With an arm snaking around her waist, he bent and kissed her cheek.

“Uh, no,” Axl ground out.

The man’s head turned his way, and way too fucking slowly, he let her go and stepped back.

“Shit, sorry, are you—?” he began.

“Yeah,” Axl bit off.

He looked to Hattie. “Sorry, honey. I just saw you and…” Another step back. “You’re looking good.”

“You too, Flynn. Um…this is my boyfriend, Axl. Axl, this is Flynn,” she introduced.

“Axl,” the guy said.

“Flynn,” Axl returned.

Flynn looked right back to Hattie. “Boyfriend?”

This was an ex.

And two things Axl knew about him.

One, he wasn’t the dickhead who was up his own ass about dating a stripper.

Two, he was the one who let her go because he wasn’t enough of a man to stop being a boy who wanted all of his toys and he was either far more broken up about it than Hattie realized, or he understood what he lost after she was gone.

“Hey, I called,” Flynn said to Hattie.

Yep.

He understood what he lost after she was gone.

And he was scratching into that right in front of Axl.

Motherfucker.

“I know, I just thought…a clean break,” Hattie stated uncomfortably.

“I wish you would have picked up, honey.”

“You do get I’m standing right here,” Axl noted.

The guy turned his attention to Axl.

He was good-looking. Tall. Built. Could probably hold his own with ninety-five percent of the population and best a lot of that.

Axl could totally fuck him up.

And fucking Flynn didn’t miss it.

“Sorry, I—” he started.

“No, you’re not,” Axl cut him off.

“Axl,” Hattie said softly, edging close to him and taking his hand.

His fingers wound around hers tight.

Flynn didn’t miss this either, and goddamn it, he really liked her.

When he saw her holding hands with her man, that was when he backed off.

“It’s real good to see you, Hattie,” he said.

“Yeah, Flynn. You too.”

He took her in…

No, drank her in, and the flash of pain he couldn’t hide disappeared behind a mask of fake friendship.

“See you around, yeah?” he said.

“Yeah,” she replied.

He looked to Axl. “Axl, nice to meet you.”

Axl just jerked up his chin.

After another look at Hattie, Flynn turned and walked away.

Axl moved them forward in the line.

“Okay, that was unfun,” she mumbled. And louder, “Just in case you didn’t get it, that was one of the guys I used to see. The one who wasn’t into exclusive.”

“He didn’t want it to end,” he told her.

“I know. He told me that when I broke it off with him. I just didn’t want to be one of many.”

“How many times did he call you after?”

She considered this a second and…

Christ.

Hattie.

“I don’t remember. Five, six.”