Dream Spinner (Dream Team Book 3)

by Kristen Ashley

  Axl’s tone was different, brisk and commanding, when he asked, “Does she feel they pose a serious threat?”

  God.

  My guy.

  Such a good guy and so protective.

  “No, honey,” I assured. “She was joking. Or not joking, making a joke while complaining.”

  “Right.”

  “So …” I said, hoping he’d fill in the blanks.

  “So?” he asked, not filling in the blanks.

  Which meant I had to.

  “Um, obviously, with all of this, Auggie needs to get a move on.”

  “Babe.”

  That word was dripping discouragement.

  “She’s got no one in her corner, Axl.”

  I heard a sigh and then, “I get that you’d want your friend to be happy, but maybe they weren’t meant to be.”

  “Mag and Evie found a house, one they both love and even Gert likes. Evie showed us the pictures at the shower.”

  Gert was Evie’s friend, a highly opinionated, very hilarious elderly lady, who for some reason, Mag and Evie took house hunting with them.

  Maybe it was because Mag got a huge kick out of her, Evie adored her, and none of her kids lived close, so they looked out for her and did that by getting her out of her house and listening to her tell them where they should live.

  “Hattie—”

  “Boone and Ryn also found a house, the next one they’re going to flip,” I went on.

  “Baby.”

  That was soft and sweet.

  But he didn’t then say, “I see your point. I’ll get on Auggie straightaway.”

  So it was time to pull out the big guns.

  “And I want us to declare Sundays our days where we eat in bed and have lots of sex and maybe expend the effort to go out and sit in the Jacuzzi, but that’s all the effort we expend. Of course, that is, when we’re not having sex.”

  “Baby.”

  And that was his purr.

  I so totally knew he’d be into that idea.

  “Not to mention, it’s no coincidence that Smithie’s shutdown coincides with Lottie and Mo’s two-week honeymoon.”

  “Ha—”

  “So maybe it won’t work out,” I kept at him. “Maybe they’ll be the unfortunate ones in all of us that don’t click. But Pepper deserves to have a guy put it on the line for her. Make her feel like more than a mom. Even if for a little while, make her life about more than looking out for, taking care of and protecting her daughter.”

  “I know she deserves that, honey, and I want that for her too. But you’re asking me to push my boy into being that guy who puts it on the line. And I sense, from how pissed he got at me for getting in his face about it, that maybe he’s already tried that. It didn’t work. And he isn’t fired up to go there again. It feels good you think we all got it so goin’ on that getting shot down will just deflect off us and we move on. But you gotta know, it sucks for us just like it would for anyone to make a move only to crash and burn.”

  Interesting.

  “Have you ever been shot down?”

  “Uh … yeah.”

  Wow.

  “Really?” I asked.

  “Babe, it was you who shot me down.”

  Oh.

  Right.

  “Repeatedly,” he went on.

  Eek!

  “So you can see my hesitation in pushing Aug into going for Pepper,” he finished.

  I was hearing him, but I wasn’t hearing him.

  Because I’d turned into the LoHi space that used to be long lines of storage units, but had been repurposed into studios, with a couple of small galleries, shops, a little café, a littler coffee bar and the morning load-up and evening stowage of a few food trucks.

  Including, coincidentally, the line of Joy of Food trucks that could be seen around Denver.

  And outside my unit, which was tucked into a corner of one of the L-shaped buildings, was Brett’s shiny black town car.

  Next to it was a sporty Mercedes.

  And outside my studio door stood Joe, Brett’s driver.

  And I was not freaking because Brett was there or upset because they were taking up my two parking spots.

  I was freaking and upset because Brett was there, obviously with someone, and they were nowhere to be seen outside.

  Which meant they were inside.

  With my work.

  “Hattie,” Axl called.

  “I’ve gotta go,” I told him. “I’m at the studio and Brett’s also here.”

  “Sorry?”

  “Brett’s here, as in, here, as in, I think he’s inside my studio.”

  “I’m on my way,” he stated.

  “You don’t have—”

  I didn’t finish that because he was gone.

  I also didn’t redial him to tell him he didn’t have to intervene with me and whatever Brett was up to, I could handle it, and I didn’t because it would do no good.

  I also didn’t because I had to park in a spot that wasn’t mine, two units down and hoof it back to mine …and fast.

  “Is he in there?” I asked Joe before I even made it to him.

  “Heya, Hattie,” Joe said as answer.

  “Hey,” I returned shortly. “Is he in there?”

  “Yep.”

  Grr!

  Brett.

  I walked by Joe, pulled open my door, and stopped when I got inside, confused.

  Because, yes, Brett was in there.

  But he was with Sadie Chavez, Jet’s sister-in-law and fellow Rock Chick.

  Jet was married to Eddie. Sadie was married to Eddie’s brother, Hector.

  I saw Sadie had on a beautiful pink blouse, a slim, bone-colored skirt, a fabulous pair of deep rose Malone Souliers mules with their signature thin bands, these in cream across the toe and the top of the foot.

  I knew Sadie, of a sort, mostly in an acquaintance-type, friend-of-a-friend deal.

  She’d been to Smithie’s repeatedly.

  She’d also been to the shower last weekend.

  So what I didn’t know was why she was there.

  With Brett.

  Though, I could hazard a guess.

  When I came in, she turned, smiled and called, “Hey, Hattie.”

  “Hi, Sadie,” I greeted her then looked right to Brett. “I need to talk to you.”

  “I don’t get a ‘hey’?” he asked on a smile.

  “Hey,” I said. “Now can I talk to you a sec?” I returned my attention to Sadie. “Not to be rude. I just have to have a word with Brett real fast.”

  “Of course,” she said.

  Brett moved to me.

  When he got to me, I reached for his wrist, grabbed hold, turned, and as I was right inside the door, I opened it and called, “We’ll be right back,” to Sadie.

  “Take your time, I’m enjoying myself.”

  I couldn’t imagine how, what with her now going to be alone in a room with a bunch of amateur sculpture, a bunch of detritus from sculpting and a bunch of stacked and boxed materials that would maybe one day be sculpture.

  I dragged Brett outside and noticed Joe’s eyebrows go right up when I did.

  I ignored Joe, turned on Brett, but waited until the door closed.

  I let Brett go.

  Then I launched in.

  “Let me guess, she works at a gallery.”

  “No,” he replied.

  Oh.

  Well then …

  What was Sadie doing there?

  “She owns one,” he finished.

  Ugh.

  I dropped my head back and studied the blue Colorado sky.

  “Hattie, sweetheart,” he called.

  I righted my head and looked him straight in the eye.

  “You don’t get to do that,” I said quietly.

  “Honey,” he said quietly back.

  “I share my stuff when I’m ready to share my stuff.” And that was never, since he, Sly and Axl were the only ones who’d ever seen it, and I hadn’t invited any
of them to have a look. “You don’t do it for me, and it doesn’t get done until I’m ready.”

  “You have eleven finished pieces in there,” he told me.

  “How do you know if they’re finished?” I asked.

  That shut him up.

  But not for long.

  “If they’re not, when they are, I suspect you’ll get right on finding somewhere to show, or someone to consign them with.”

  Hmm.

  Sarcasm.

  Not a big fan.

  “Brett—”

  “She flipped for them.”

  That shut my mouth.

  “She wants to show you. A clear-out of her gallery, total focus on you.”

  My skin started to feel tingly.

  Brett kept speaking.

  “She says, as you’ve never sold, she has no idea where to price you. But she thinks the girl folded into herself she’d tag for fifteen K, that huge man head would be twenty.”

  Oh.

  My.

  Freaking.

  God!

  “Twenty thousand dollars?” I whispered.

  “Yes. And she says she thinks she can get a feature on you in 5280 magazine. She also wants to take some pictures. Because she knows a couple of galleries in LA, one in San Fran, one in Vail and two in Aspen who she thinks will be interested in your work. This, after you debut at her gallery. And they’ll have the clientele that’ll buy it.”

  I didn’t know what to say, and considering the tingles had taken over to the point my fingers felt numb, I decided to concentrate on that rather than try to find something to say.

  “Are those pieces done, Hattie?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I pushed out.

  “Sweetheart, Sadie Chavez has run a successful art gallery in Denver for a long time, through good times, and a seriously bad recession. She’s done this because she knows good shit. And she wants to debut you and make a big deal of it. Because your shit is good shit.” He got closer. “You’re a fantastic dancer, Hattie. But you’re a knock-your-socks-off artist.”

  He lifted an arm straight, finger pointed at the door to my studio.

  He then finished softly, “That’s your future, baby. You just gotta have the balls to grab hold.”

  “What if people don’t buy it?” I asked.

  “They will.”

  “What if they don’t get it?” I asked.

  “Art is pain. That studio is filled with your pain. And now it’s time to let it go.”

  He was talking about more than what was in that studio.

  I stared up at Brett.

  Brett stared down at me.

  When he was done staring, he took my hand and squeezed it.

  “Are you ready?” he asked.

  I couldn’t say the words.

  So I nodded.

  I’d dragged him out by his wrist.

  He walked me back in holding my hand.

  * * *

  Axl showed twenty minutes later.

  Brett and Sadie (and Joe) were gone.

  I was sitting on my ass in front of “After,” knees to my chest, arms wrapped around my calves, toe-to-toe with my sculpture in the same pose, except with my head up, when he pulled open the door.

  I looked his way.

  He saw where I was, his expression morphed right to worried, and he hustled to me.

  He got in a squat beside me and asked, “Baby, are you okay?”

  “Yeah. Sadie had another appointment, so she had to go. Brett left with her.”

  “Sadie? Sadie Chavez?”

  “She owns an art gallery by Larimer Square.”

  “I know.”

  “She’s going to show me. Debut me. Get me in 5280 magazine. Send pictures of my stuff to other galleries. In LA. Aspen. Vail. San Francisco.”

  “Are you down with that?”

  That was the first question he asked, right off the bat, after I said what I just said.

  Brett didn’t ask.

  Axl asked.

  That was why Axl was there.

  And as much as I owed Brett for kicking me in the ass to do this, it was also why he wasn’t.

  “I’m scared. She’s going to price the pieces really high and that freaks me out. It freaks me out just people seeing them. But I got really tingly when Brett told me she liked my stuff.”

  “Of course she did. It’s fantastic.”

  And he thought that, I could see it in his face.

  That praise was genuine.

  I looked across the studio at the head of a man made out of concrete and rebar.

  The expression facing us was a man filled with peace and joy. Even rapture.

  On the other side, it was the same man, filled with rage, his mouth open in a way you knew he was shouting.

  It was my dad when I was doing right.

  And when he thought I was doing wrong.

  “Hattie,” Axl called me gently.

  I looked to him. “Do you want her?”

  “Sorry?”

  I tipped my head to “After.”

  He looked to me and his face had changed.

  He was stunned.

  “Are you offering her to me?”

  “She should be with you. You understand that art is pain that should never be forgotten.”

  After I said that, his hand came out. He grazed the backs of his curled fingers along my cheek before he opened them, gliding them into my hair.

  Then he repeated, “Are you offering her to me?”

  That was a whisper with a vibration reminiscent of his purr, but deeper.

  More meaningful.

  Incredibly beautiful.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “I absolutely want her.”

  I felt my eyes start to sting.

  “Brett’s going to be disappointed,” I told him. “Sadie said she’d price her at fifteen thousand dollars. He told me he’d give me seventeen right on the spot and I wouldn’t have to pay Sadie’s commission. I thought she’d be mad, but she was really pleased for me and told me if I sold her privately, it would be of record and she could more easily price the other pieces.”

  “I’ll give you eighteen for her.”

  God, he was so sweet.

  “Axl, honey, I’m giving her to you for free.”

  He ignored that. “We’ll put her in the corner of the living room. After your show. She needs to be in your show.”

  How cool were the words your show?

  Don’t answer that.

  They were seriously, super, freaking cool.

  “Yes,” I agreed. “But we’ll move her there without money exchanging hands. She’s yours now.”

  “She was mine before.”

  Oh man.

  That did it.

  The tears spilled over.

  “I like you very, very much,” I whispered.

  “And I like you very, very much, baby,” he whispered back.

  I stared into his amazing eyes and sniffled.

  “Dad’ll come to the show, and it’ll hurt him,” I said so low, it was hard even for me to hear.

  “He needs to see it, for more than one reason, baby.”

  He was right.

  Another tear spilled over.

  Axl moved his hand out of my hair and engaged the other one so he could catch them with his thumbs.

  “It’s you,” I said.

  “What’s me?” he asked.

  “It’s you that came into my life and good things started happening.”

  “Coincidence.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Hattie, even if that was the case, which it isn’t, you laid the groundwork.”

  Okay.

  I couldn’t argue that.

  “In other words, it was always going to happen. It’s just that, now it is,” he concluded.

  I love you, I thought.

  But I did not say.

  I reached out with my hands too.

  Took hold as I shifted to my hip, then my knees.


  I pressed between his splayed thighs and wrapped my arms around his body.

  And I took in his beautiful face.

  Then I kissed him.

  He slid his arms around me and kissed me back.

  When I pulled away, I whispered, “I’m going to have a show.”

  And at that, Axl Pantera smiled at me.

  Big and white.

  And dazzling.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Fly Forever

  AXL

  The next day at lunchtime, while Axl moved through the restaurant toward his mother’s table, his phone chimed.

  He dug it out of his side leg pocket, looked down at it, and saw he had a text from Hattie.

  The phone recognized his face and the text came up.

  Hope everything goes okay with

  your mom.

  Tell her I said hey.

  xx♥♥oo♥♥

  She was thinking of him. Worried about him. Worried how he’d handle whatever was coming.

  And she wanted him to know he was on her mind.

  Christ, he was in love with this woman.

  He stopped on his way long enough to reply,

  Will do, babe.

  At the restaurant. I’ll pick you up

  at your place later to go get

  your dad. ♥

  He then pocketed his phone, resumed walking, aiming his eyes at his mother to see she was watching him.

  He smiled at her.

  She smiled back and started to push out of her chair.

  He moved forward faster, and when he got close, ordered, “Don’t get up.”

  “Rubbish,” she said, clearing her chair, turning to him, putting her hands on his shoulders then positioning her face for him to kiss her cheek.

  This he did.

  Then he held her chair as she sat down, helped her scoot it in, all before he sat down.

  He started it.

  “Hattie says hey.”

  “Tell her I said hello back.”

  He saw she already had a drink. San Pellegrino with lemon and lime.

  “Have you been here?” she asked.

  “No,” he replied, glancing at the menu sitting on his place setting and seeing the prices.

  Hawk paid well, but Axl would rather go to Mustard’s for a hot dog or Brother’s for a hamburger than go to a snobby joint with white tablecloths and pay through the nose for lunch.

  Though, he’d consider taking Hattie here for dinner so he could see her in another of her dresses.