“I have a lot to think about, honey,” she said. “And you’re right. He messes with my head. I don’t know if I can…if I…” It took her a second, but she got there, “If I can get myself straight while he’s messing with my head.”

Fuck, in that Jeep with her, he could not shout in triumph.

Instead, he kept a lock on it and said, “Told you, I’m here to support you. We’ve had to adjust that considering how shit is. But that doesn’t change the support part.”

She squeezed his hand. “Thanks, babe.”

“And something else to think on,” he continued. “It is without a doubt that our upbringing is a huge factor in the people we turn out to be. But Amy Winehouse’s dad didn’t pour booze down her throat to make her drink herself to death and Lady Gaga is a straight-up boss. You gotta find that line you draw where it’s you who decides your future.”

“Yeah,” she said quietly.

He let it go at that, fucking elated that some of what he said was sinking in and she was reconsidering where she was at with her dad.

Her phone binged with a text and she slid her fingers from his hold to pull it out of her bag and check it.

She’d texted her father earlier to let him know she was bringing someone over while she got his dinner together.

These texts had been Axl’s first experience with holding his tongue when it came to this sitch, because her father texted right back, saying he didn’t want company. Thus ensued a back-and-forth of her standing her ground that Axl was coming. A back-and-forth Axl felt badly about, but he couldn’t back down, because it was his opinion she shouldn’t back down.

He worried, her dad knowing that the time was nigh for her being over there, that text was him giving her shit.

“Your dad?” he asked when she was moving her thumbs over the screen in reply.

“Pepper,” she answered. “During your marathon turns to kick my ass in Pac-Man, I told the girls we were officially boyfriend and girlfriend in all that conveys. They’re pretty excited.”

At least there was something good coming over her phone.

They hit her father’s house, which was small, but in a good ’hood, and there was a fairly new model, relatively stylin’ Buick in the driveway.

On sight of the Buick, the question begged to be asked, why couldn’t the man use that to get his own ass to the grocery store?

Even if it begged to be asked, Axl didn’t ask it.

He parked.

They got out, and as Hattie made it around to his side, she rubbed her hands down the front of her jeans with nerves.

Watching her do that, the bad feelings Axl had during the text exchange came back.