I carried on.
“ … and he raced after her and got in a firefight to save her.”
“My men were under orders, no collateral damage,” he declared. I shook my head. “That’s not the point I’m making. The point I’m making is, he’s the type of man who, split second, charges in to save a woman from something he doesn’t even know the fullness of what was happening. Just that she screamed. He doesn’t have the job he has because he’s a man who has the skills and experience for that job. He got the skills and experience to get that job because he’s the man he is.”
Brett said nothing, but he didn’t take his eyes from me.
And for some reason, I felt compelled to keep talking.
“You know, I understand I’m messed up about my dad. Maybe a stronger person would cut him out of their life and move on. But part of that being messed up is not that I don’t get what he did to me and the fact that what he did to me wasn’t about me. It was about him. He wasn’t a failed Baryshnikov. But whatever it was, he wasn’t happy in his life, and he took that out on me, because it’s all about him. He’s my father, but if he heard me scream, I don’t think he’d charge after me. He’d probably call the police. But he wouldn’t charge after me. Even being around Axl a bit here and there, and this whole thing lasting what seems like a long time, I don’t know Axl very well. But I know that. And right now, that’s all I really need to know.”
“Agreed,” Brett said softly.
I ticked up a shoulder. “So, he is who he is. We’ve had one kiss, no dates, lots of nothing that feels like something, and I’m hoping to start making that something into really something. I can’t go in being scared of who he is or what he does and wanting to change him. Honestly, I’m a mess and he seems like he’s taking me as I come. He’s not a mess, but he does something dangerous for a living, but the bottom line is, I don’t deserve him if I don’t do the same thing.”
Brett again said nothing to me.
But he called to the driver, “Joe.”
“Gotcha,” the driver replied.
Brett then looked at me. “I’m glad you worked things out with the women.”
“Me too,” I returned, a little surprised at the swift change of subject and a lot confused with Brett saying something without saying anything to Joe.
Then I thought I understood why there was that change of subject.
And he’d been really nice to me.
Sure, he started that by breaking into my house, freaking me out by waiting for me to return home, and reading me the riot act.
But he was a great guy.
He just had some unusual methods to his greatness.
So I was learning.
If it’s worth it, it’s worth the work.
And I needed to give that to Brett too.
“Brett, if I wasn’t where I’m at with Axl, and in life, honestly, if I met you free of that, I might be that girl that could deal. You’re really special. In fact, you’re just a great guy, and I don’t care if you’re also a motherfucker. But we didn’t meet like that.”
He reached out and slid a finger along my jaw before he said gently, “Baby, I know. Pantera can’t see straight, he wants you so bad, and you been in that same space for probably longer than he has. I get it. Don’t worry about me. Please.”
“I think you’re into me,” I whispered hesitantly.
“If you were the love of my life, Hattie, and I was the love of yours, Pantera wouldn’t matter. To either of us.”
“This is true,” I murmured.
He smiled. “It’s not in the cards for us. But you’re cute, and both my sisters live in Alaska, and they’re all grown up, so it’s fun havin’ a girl to look after again. So like I said, don’t worry.”
“You do know you’re special,” I said quietly, but earnestly.
That made Brett’s entire, big body tick.
Then he said, just as quietly, “No, I didn’t. But I’m gettin’ that, sweetheart.”
I liked that I was giving him that so he could get it.
I smiled at him.
He reached out and squeezed my knee before he faced forward.
I did the same, wondering if Ryn put her phone on sleep or charged it overnight somewhere not close to her so a text wouldn’t disturb her.
I decided, just in case, to wait until morning.
I then looked out the side window again.
And my brows drew together.
“Are we going to your place?” I asked the route that was not a route that took us in the direction of my apartment.
“No, we’re going to Pantera’s place.”
I rotated swiftly in my seat, crying, “What?”
“I’m dropping you off so you can sort things out,” he stated.
“It’s after two thirty in the morning,” I told him something he knew.
“Trust me, he won’t give a shit, you show at his door to fix things.”
Oh my God!
“I’m not prepared.”
“How do you prepare for this? You don’t. You just do it.”
He was right.
Argh!
“I’m tired. And I don’t want him to be in a bad mood because I’ve woken him up when I start explaining.”
“Right, Hattie, you get I got a dick?”
“Of course!”
“And you get that, if outside factors did not skew shit, I could be into you in a way I’d stop at nothing to make you mine?”
Oh man.
“Uh …”
“Which is how Pantera is into you.”
Yikes!
And tentatively …
Yay!
“So trust me, he will not give a shit you show at his door at two thirty in the morning,” Brett finished with quite a bit of emphasis.
“All right, all right,” I mumbled.
“You can do this,” he encouraged.
“What if I can’t? What if I blew things big time this morning?”
“This is how it’s gonna go,” he began. “He’s gonna open the door. He’s then gonna see you. And shit will be sorted. Boom.”
Seriously?
“Do you really think it’ll be that easy?”
“Have you looked in a mirror?”
“I know I’m not hard to look at, Brett, but that isn’t the only important thing.”
“You’re cute. You’re sweet. You’re nice. You’re talented. Outside a few important glitches that fuck you up, which, Hattie, everyone’s got in one way or another, you got it together. Great pad. Sweet jammies. Studio full of money waiting to be made. And last, it wasn’t me kissing him on the deck the way you two were kissing. You were doing that, and you can’t tell me you don’t know way more than me what that was about. So, not to be crude, you on his doorstep takes him a huge step closer to being in your pants. So absolutely. It’s going to be that easy.”
All he said was very nice.
But at the last part, my heart stopped beating.
“Ohmigod, I’m so not ready for sex with Axl. We have to turn back,” I breathed.
Brett looked to the ceiling of the town car.
“What?” I asked.
He again turned to me. “He’s not gonna jump you on his front doorstep. Stop making excuses.”
I clamped my mouth shut.
“You can do this,” he repeated.
I drew in a very, very big breath.
“Hattie, you want to do this.”
I so did.
It also scared me to death.
I nodded.
“Good girl,” he muttered.
Ugh.
“Are you this heavy-handed with your sisters?” I demanded.
He got a look on his face I didn’t like before he wiped it and said, “Why do you think they live in Alaska?”
That wasn’t the truth.
I thought I read his look, which was why I said, “You miss them.”
“My sisters and me are tight. My brother …”
Unsa
id: not so much.
“Where is he?” I asked.
“Here. In Denver.”
“Oh,” I muttered. Then in a normal voice, “I don’t have siblings.”
“You do now. We ain’t blood, but you made up with four of them today, and the other one is sitting right beside you.”
Uh-oh.
I might cry again.
To avoid that, I snapped, “It’s getting to be freakish how sweet you are.”
“I’d put that notion out of your head by offering you a Go to Work with Brett Day, but I like you think that. So we’ll let it lie.”
I smiled at him, the smile faltered, and I admitted, “I’m scared.”
“I know you are,” he said gently. “Why do you think we’re going to Pantera right now? I can’t let my girl crawl back into her head and not get what she wants.”
No, we couldn’t have that.
“I’d like to meet your sisters,” I said.
“They come visit, I’ll set that up.”
“Brett?”
“Right here.”
“Thanks for not letting me blow it again.”
It was him who was now smiling.
“Anytime.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Worth It
HATTIE
Okay.
I didn’t know what happened to me on the long, long walk from Brett’s town car to Axl’s front door (it actually wasn’t that long, it was pretty short, it just felt that way).
But whatever it was, it happened.
And it did about the time I got over my surprise Axl lived in a cool, gray-painted-with-white-trim bungalow in Baker Historic District.
I thought condo (like Mag) or loft (like Boone).
Nope.
House.
Nice house, smallish, no yard, all of the limited space around it landscaped, great ’hood.
But I got over that mostly because I had to get over it.
This was happening at nearly 3:00 in the morning.
And first, I couldn’t mess it up.
But second, it hit me to wonder how I’d messed it up.
Axl had been correct in what he’d said to me at my studio, but he hadn’t been nice about it.
And the creepy call came right after that.
So, of course I wouldn’t call him.
He’d just been mean to me!
And I was a grown-ass woman, and I might just be coming into my own with that, like, that very day.
But I was entitled to do whatever I wanted or call whoever I wanted when I found myself with a possible-which-turned-into-a-probable crisis.
Or anytime at all.
And Axl might know that if he let me speak.
He was always interrupting me.
So, when I hit his doorbell, all of that was on my mind.
Yes, I got the kind of man he was and what he was to me (even if he actually wasn’t) would make it seem like he should be my first call.
But if this was going to work, he’d have to listen to me so he’d understand why he wasn’t.
So this was on my mind when he opened the door.
Then nothing was on my mind because he opened the door in a pair of gray cotton jersey sleep pants with a wide navy elastic band that rode low on his hips.
And nothing else.
He had dark chest hair, not much, just enough, that trailed down to a dense line low on his flat stomach that led into the waistband of his pants.
His chest was magnificent.
His chest deserved sonnets.
The sight of his chest might make me pass out.
I couldn’t even think of that line of hair that led into his pants or I might lapse into a coma.
I looked up into his semi-sleepy, ice-blue eyes.
Nope.
Not pass out.
Orgasm.
“Hattie? Is everything okay?” his semi-sleep-roughened voice asked.
What was I doing here again?
His gaze went beyond me to the curb.
His stubbled jaw hardened.
Oh, right.
That was what I was doing.
“We’re going to talk,” I declared, turned to give Brett a low wave, a signal I was heading in and a moment for me to pull it together because I could do this.
And I was going to do this.
Brett was being Brett, thus he told me he’d wait at the curb for me to text all was well and Axl was on duty, or for me to come back out so he could take me home.
Yes, at 3:00 at night.
Totally a nice guy.
Seeing as I could do this, and I was going to, I pushed through Axl to get into his house.
I only took a few steps in because there was a light coming from the back, through a door to a room on the right, but the space I was in was dark, the shades were closed, and I didn’t want to mess up before I started by running into furniture or breaking a lamp.
I watched Axl standing at the door, looking out of it like I was still there, then he did a head gesture I couldn’t decipher in my current panicked, anxious, scared, mildly turned-on state, and he closed the door.
Then he moved.
A lamp switched on.
In full light, him and his chest and eyes and those sleep pants …
Not to mention that line of hair.
Gah!
“Ha—” he started.
I put up a hand instantly. “No. Nope. Unh-unh. This time, I get to do the talking and you get to listen, but what you don’t get to do is interrupt.”
He did that man stance with hands on hips that I didn’t understand if its purpose was to take up as much room as manly possible or just have something to do with his hands.
But it highlighted his chest.
His awesome chest.
Focus!
I launched in.
“First, I’m sorry to wake you up. But Brett brought me here after work so I wouldn’t chicken out when you didn’t text me, and as an excuse for the inexcusable rudeness of waking you up, I was probably totally going to find some reason to chicken out. So I’m sorry, truly, but it was now or maybe not ever.”
“I do not care even a little bit that you woke me up,” he stated firmly.
Oh my.
My.
That was nice.
And Brett was right.
Moving on.
“And that’s not my way of saying I’m upset you didn’t text me. I get it.”
“I’m not sure you do since the only reason I didn’t was that I had a busy day, and I wasn’t able to get to your texts for a while. When I did, I could tell you were concerned, so it fucked with me I didn’t have a minute to text you to let you know I was cool. I didn’t get home until an hour ago, and didn’t think, after you danced, a late-night texting was gonna help us work through our shit. I was gonna connect with you first thing tomorrow. Which, strictly speaking, we’re doing, since tomorrow is now.”
Oh, well then.
That was nice too.
No, actually awesome.
And was I a freak to feel kind of warm and squishy at the words “help us work through our shit”?
I mean he thought we had shit!
I couldn’t get bogged down in that.
Onward ho!
“Okay, so, taking us back to where this all started, I can only hope you’d understand how embarrassing it was for you and Ryn to see me how I was that day in the dance studio. I think you understand I like you, and I wanted you to like me, and acting like a lunatic because I messed up a dance isn’t going to make you like me.”
He took his hands from his hips, looked like he was going to make a move toward me, and opened his mouth.
“No,” I said quickly, shaking my head. “We’re in the scary, soul-baring part so you don’t get to talk. I’ll open up discussion when I’m done. Now you need to listen.”
When I said the bit about “the scary, soul-baring part” his face took on an expression I had to ignore for my peace of mind and my will to g
o on without skipping this part and jumping him and his bare chest.
Then he crossed his arms on that chest and settled in.
Not much better.
Perseverance in the face of his gorgeousness, clearly, was going to be the key.
I called on that and carried on.
“So, I got embarrassed about that, and I can imagine you get that. What you don’t know is, that’s the first time I’ve danced, not stripping, in maybe three years.”
“Jesus,” he whispered.
I allowed that since it was a reaction and not an interruption. “And it felt really good, until it didn’t, and then you guys saw me, but it just brought to the fore the fact that I quit dancing not because I didn’t like it. I do. I love it. But because it came with messed-up memories and those were surfacing too. Around about the time I was dancing in that room I forgot to do it just because I loved doing it, and it felt amazing, then I did a minor screwup that meant nothing at all. But my dad got in my head. And I wasn’t angry at myself for messing up so much as angry at myself for still letting him mess me up.”
“Okay, baby,” he said softly.
Oh hell.
I hadn’t told him he couldn’t interject, softly or other, much less call me baby.
All of which was really nice.
I cleared my throat.
“So, to wit,” I started, Axl’s lips quirked, that was hot, and annoying because it was hot since it was messing with my mojo to get this done, but I kept on, “that was where I was at with that and I just let it get the better of me.”
“Understandable,” he said.
Okay.
Good.
Phew.
Next!
“And I get that it may not be cool I danced ‘Shut Up’ for you when I was closing you out and you have a girlfriend—”
“I don’t have a girlfriend.”
Okay …
Um …
Oh my God.
My brain did mental cartwheels.
Then it hit me.
“A woman you’re seeing,” I amended to dude speak.
He shook his head. “No. We broke it off the day you messed up in that studio.”
Oh.
My.
God.
“Uh …” I forced out.
“We’re still friends and we hang, though,” he said.
“Oh, okay,” I mumbled.
“You think I’d kiss you like I did this morning if I had a girlfriend?” he asked.
“I didn’t know. But Brett said no.”
Dream Spinner (Dream Team Book 3) Page 8