Hattie sat beside him in his Jeep, fiddling with her phone as they drove to her father’s.

“What do you think it means, two days, no stalker?” she asked the side window.

She wasn’t thinking about her stalker.

She was thinking about where they were going and asking about her stalker in order to stop thinking about it.

“Babe, I’m not a stalker,” he said quietly. “Got no clue what it means.”

Though he did.

There were three scenarios.

One: he lost interest.

Two: he finally processed she had a man in her life, and constant protection, and he decided it wasn’t worth the hassle.

Or three: he was gearing up for something big.

Obviously, Axl was pulling for one or two.

And more with the obvious, on her way to see her father with her new boyfriend was not the time to chat about it in case number three freaked her out.

“It’s our perfect Sunday, yeah?” he reminded her, even though they were taking a detour from that right now.

He’d get her back to it when they got home.

“My dad tonight, your dad tomorrow night,” she said softly.

“Hattie.”

He sensed her turn her eyes to him.

He glanced and saw he was correct.

“Done and then done,” he stated. “And just to say, I’m not gonna be a dick to your dad. I’m just gonna be honest and firm in letting him know you got a man in your life and where that man stands on how he expects the people in it to treat you.”

“Okay.”

She didn’t sound convinced.

“You got something on your mind, now’s the time to talk about it, before we walk in there,” he told her.

“You know I heard all you said to me this morning,” she noted.

“Yeah,” he replied.

“And you know, we’ve been having sex, eating, snoozing, and you kicked my ass in Pac-Man again.”

He grinned. “Yeah, I was there through all that.”

“I’m totally practicing Pac-Man while you’re at work tomorrow.”

“Honey, I’ve had years to become a master.”

“Well, your turns are very long at the video machine because of it, and as utterly fascinated as I am at witnessing your Pac-Man superiority, I have to admit that, at times, my mind may have wandered.”

Ah.

“Yeah?” he prompted on a smile.

“You’ve said things that have made me think.”

He wasn’t sure if that was good or bad.

What he knew was, they didn’t have two hours to go through it. They had maybe fifteen minutes before they got to her father’s.

Even so, he said, “Sock it to me,” because if she needed it, he’d stop and talk to her for two hours and that was not about avoiding her dad.

It was to give her what she needed.