His gaze dragged slowly up my face, taking its sweet time to reach my eyes. “It’s okay, babe. You didn’t know. I should have put your number in my phone as soon as I got in the parking lot, but I didn’t.” His eyebrows drew together, and two tiny lines marred his otherwise perfect face. “I put your card in my console, but my truck was totaled, and it got lost during the accident. I had several people go look for it, but it was just gone. I was kinda freaking out about it,” he said quietly. “I knew you would be waiting for me to call.”

“I think you have a legit excuse. And I feel like crap for elbowing you earlier. I didn’t know you were hurt. I’m really sorry, Ax.”

“Stop apologizing to me, Blaire. I disappointed you… again… and you have every right to be pissed at me. Hell, I’m mad at myself. God, why didn’t I just put your number in my fucking phone before I drove off?” He ran a hand through his hair in frustration, mussing it until it took on that just-sexed look that made me want to assist him with the mussing of his dark curls. With my own hands. While straddling his lap. Naked.

Stop it, you horny biatch!

“Because you didn’t plan to have an accident. It just happened.”

The corners of his eyes pinched in pain, but I didn’t think it was entirely physical. “It was my fault, Blaire. The accident. I was distracted and ran a red light. I was trying to think of all the shit I needed to do before you came over. I wanted to clean up and stuff, and I had a thousand things running through my brain.”

I laughed and squeezed his knee. “Why would you need to clean up? It’s just me.”

“Because I wanted you to think I would be a good dad,” he said quietly, looking down, exposing his heart to me with one simple sentence and ripping my guts out in the process.

I pulled my hand out from under his before I did something stupid, like kiss the ever-loving hell out of him. “Being a good dad doesn’t mean you have to be perfect, Axel. You just have to love your children and put them first. It doesn’t matter if you have dirty socks on the floor.”

He looked up at me, those creases forming between his eyebrows again. “How did you know it was dirty socks I needed to pick up?”