“Okay, take a breath, okay?” she urged.

“Babe—”

“I don’t care he said that about me. I honestly don’t.”

“Well, I do.”

“Okay,” she said quickly.

He put his hands to her waist. “It’s been coming, and I think you know that.”

“My dad seems to be turning around,” she reminded him. “That’s like, a miracle. Your dad could too.”

“Your dad loves you,” he returned. “He’s always loved you. He wanted the best for you. He thought you were special, and he was right. He just got it wrong what was supposed to make you special. And he got fixed on that. He’s like one of those soccer dads who stands on the sidelines screaming at the refs and the coaches. I gotta believe, somewhere deep down inside them, they know they’ve got it wrong. They just got obsessed with this thing with their kid. Because they love them. That is not my dad. I have never been anything to my father but a reflection of him. That’s why I had to be the best. That’s why I had to win. That’s why I had to toe the line. The same with my mom. She wasn’t a wife. She was an accessory. I can’t even imagine how it would feel to know some asshole conned me into thinking there was love there, and then I lost all sense of self trying to twist myself into being what he wanted me to be to earn the love that should already be mine.”

He thought about that.

And then he said, “No, I actually can imagine it. It’s just that I gave up on it way before she did.”

Her body melting into him, Hattie lifted her hand, started stroking his jaw, and was silent a beat before she said, “That’s so incredibly sad, I hate that so much for you, I have utterly no idea what to say.”

“You don’t because there’s nothing to say. That wasn’t fun, but now it’s done. Mom has moved on, and not that I needed it, still. He just gave me permission to move on too. So I am.”

She let him have that a second.

And then she advised, “Just … don’t completely close the door. People can surprise you.”

His father wouldn’t surprise him.

Sylas Pantera had a ridiculous number of flaws.

His fatal one would be that he was predictable.

Hands still at her waist, he started walking her backward, their destination clear.

“I won’t close that door,” he assured, even knowing Sylas would never walk through it.

It’d make Hattie happy to think that possibility existed.

So he’d let her do it.

“Good,” she murmured, but stopped their progress by again throwing back a foot.

“Babe, it’s Sunday,” he reminded her.

But she knew.

She only stopped them so she could hop up and wrap her arms around his shoulders, her legs around his hips.

Okay.

Now that shit was done.

Over.

Behind him.

Them.

And moving on.

He put his hands to her ass to assist in holding her there.

But he didn’t kiss her until they cleared the door to the bedroom.

Because he didn’t want to run into anything.

He wanted to focus on nothing.

But kissing his Hattie.

* * *

Hattie plopped the bowl on his stomach before she plopped her body in bed beside him.

“Nachos à la Hattie,” she declared.

He looked down at the bowl piled high.

He looked back at her while grabbing it and shoving up to sitting on his ass under the sheets in his bed.

“Babe, this is just tortilla chips you melted grated cheese on in the microwave.”

“With artfully dispersed dollops of salsa,” she added.

He started laughing.

When he was done, she was grinning and pulling a wedge of “nachos” with the long string of cheese it created from the bowl.

It couldn’t be said his girl skimped on cheese.

Another reason to love her.

He waited until she had hers, before he went in for his and shared, “Auggie makes pork rind nachos. After having those, we declared him winner since they’re better than Mag’s pancakes, Boone’s mac and cheese, and my deviled eggs.”

She was blinking at him.

Rapidly.

“Deviled eggs?” she asked, still blinking. “What deviled eggs?”

He went for more chips and cheese, saying, “Got a variety of options, but the front-runners are Mexican street corn, Cajun crab and pimento cheese and bacon.”

“Are you serious?” she asked.

“You’ve had my cooking.”

“So tell me, Axl Pantera, why we’re eating nuked cheese on tortilla chips when you can make Mexican street corn deviled eggs?”

He grinned at her.

“I’ve gotta spread out the goodness to keep you hooked. I don’t want to burn through it too soon, so you take off and find a guy who has new tricks up his sleeve.”

When he said that, it was Hattie who was laughing.

He didn’t want to, but seeing all that pretty in his bed, his eyes strayed to the flag on his dresser.

Jordan was a connoisseur of a nice ass, and he always could appreciate a great set of tits.

But he’d be all about Axl finding a woman who wanted to spend their Sundays in bed, eating, fucking and laughing.

More.

A woman who didn’t want him to give up hope about his irredeemable dad, wishing for Axl that his father would find his way to be redeemed so one day Axl’d have a dad.

When his attention went back to her, she was studiously chewing on a triangle of cheese-coated chip.

She’d seen where his eyes had gone.

“You can ask about him, you know,” he said.

“I know,” she replied.

And then she didn’t ask about him.

“Hattie, I fucked up being a dick about him to you. And the first person who would tell me I did is Jordan. You can ask about him,” he reiterated.

She gave him her gaze. “You need to be in that space, and you’ve had a bad couple of days.”

“I need to get to a place where he can be with me in memory and it not hurt.”

She gave him a look that he read.

It said that was impossible and he shouldn’t expect that.

So he added, “As much. So I need to quit burying him under the pain of losing him and talk about how good it was to have him while I had him.”

That got him another look.