Axl’s attention went right back to his mom.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Right now, Lisa is coordinating the movers who are moving me to my new condo. It’s close to the Federal Reserve building. Lovely. About twenty-five-hundred square feet. They have a fitness center, a rooftop pool and hot tub and a dog run. I’m thinking of getting a dog.”

Jesus Christ.

His mother wasn’t going to move out.

Right then, she was moving out.

“You’re thinking of getting a dog,” he repeated.

“Yes. I had a designer furnish the space. Did some small renos. The guest bath was dire. But they’re done so it’s all set. I’m just taking some pieces that I cherish and my personal belongings. Everything else I’m leaving behind. I haven’t had a dog since I was in high school. Your father doesn’t like fur on furniture.”

Axl sat back in his chair and held her gaze.

She was jumping all over the place so he thought it best to let her get it out.

“I’m thinking Pekingese. Or a bichon frise. Both are so cute. A small dog. You can use the fitness center if you like. Though, you probably have a membership to a gym. But I don’t know that either.”

“There’s a gym in my office building,” he told her.

“Ah,” she said, reaching to her water.

She took a sip.

Put the glass down.

Gave him her gaze.

And gutted him.

“I didn’t know you had a gym at your work. I didn’t know if you’d been to this restaurant. You are my heart. You are my soul. I was so humiliated at the woman I allowed myself to become, I avoided any meaningful conversation with you, which would be meaningful time with you, because it might lead you to realize how meaningless your mother had become.”

Good fucking Christ.

Immediately, Axl bent forward so deep, the table was cutting into his abs, and reached his hand to her across it.

“Mom, you are not meaningless.”

She didn’t take his hand.

“You aren’t either, Axl. You are so very extraordinary. I was so incredibly proud when you enlisted. I worried for you, so many sleepless nights when you were deployed. But I was proud of you. And so proud you went your own way, and even after you got out, were the man you wanted to be, not the man he wanted to make you be.”

“Ma, take my hand.”

She still didn’t take his hand.

“I didn’t stand between him and you. I didn’t stop him from all the atrocious things he said to you.”

“Mom—”

“I was so very lost, you see. I spent decades reeling, wondering where that girl I used to be had gotten to.”

“Please, Ma, take my hand,” he begged.