Axl put the knife down, grabbed his glass, took a sip of wine, and I watched his throat work while he did that.

So it took a second for me to shake myself out of the fascination when his focus came back to me and he spoke.

“You lay this stuff on your mom?”

I shook my head.

“It pisses her off,” he deduced.

I nodded my head.

“You give it to your girls?”

“Well, until recently, I wasn’t really speaking to them.”

“Before that?”

I shook my head again.

“Intend to do that?”

“I can, but I haven’t and…I don’t know. I don’t think they’ll be judgy, but they care about me. They’ve never met him. Pretty much anyone I talk to about this, Aunt Pam, Uncle Dave, Mom, my high school friend Tammy who lives in Wisconsin now who I FaceTime with a lot, and she knows all about Dad, they think I should tell him to jump in a lake.”

“So I’m your safe place.”

The whoosh of warm, sweet, pure goodness that came from that nearly knocked me off the stool.

“Yeah, Hattie?” he pressed. “I’m your safe place. I cannot guarantee that won’t come with reactions. It goes against the grain, knowin’ a woman I care about, the woman I’m seein’, the woman who’s sleeping in my bed, walks into her dad’s house with a target on her back for abuse. But even telling you that, it’s only so you know I give a shit about you. It is not judgment. It isn’t pressure. It’s not up to me to stop it. It’s up to me to support what you feel you have to do, and support it if you feel you have to keep doing it, and then praise God if the time comes you’re done and you stop.”

“Okay,” I whispered, having heard all he said, but mostly the part about him caring about me was rattling around happily in my head.

That and all that stuff about supporting me.

“And eventually, my ass will be with you when you go and then you gotta let me do what I gotta do.”

Oh God.

The happy stuff stopped rattling.

“Axl—”

“And that would be, I am not witnessing that shit, Hattie. You can tough it out with him when you’re alone. But I’ll make it plain he does not do that shit in front of me.”

I wanted to see Axl tell Dad that he had to treat me right.

I really, really, reallyreallyreally wanted to see that.

“Well, uh…that time will be a ways off,” I noted.

“Fine,” he replied.

“And, you know, if your dad ever acts up, I’m your safe place too.”

“Well, batten down the hatches, baby, because that shit’s happening on Monday.”