He grinned at her and encouraged, “That’s it, Ma. Get it all out. Though, if DoorDash is your big plan for tonight, you’re going out with us so we can celebrate. You can DoorDash tomorrow.”

Her jaw ticked to the side, she squeezed his hand, and he took her cue, let her go and sat back.

And this was because the waiter was there with his San Pellegrino.

“We also want a bottle of Dom,” he told the guy.

The waiter blinked.

Then he smiled. “Of course, right away.”

And he was off again.

“I can’t drink a bottle by myself, Axl,” his mother protested.

“Is Dad paying your cards?”

“I have my own cards now.”

“You still have the joint ones?”

“Yes.”

“Then he’s paying for lunch today and who cares if you leave a half a bottle of Dom?”

That was when she grinned.

She got serious again fast.

“I don’t want you to worry, darling. I took some classes. Then I opened a web design business about a year and a half ago. I do it from home.”

Holy fuck.

“Seriously?” he asked.

She nodded.

“Does Dad know that?”

She shook her head. “It was easy to do it under his radar. He hasn’t asked how my day was or how I spent it for at least ten years.”

Fuck, his father was a dick.

“I now have a goodly number of clients,” she shared. “Enough I’m nearly full time. I have money coming in, my own accounts, my own cards. Of course, I bought that condo using your father’s and my accounts to get financing, but I’ll be able to afford it as I do not intend to serve thirty-six years of duty at your father’s side and let him cheat me out of my due. He can have the house. I hate that house. It’s boring. He can have the cars. I don’t want to drive a Jaguar. I want a Mazda. One of their smaller-size SUVs. I test-drove one. They’re zippy. I just want the money. And I’ve engaged an attorney. Colorado is a marital property state. Your father can make it ugly, and he can make it drag on, but he can’t circumvent that. And we already have a strategy. Demand everything at first, but since I don’t want anything but half of our liquid assets, the investment portfolio and his retirement, he’ll feel like he’s won when that was all I wanted in the first place. And we both know, it’s very important for your father to feel he’s won, even if he hasn’t.”

Seemed she now had her ducks in a row.

“Sounds like a good strategy,” he noted.

“I hope so,” she murmured, reaching again for her water.

After she took a sip and set it back, he called, “Ma.”

She looked at him.

“I’m proud of you. I’m happy for you. And if he fucks with you, he’ll never see me again.”

She didn’t look happy about that.

“Axl.”

“I’m being very serious.”

“It has pained me for years, how he treated you. More, how I didn’t intervene. And I offer no defense for either. But, darling, he does love you and that would destroy him.”

“Then he better not fuck with you.”

“You really shouldn’t say the F-word, sweetheart,” she murmured. “It’s vulgar.”

He grinned. “I’ll refrain when I’m around you.”

She looked horrified. “I hope you don’t use it around Hattie.”

“Hattie’s a millennial, Mom. We’ve embraced the F-word. We don’t think of it as a curse word at all.”

She burst out laughing.

Christ, she looked pretty laughing.

He tried to think of the last time he saw his mom laugh.

He couldn’t remember.

Jesus.

He also hadn’t been a very good son.

“I didn’t look out for you either,” he admitted.

“That’s not your job.”

“Yes, it is.”

She shook her head, not in a negative, in a “What am I gonna do with my boy?”

“We need to do this more often,” he told her.

“I’d like that,” she replied, a light beginning to shine in her eyes that wasn’t pretty.

It was gorgeous.

“Then we will.”

Hard part done.

Good things ahead.

Now it was time to enfold his mother into his life.

“Now, I gotta give you the heads-up about Don, Hattie’s dad. It looks like things are on a good path, and he knows not to be a dick to her around me …”

Her eyes got big and her face paled.

But Axl kept going.

“But you never know. So before you meet him and spend time with him, if there’s a weird vibe, it’d be good for you to know why it’s there.”

The mussels came before the Dom.

And mother and son had lunch.

In the end, he had half a glass of champagne.

Because seriously.

It was a celebration.

* * *

Axl was on his way back to the office from lunch when he made his decision.

Hattie said that Don could be a charmer.

And his mom seemed like she had it going on.

But today was a big day and a big change.

And she needed everyone she could get in her corner.

Bottom line …

They were all going to be a family.

So he called Don.

Hattie’s dad answered quickly.

“Hey, son. All good?”

It was weird, though not in an entirely bad way, that it kinda felt good when Don called him “son.”

“All good, Don. Listen, just so you know, my mom left my father today. She’s coming out with us tonight.”

“Well, shit, Axl, I’m sorry.”

“I’m not. My dad’s a dick.”

“Right,” he muttered.

“She seems like she’s doing good, I just wanna make sure that keeps going. They were together for thirty-six years. We gotta look after her.”

When he replied, there was a lowering of Don’s voice. It was significant.

It said he was taking this seriously.

It also said it meant something to him that he’d been asked.

“We’ll see to her, Axl,” he promised.

“Great, Don. Thanks.”

“Are you picking up your mother?”

“Her name’s Rachel and yeah.”