She looked chastised at that.
“If that’s the case, don’t worry,” he went on to tease. “I got you covered. And I’m all in for you to wear a short, little apron over your tight skirt and twinset when you make me dinner and greet me at the door with a martini. Though I think we need to interrupt our plans of doing nothing but fucking the rest of the day to go out and buy you a string of pearls.”
She slapped his arm halfheartedly then asked, “You know what a twinset is?”
“My mother, until very recently, was the dutiful wife of a prominent attorney. Once a month, she had what she called her Twinset Lunch. Which was supposed to be about being on a guild to raise money for some charity, but from what Mom said, it was a chance for all the women to try to beat each other out on who had the best set of pearls. I think Mom has seven sets. And those were something Dad never bitched about buying her.”
She made a face.
Adorable.
“Yeah,” he agreed. “Think that’s the same thing Mom thought of it.”
Her expression changed again, as did her tone.
“You hear from her today?” she asked.
And Axl’s mood changed to match her tone.
“Yes, she’s going out to buy some workout clothes. There’s a gym in her building. She wants to take advantage of it.”
“Good,” she murmured, what she didn’t ask hanging in the air, which was the reason for Axl’s mood change.
He answered it anyway. “He’s texted seven times so far today.”
“Honey,” she whispered.
He told her something she knew. “He’s pissed, behaving like a dick and acting like this is all about him. Not a surprise.”
It could safely be said Sylas Pantera was blindsided in coming home on Friday evening, thinking he’d have dinner with his docile, soul-sucked-out-of-her wife and then do whatever it was his father did when he was winding down from a week.
Only for him to find her closet empty, her vanity vacant, picture frames and pieces around the house missing.
And then, after searching, finding a note on his desk in his home office that shared his wife had left him. She gave him her lawyer’s details, asking that, for the time being, they speak only through their attorneys.
So far, the only good news was, Sylas had adhered to this request.
The rest …
Axl predicted thirty seconds after he found that note, Sylas called his son, but Axl wasn’t answering. He was with Hattie, Don and his mom.
But after eleven calls, on Saturday morning, Axl picked up.
Once Sylas finished sharing how he discovered his wife was gone, he then ranted for a full ten minutes about respect and commitment before Axl could get a word in to ask if his father really found any of this a surprise.
His dad’s response was, “Are you insane? My partner for thirty-six years leaves with no discussion, no warning, and I’m not supposed to find it a surprise?”
It was at that, Axl lost it.
“She’s not your partner, Dad. She doesn’t occupy an office across the fucking hall. She’s your wife. The woman you married. The woman you had a child with. The woman you’re supposed to love. And that’s why she’s no longer there. Because you’re pissed you lost your partner. You’re not destroyed that you lost your wife.”
He hung up after that, and since, had not been taking his father’s calls or returning his texts.
Both of which there had been many.
After sharing that his dad had been in touch, and he was unsurprisingly not handling things well, he didn’t tell his mother more.
She was buying workout clothes and trying to find Pekingese breeders.
She’d had enough of his shit.
And so had Axl.
But Hattie had been around, and she knew Sylas was badgering the witness.
“Maybe you should block him,” she suggested. “Just for a few days. Or, um … weeks.”
“I’ll talk to him eventually. Share I’m not going to listen to his shit. But not on our Sunday. Brunch is done. Sharon and Shiloh are now at home, smoking copious weed and fretting about your reaction to them being together. And it’s just you and me.”
But he’d lost her in the middle of that.
He knew it when she began to look horrified.
“Oh my God, did I not hide I was freaked about my mom’s hippie, stoner boyfriend?”
Christ, she was cute.
“Uh …not so much,” he informed her.
She tore from his arms and pulled her bag off her shoulder.
“I need to call her,” she mumbled.
She so did.
Axl left her to it, going to the bedroom and dumping his keys and his phone by his nightstand after he set some light rock playing low on the Sonos system that ran in speakers throughout the house.
Perfect afternoon of fucking music.
He grinned.
When he went back into the kitchen to get them drinks, she gave him big eyes, and said into her phone, “I’m happy for you, of course I’m happy. If you’re happy, that’s all I need. I’ve wanted that for you for a long time. And he seems like a nice guy. Totally into you. I’m sorry I didn’t handle it well. It came as a surprise. Though, Mom, I hope you know, in my eyes, no one is ever going to be good enough for you. But please, apologize to Shiloh for me. I acted—”
She stopped talking when a pounding came at the front door.
Axl was at the fridge.
Hattie was still eyes to him.
And he knew who that was.
She did too at the freaked look now on her face.
Therefore, without hesitation, he turned on his foot and started to prowl out of the kitchen, hearing Hattie say, “I gotta go Mom. I think Axl’s father is here.”
Yeah, that had come out at brunch, Axl’s family drama.
Then again, after Shiloh exhausted sharing his file of pictures of his carved logs that was on his phone, they were so nervous, and Hattie so thrown off guard, conversation had dried up.
Axl made it to the door quickly, saw his father through the three windows at the top, unlocked it and pulled it open.
“This isn’t happening right now,” he declared.
He should have known better.
This was Sylas Pantera.
What he wanted, he got, took, or if necessary, he hassled, coaxed or charmed until it was his.
So his father pushed in.
Hattie was coming into the living room and Sylas’s eyes locked on her.
“Of course you’re here,” he declared contemptuously.
Uh …
Hell no.
“Dad—” Axl started.
“If I could have some privacy with my son,” Sylas spat at Hattie.
Hattie looked to Axl.
“She’s not going anywhere. You are,” Axl said to his dad. “We’re not doing this now. I’ll let you know when I’m down to talk.”
His father turned to him.
“With no warning, out of the complete blue, your father loses his wife, he’s grappling with that, and his son doesn’t have time for him?”
“Hattie and I have plans—”
And that was when it happened.
Sylas leaned toward Axl and roared, “I don’t give a fuck what you’ve got happening with your slut! Your father needs you!”
Oh no.
Hell no.
“Axl,” Hattie said urgently, wisely racing to him and hitting him full on, standing in front of him, her foot back and bracing her weight, her hands to his chest.
Axl felt that chest rise and fall, straining against her hands, as he stared at his father and tried to keep his shit.
“Honey,” she whispered.
“I’m good,” he bit out.
He was not.
But he wasn’t going to fuck up his father.
At least not now, after he had a moment to get a lock on his shit.
She didn’t move.
He darted a glance down t
o her. “I’m good, Hattie.”
She again didn’t move for several beats, but when she did, it was only to plaster herself to his side and wrap her arms around his middle.
He slid his arm around her shoulders, and for the first time, did not take a second to enjoy her curls brushing his skin.
“We’re done,” he announced to his dad.
“We—” Sylas began.
Axl cut him off.
“And I mean that in a very final way. We’re done. I don’t want to see you again. Not ever.”
Hattie’s arms got tight.
“You can’t be serious,” Sylas returned, disbelief in every syllable, not to mention written in the way he held his body.
“We’re done, and that’s the end,” Axl confirmed. “You’re out of my life. No going back. But if you fuck over Mom, if you don’t make this divorce easy for her, don’t give her everything she asks for, you don’t know exactly what I do for a living, but if you do that, you’ll find out.”
Sylas’s eyes narrowed. “Are you threatening me?”
“Yes.”
“I cannot believe what I’m hearing,” Sylas clipped.
“Believe it and I hope you’re listening closely. There’s no going back, Dad. For me, this isn’t any change. Like Mom is coping fine with her new circumstances, there’s no change for her either. We had nothing from you. So you not actually being in our lives doesn’t make them any different. Except neither of us has to put up with you anymore.”
His dad puffed out his chest.
What a fucking peacock.
“Axl Pantera, you’re speaking to your father.”
Yeah.
A fucking peacock.
“A father loves his son, and he shows it. He’s proud of him, and he shows that too.”
“I’m proud of you, look at you.” Sylas swept an arm up indicating Axl. “You’re a man any father would be proud of.”
“I’m thirty-four years old and that’s the first time in my life you’ve ever said that to me.”
“Nonsense,” Sylas bit.
“Trust me,” Axl said quietly. “I know. It is not nonsense. Now, just to be clear and very thorough, a father also does not make his son watch him dismantle piece by piece over the years the beautiful, vital woman who is his mother. A father does not make a family all about him. And a father does not come to his son’s home and call his woman a name when he knows not one fucking thing about her. Not one fucking thing, Dad. If you said that to me just you and me, I’d lose my goddamn mind. But you said it in front of Hattie, and that’s unforgivable.”
“You can’t be missing this is an emotional time for me,” Sylas retorted.
Axl shook his head.
“Your excuses have no meaning. You don’t get it. You’ve never formed the foundation for forgiveness. Shit happens. People fuck up. Situations and emotions get the better of them. That’s understandable, as long as you have the foundation of love and respect and trust you can call on to find forgiveness. You don’t have that. Not from me. Not from Mom. You were so busy building,” he shook his head again, “whatever it is that was so important for you to build, you didn’t bother building that.”
Sylas jerked his head to Hattie.
“You’ve been seeing this woman, what? Weeks? And she’s so important to you that you’re willing to annihilate your relationship with your father in favor of her?”
“This isn’t about Hattie, though that was the final straw. I’d already told Mom, you fucked her over, you’d lose me. But you precipitated that. So we’re done.”
“Axl—” Sylas started.
But there was no more to say.
Carefully, he set Hattie behind him and turned to the door he hadn’t closed.
He put a hand on it and used his other to indicate his invitation to his father to leave.
“You can’t possibly—” Sylas started.
“I can.”
“You aren’t—”
“I am.”
“Axl, you only have one father,” Sylas warned.
“Actually, you’re wrong about that. I’ve never had a father. So again, no change.”
Sylas looked like Axl sucker punched him.
It came as no surprise, seeing that, Axl felt nothing.
It took him awhile to recover, and when he did, Sylas moved to the door, but of course, he didn’t move through it.
He stopped and looked his son in the eye.
And when he spoke, his tone was conciliatory.
“I see now that this is emotional for all of us. We’ll give it some time. Time for both of us to cool down. And then we’ll talk it through.”
“No, we won’t.”
“Axl—”
“Good-bye, Dad.”
At that juncture, the man had the absolute fucking balls to look at Hattie and request quietly, “You’ll talk to him?”
“Get your eyes off her,” he growled.
Hattie came forward and stood between him and his dad.
“I’ll talk to him, Sylas. But I think you should leave now,” she said. “Okay? I’m sorry, but it’s for the best right now.”
Sylas studied her.
Nodded.
Looked to Axl.
Axl saw written stark in his father’s face that the man was wrecked.
He still felt nothing.
Because Sylas wasn’t wrecked that he lost his wife. He wasn’t wrecked at the things his son said to him, the way he fathered making his son feel those things. He wasn’t wrecked because their family was wrecked.
He was wrecked because he wasn’t getting what he wanted.
He was wrecked because he was walking away a loser.
Those were the only reasons he was wrecked.
Sylas left.
Axl set Hattie aside, closed and locked the door.
He turned to her and she was again plastered to him, this time front to front.
“Okay, take a breath, okay?” she urged.
“Babe—”
“I don’t care he said that about me. I honestly don’t.”
“Well, I do.”
“Okay,” she said quickly.
He put his hands to her waist. “It’s been coming, and I think you know that.”
“My dad seems to be turning around,” she reminded him. “That’s like, a miracle. Your dad could too.”
“Your dad loves you,” he returned. “He’s always loved you. He wanted the best for you. He thought you were special, and he was right. He just got it wrong what was supposed to make you special. And he got fixed on that. He’s like one of those soccer dads who stands on the sidelines screaming at the refs and the coaches. I gotta believe, somewhere deep down inside them, they know they’ve got it wrong. They just got obsessed with this thing with their kid. Because they love them. That is not my dad. I have never been anything to my father but a reflection of him. That’s why I had to be the best. That’s why I had to win. That’s why I had to toe the line. The same with my mom. She wasn’t a wife. She was an accessory. I can’t even imagine how it would feel to know some asshole conned me into thinking there was love there, and then I lost all sense of self trying to twist myself into being what he wanted me to be to earn the love that should already be mine.”
He thought about that.
And then he said, “No, I actually can imagine it. It’s just that I gave up on it way before she did.”
Her body melting into him, Hattie lifted her hand, started stroking his jaw, and was silent a beat before she said, “That’s so incredibly sad, I hate that so much for you, I have utterly no idea what to say.”
“You don’t because there’s nothing to say. That wasn’t fun, but now it’s done. Mom has moved on, and not that I needed it, still. He just gave me permission to move on too. So I am.”
She let him have that a second.
And then she advised, “Just … don’t completely close the door. People can surprise you.”
His father wouldn’t surprise him
.
Sylas Pantera had a ridiculous number of flaws.
His fatal one would be that he was predictable.
Hands still at her waist, he started walking her backward, their destination clear.
“I won’t close that door,” he assured, even knowing Sylas would never walk through it.
It’d make Hattie happy to think that possibility existed.
So he’d let her do it.
“Good,” she murmured, but stopped their progress by again throwing back a foot.
“Babe, it’s Sunday,” he reminded her.
But she knew.
She only stopped them so she could hop up and wrap her arms around his shoulders, her legs around his hips.
Okay.
Now that shit was done.
Over.
Behind him.
Them.
And moving on.
He put his hands to her ass to assist in holding her there.
But he didn’t kiss her until they cleared the door to the bedroom.
Because he didn’t want to run into anything.
He wanted to focus on nothing.
But kissing his Hattie.
* * *
Hattie plopped the bowl on his stomach before she plopped her body in bed beside him.
“Nachos à la Hattie,” she declared.
He looked down at the bowl piled high.
He looked back at her while grabbing it and shoving up to sitting on his ass under the sheets in his bed.
“Babe, this is just tortilla chips you melted grated cheese on in the microwave.”
“With artfully dispersed dollops of salsa,” she added.
He started laughing.
When he was done, she was grinning and pulling a wedge of “nachos” with the long string of cheese it created from the bowl.
It couldn’t be said his girl skimped on cheese.
Another reason to love her.
He waited until she had hers, before he went in for his and shared, “Auggie makes pork rind nachos. After having those, we declared him winner since they’re better than Mag’s pancakes, Boone’s mac and cheese, and my deviled eggs.”
She was blinking at him.
Rapidly.
“Deviled eggs?” she asked, still blinking. “What deviled eggs?”
He went for more chips and cheese, saying, “Got a variety of options, but the front-runners are Mexican street corn, Cajun crab and pimento cheese and bacon.”
“Are you serious?” she asked.
Dream Spinner (Dream Team Book 3) Page 35