She then jumped clear and I suspected she was done with us and had gone to sulk somewhere free of the humans until Axl said super quietly, “She’s at my feet.”

“She still loves her daddy.”

He gave me a squeeze.

And with the gang all there, settled in and safe, finally, I fell asleep.

Chapter Twenty

Tripped

Axl

It wasn’t the time.

He wasn’t ready for it.

He wasn’t sure Hattie was ready for it.

But it happened.

The next morning.

After a quick fuck, a quick shower, and Hattie launching into getting ready for Lottie’s brunch bridal shower at Jet Chavez’s, Axl made some calls.

First, they had to hit Hattie’s place to get her present, then he was going to drop her at the party, and with all the women there, the men were going to meet.

It was time to go, but when he went to the bathroom to hustle her ass up, she wasn’t there.

She wasn’t in the bedroom either.

He used that door to the living room to see if somehow she got past him and went to the deck, when he saw her in the living room, the handle of a cat toy with a feather on the end of it in her hand.

Cleo was nowhere to be seen, and he was about to tease Hattie about her ongoing efforts to steal his cat’s affections when he noticed why Cleo wasn’t playing (if there was one thing his cat loved, she loved to play).

Hattie had lost focus on the toy and was staring with not a small amount of interest at the piece on the chest in his front window.

He felt a clutch in his chest, and it wasn’t the first time.

He shouldn’t have bought it.

He should sell it.

He just couldn’t.

“Babe, we gotta go,” he called, and he hadn’t managed to hide that clutch sounding in his voice.

She started, and her head turned his way.

“You okay?” she asked.

Yep.

She heard it.

“Yeah, but we gotta get on the road.”

Her study of him became acute. “You sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah,” he repeated his lie. “Ready to go?”

She nodded.

And she was.

That day, it was the red dress day, he saw, and unfortunately, no matter how gorgeous she looked in it, he had to agree it was a good call she didn’t wear it to his parents’.

Because it had a short, flirty skirt, a halter-like top with a straight edge under her collarbone and slender straps, and those straps crossed over her bare back. She wore her big gold hoops with it and a less-dressy pair of gold high-heeled sandals.

And unlike the yellow dress she’d worn to meet his folks—which his mom was right, was effortless and chic—the red dress said she was an adorable, but hot fuck.