out.

“You’re thinking of getting a dog,” he repeated.

“Yes. I had a designer furnish the space. Did some small renos. The guest bath was dire. But they’re done so it’s all set. I’m just taking some pieces that I cherish and my personal belongings. Everything else I’m leaving behind. I haven’t had a dog since I was in high school. Your father doesn’t like fur on furniture.”

Axl sat back in his chair and held her gaze.

She was jumping all over the place so he thought it best to let her get it out.

“I’m thinking Pekingese. Or a bichon frise. Both are so cute. A small dog. You can use the fitness center if you like. Though, you probably have a membership to a gym. But I don’t know that either.”

“There’s a gym in my office building,” he told her.

“Ah,” she said, reaching to her water.

She took a sip.

Put the glass down.

Gave him her gaze.

And gutted him.

“I didn’t know you had a gym at your work. I didn’t know if you’d been to this restaurant. You are my heart. You are my soul. I was so humiliated at the woman I allowed myself to become, I avoided any meaningful conversation with you, which would be meaningful time with you, because it might lead you to realize how meaningless your mother had become.”

Good fucking Christ.

Immediately, Axl bent forward so deep, the table was cutting into his abs, and reached his hand to her across it.

“Mom, you are not meaningless.”

She didn’t take his hand.

“You aren’t either, Axl. You are so very extraordinary. I was so incredibly proud when you enlisted. I worried for you, so many sleepless nights when you were deployed. But I was proud of you. And so proud you went your own way, and even after you got out, were the man you wanted to be, not the man he wanted to make you be.”

“Ma, take my hand.”

She still didn’t take his hand.

“I didn’t stand between him and you. I didn’t stop him from all the atrocious things he said to you.”

“Mom—”

“I was so very lost, you see. I spent decades reeling, wondering where that girl I used to be had gotten to.”

“Please, Ma, take my hand,” he begged.

She drew a breath into her nose then reached out and put her hand in his.

He closed his fingers around tight.

“He was a steamroller,” he said.

“I am your mother, Axl, and it is my job to look out for you. There’s no excuse.”

“Do you think he would have let you stop him?” he asked.

“I think I should have tried. In the beginning, I would say things. Though I’d wait until we were alone at night in our room. When I could get my words in, he told me not to coddle you. He said it was no way to make a man, his mother coddling him. I tried to explain it wasn’t coddling, it was nurturing. He paid me no mind. Though, I’d eventually become accustomed to that. It was often in our marriage he paid me no mind. But he was so rarely with me. He was always working. Until the wee hours. There was always so much work to do. You know, I cannot even tell you how many times I wished he had a mistress. That would make sense. That would make him at least seem human.”

She shook her head forcefully, closing her eyes tight.

She opened them and carried on.

“I shouldn’t be saying these things to you.”

“Yes, you should. You can lay on me whatever you want.”

She looked to her lap.

“Mom,” he called.

She lifted her head.

“I hated watching what he did to you, but you were my touchstone in that house. I knew you loved me. I know you love me. We never talked about it, but it was there. I had you, and you had me. And that was how we got through. And since I left, I had sleepless nights, worried, because I was out. But you were still in.”

“Oh, Axl, darling,” she whispered.

“You taught me how to cook. You didn’t send your assistant to come pick me up from school or practices, you were always there. And those were our times, just us, driving home, being normal. And every meet, when I’d finish my event, win or lose, I looked for you in the stands. Not him. Because I knew, win but also lose, I’d see pride coming from you, and I only got that from him if I won.”

“Sweetheart,” she said softly.

“And now you’re out. And you’re not drinking San Pellegrino. I can’t drink. I gotta get back to work. But you’re drinking champagne. And tonight, you’re going out to dinner with Hattie and me and Hattie’s dad. Then you’re going to the club with us and watching her dance.”

“Axl, really—”

He squeezed her hand tight. “That’s what’s happening, Mom. Unless you have something special planned.”

“I was thinking of trying one of those restaurant delivery services. Your father thinks they’re millennial. That’s his new word for anything that annoys him. Which I’ve realized are things he doesn’t quite understand. Progress, which is something he despises. He wants it to be 1992. When greed was still good and Basic Instinct was a hit film and it was okay to villainize femininity. Where he was very approving of Jazzercise, because women should spend a good deal of their time engaging in whatever they could to make themselves attractive to a man. But disapproving of Anita Hill, because what was her issue? Men need to be free to be men and women should just put up with it.”