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.

“He’s on it?” Lottie asked.

I looked to her and nodded.

“How on it?” Lottie pushed.

“Well, we can just say that if she was the Holy Grail, and he was King Arthur, it’d take about a week before that cup was in the display case at Camelot.”

“Finally,” Pepper muttered.

I gave her a look that said, Yeah, right. And you and Auggie are up next.

She gave me a look that said, Mind your own beeswax.

I changed my look to say, Not on your life.

She changed her look to say, Whatever.

I adjusted my look to say, I’m getting it regular from a hot guy who makes me breakfast and I’m pretty sure you’ve named your vibrator Augustus.

She rolled her eyes.

She so totally named her vibrator Augustus.

“Are you guys gonna dance, or what?” Juno asked.

“We’re gonna dance, baby,” Pepper said softly to her girl.

I turned my attention to Lottie.

She was now staring out the window.

So I went to her.

She wasn’t only queen bee at Smithie’s, she was our queen bee. A little older than us. A lot wiser than us (except Evie, no one was wiser than her, maybe not even Stephen Hawking). And she’d assumed the duty, with not a small amount of resolve, to look out for us.

“She’s gonna be all right,” I promised.

“I know a thing or two about a dad who isn’t worth much,” she said to the window and then looked to me.

I hooked my arm in hers.

“And you’re all right, and Evie’s all right, and look at me, I’m all right. And you know, it isn’t only Boone who’s making me that way. I’ve always been that way, really, because I have you guys.”

It took a sec, but Lottie finally let it go.

“Was she a good dancer?” she asked.

“Lottie, you would not believe.”

She shook her head. “I don’t think she’s done it in years.”

Hmm.

Dance space.

Alone time.

The need obviously couldn’t be held back.

Which was a problem if she was actually holding it back.

“We all need to look out for her, Rinz,” Lottie declared.

Directive received.

Though I was going to do that anyway.

I nodded.

She unhooked our arms but hooked me about my waist and turned us, saying, “Let’s dance.”

And then we danced.

* * *

Axl and I were scarfing down burrito bowls at Chipotle when my phone rang.

Okay, I was scarfing. Lottie was a drill master with the whole ironing-out-revue-routines thing.

Axl was eating normally.

I looked to my phone.

It was Joker.

“Joker,” I said to Axl when I saw his raised brows. I took the call with a “Hey.”

“We got a sitch at your house.”

I shot straight in my chair.

How could this be?

First, only the plumber was working, and he came by recommendation of Tack Allen, last president of the Chaos MC. So I’d felt safe leaving him alone because I was pretty sure he wouldn’t screw me by, say, yanking all the copper pipes out of my house to sell them on the copper black market, this courting the wrath of a bunch of bikers that seemed pretty easygoing. But I had a feeling if you screwed someone over that they’d taken under their wing, they’d frown on that.

And second, with the plumber the only one working, I didn’t know why Joker was even there.

“Why are you there?” I asked.

“I wasn’t, until I rode by and saw guys offloading a bunch of shit into your house.”

What?

“What kind of shit?” I asked.

“I don’t know, but I’m going in and I’m about to find out,” he answered.

“Be there in a sec,” I said without further delay. I disconnected and said to Axl, “We need to-go lids.”

He’d obviously read my mood because he was out of his seat, saying. “Leave it.”

Was he crazy?

Leave a perfectly good Chipotle burrito bowl?

“We can’t leave it,” I told him. “Neither of us are even halfway done. And it’s a Chipotle burrito bowl.”

“Ryn, do you have a situation?”

“I think so.”

“I’ll buy you another fuckin’ bowl. Leave it.”

After we dumped our bowls (oh, the humanity!), we hightailed it to my house.

And I realized we had more of a situation than the situation I thought we had when I saw Tack was there, as was Hawk.

And Boone.

“Uh-oh,” I said.

“Fuck,” Axl said.

Axl parked, we both got out, we did that quick, Axl headed to Hawk, and I moved across the lawn to Boone.

“What’s going on?” I asked him.

“You’ve had a delivery.”

Please tell me it’s not a dead body. Please tell me it’s not a dead body. Please tell me it’s not a dead body, I chanted in my head.

“Far’s I can tell from what you’ve shared about your plans, all the flooring, wood and tile, and all the cabinetry for the kitchen. Plus, a Wolf stovetop, a Dacor microwave and oven, a Sub-Zero fridge and a Bosch dishwasher,” Boone shared.

I blinked up at him, repeatedly.

When I could again operate my mouth, I asked, “What?”

“Not sure this neighborhood could support the increase in value all that means to the property, but easy, you could tack on another ten K, maybe fifteen, even if that shit is worth far more, and get it, because most homebuyers know how much that shit is worth,” Boone went on.

“What?” I asked again.