Dream Chaser (Dream Team, #2)(93)

I dumped my hat and shoes on a chair.

“Hattie, honey, hang on,” I urged.

“You can use the space,” she said, rushing toward the door and doing it wide to give Axl, who was standing only a few feet into it, plenty of room. “Sorry, I just…” She didn’t bother finishing that.

She got close to the door and Axl moved like lightning.

He caught her hand.

She jerked to a stop and her head snapped back to look up at him.

“Hattie.”

Oh…

Man.

I was melting.

Serious puddle-of-goo time.

His deep voice wrapped around her name in that achingly gentle way?

Amazing.

Hattie didn’t think it was amazing.

Violently, she pulled free of his grip, whispered in a very different aching way, “Sorry,” and then she dashed out of the room.

Axl turned to the door as she did, but he didn’t go after her.

I stood where I was.

Eventually, I called, “Axl.”

“I’m on it,” he said to the door.

“Axl,” I said his name softer this time.

He turned to me.

And I full-on took a step back at the look on his face.

“I’m on it,” he growled.

“Okay,” I whispered.

“You know what that was?” he clipped out, each word so short, it was a wonder he pronounced all the letters.

“Well, I think her dad was kinda hard on her considering the fact she’s not the principal of the New York City Ballet and he found anything less seriously unacceptable. And by ‘kinda hard,’ his disappointment could be communicated in physical ways. So, until what we saw just now, I didn’t know she still danced, outside of stripping.”

I fought taking another step back at the heightened look of displeasure my words put on his face.

“What on earth is happening with Hattie?” Pepper asked, strolling in with her daughter, Juno, who saw me, her face lit up, I forced mine to do the same as I put my arms out wide to invite her to come to me, something she did, running right to me to give me a hug. “She nearly bowled us over when we were on our way in here,” Pepper finished.

“Hey, sugar,” I said to Juno.

“Hey, Rinz,” she said back, still holding on to my hips.

I gave her a squeeze. She gave me one too then stepped to my side and I looked to her mom.

Pepper was staring at Axl contemplatively because Axl had only minorly adjusted his terrifyingly wrathful expression in the presence of a child.

“I’ll be outside,” he grunted, then he went right to some hooks by the door, hung my coat on one, then out the door he went, closing it behind him.

Pepper approached me, asking, “Did Hattie and him have a thing?”

I glanced down at Juno, then said to her, “I’ll share later.”

“Oh, I know you get Boone like Evie got Mag and Lottie got Mo and Hattie is gonna get Axl,” Juno told me.

What she did not add was that Pepper was going to get Auggie.

“Did they fight?” Juno asked.

“No, honey, he saw her dance,” I told her.

“He saw her dance?” Pepper asked quietly.

So I was right.

Pepper didn’t know she still danced either.

And maybe she didn’t until she had a big studio space open to her.

I looked to my friend. “Yes. And I couldn’t tell what she was doing wrong, but we also saw her mess up.”

Pepper pressed her lips together.

In other words, she got me.

So, the rundown was, my dad was an absent dick. Evie’s dad was a neglectful dick. Pepper’s dad was a judgmental dick.

And Hattie’s dad was an actively evil, children’s-animated-film-villain-level dick.

He was still in her life, fully in her life since he was sick with diabetes and about a dozen other maladies, didn’t manage his care very well (that was, at all) and she went over to his house a lot to take care of him.

And when she did, he broke her apart.

Systematically.

Time and again.

I mean, it might not say a lot about me, but I kinda wished he’d get so bad, he had to be placed into nursing care or something.

Or just die.

But in my defense, that was how bad this dude was.

The door opened, Lottie came in calling, “Hey,” and then looked around and her brows went together, as she asked, “Where’s Hatz?”

“Rinz and Axl saw her dancing. Rinz and Axl also saw her mess up,” Pepper shared.

“Oh shit,” Lottie said, her gaze drifting to the door, beyond which was Axl.

“So…yeah,” Pepper finished.

Lottie started to move back toward the door, a set look on her pretty face, but before she faced the eye of the tiger, I said quickly, “He’s on it.”

Both Pepper and Lottie turned to me, but it was only Lottie who asked, “What?”

“He’s on it as in on it,” I told them.

“On what?” Juno asked.

I looked down at her. “Hattie is having a bad day,” read: life, “and he’s gonna make it better.”

“Cool,” Juno said.

Ah, to be a kid and not understand the staggering effort that Axl was going to have to expend to get in there with Hattie.