Not to mention (and this wasn’t embarrassing, it was mortifying), Axl had seen it too.

“He’s my dad.”

“Yeah, and Ivan the Terrible was a dad, and look how that turned out for his kid.”

Now I was more confused.

Ivan the Terrible?

“What?” I asked.

“The dude beat the shit out of his daughter-in-law because he didn’t like what she was wearin’. His son tried to intervene. Ol’ pops cracked him on the head, killing him. And the woman was pregnant, so she miscarried. That’s quite an afternoon for Ivan.”

Okay, I had to take a sec because…

How had something that had started strange, gotten so much more strange?

“My dad isn’t Ivan the Terrible,” I pointed out.

“Only ’cause he’s not a tsar. If he had carte blanche, where would you be?”

This was a chilling question.

“We’ll let that go…for now,” he allowed. “We’ll let Pantera go for now too. You had dinner?”

“I was actually going to fast tonight,” I told him, and not because it seemed he might ask me to dinner, but because I was going to fast that night.

His head ticked sharply. “Why?”

“Why?” I parroted, since he was looking right at me.

“Your fuckin’ dad,” he bit out, his tone suddenly alarming.

Right, this had to stop.

“Mr. uh…”

“Brett,” he spat. “And tell me, you see the women at Smithie’s?”

“Pardon?”

“Women go there. A lot. And not just since Ian switched shit up. Also not only lesbians gettin’ their groove on. All kinds of women go there to party and to watch.”

I nodded. “It’s a thing. Women have embraced strip clubs.”

And this was true, though I didn’t get it. Maybe female camaraderie. Maybe they thought it was edgy and cool. Whatever it was, we had nearly as many bachelorette parties as we did bachelor ones.

“So what do you think it says, they see a woman with a healthy body flyin’ through the air five feet off the ground, the back of her head nearly touching the heel of her foot?”

I again went still.

He answered his own question.

“It says they can stop eating that bullshit people been feeding them. They can be in shape and do magnificent things and they don’t gotta be ninety pounds to do them. So, I’ll repeat, you had dinner?”

“No,” I answered.

He nodded. “We’re goin’ out.”

“Brett—”