“You’ve said that, now repeatedly,” I reminded him.

So suddenly I jumped, he reached out and caught my face in both hands and brought his so close to mine, all I could see were his eyes.

“Fuck,” he muttered.

“What?” I breathed, now not starting to freak out.

I was in a freak-out, full bore.

“You were beautiful in that dress yesterday, Hattie.”

“Okay.”

“Listen to me.”

That was not careful.

It was deep. Resonant. Luke-I-Am-Your-Father intense.

“When you were doing those twirls up on the tips of your toes to Joan Jett—”

“Pirouettes,” I corrected.

“Yeah, those,” he said. “The table next to me gasped. Punk is pounding through Smithie’s sound system and I could hear them gasp.”

Wow.

That was huge.

I stared into his eyes.

“You doin’ ballet to Joan Jett with dark eyes and safety pins in your shirt was genius.”

My heart started beating hard.

Axl continued.

“You say ‘Okay,’ you say ‘Thanks,’ you brush it off when I’m telling you the god’s honest truth. I told you that you were remarkable—”

“I know and that’s sweet and—”

His hands pressed in and he got so close, the tip of his nose was brushing mine. “I told you that, Hattie, because you’re remarkable.”

Okay.

Wow.

I began panting.

“You have no idea because you heard him tell you over and over again that you’re not. But he’s wrong. You are. And it’s not because you have a fantastic body, and I swear to fuck, it took a lot out of me not to drag you to the dressing room and bang you against the mirror when I saw you in that dress yesterday. It isn’t because you trained for years and know the moves so you can execute them. You make people feel when you dance. You make them gasp. Your dad’s been a dick to you all your life, he messed with your head, hurt you, and your loyalty to blood doesn’t break. Your art, babe, we haven’t even gotten to that. Fuck, we haven’t even scratched the surface of you.”

Scratched the surface of me?

Yup.

Definitely panting.

“I’m not tellin’ you shit because I like you or I wanna get in your pants. I’m telling you the truth. I misspoke when I said I was building you up. I didn’t mean propping you up. I meant putting back together the pieces he tears from you. Pieces that are already a part of you. They’re who you are. The compliments I share with you aren’t a means to any end except to remind you of who you are.”

Okay.

Enough.

Putting my hands to his shoulders, I kissed him while shoving him to his back.