Skye had assured him that if he couldn’t watch, he was absolutely free to step away, but she begged him to not interrupt the scene. Landry and Cris couldn’t be there tonight. Cris was out in LA on a business trip, and Landry was home with their daughter. Skye had already vetted Walt with friends, and had seen him play with someone else at the private party she’d attended, as well as at the club.
Skye had talked to Tilly on the phone several times over the past two weeks to get advice, and she’d offered to go and help talk Axel through the scene. After he’d had lunch with Tilly the previous week, talked to her for an hour, he’d agreed to that plan because she seemed to be a pretty down-to-earth person with a lot of excellent knowledge.
It didn’t hurt that Eliza and Rusty and everyone else vouched for Tilly and encouraged him to talk to her, to trust her, tolistento her.
Unlike Eliza, he didn’t know Tilly as well, and it didn’t feel as…embarrassing to him to have these discussions with her.
Axel’s fear ratcheted to anxiety-laden heights as it drew close to time to leave for dinner and the club. Skye had assured him that everyone at dinner would be friendly and welcoming, but he prayed Rusty, Eliza, and the others weren’t there tonight. He’d asked them not to be.
Not yet.
This was definitely a situation where having familiar faces around wouldnotlessen his anxiety.
Far easier to fade into the background and watch, observe what was going on without being drawn into discussions with others.
Or hear their comments about what was going on.
Once he grew more accustomed to this, sure, absolutely.
They respected his wishes.
Walt and his fiancée would meet them at the club later, but they were at a family dinner and couldn’t join them at the restaurant. Walt had also talked to Axel on the phone, just to confirm he was okay with them playing, and talking to Axel about the kind of play he’d be doing with Skye.
It sure seemed like everything was above-board.
Now if he could just settle his nerves, that’d begreat.
At Sigalo’s, the parking lot was already filling for the Saturday night dinner crowd. He held Skye’s hand as they walked across the asphalt. It’d rained hard a little while ago, a typical afternoon shower that had left everything warm and muggy and with the sensation of breathing through a wet cloth. Their steps made squishy, crunching noises over the loose pieces of gravel that had washed into the lot from the unpaved median strips.
A brand new dark grey Mercedes Roadster turned in just as they’d reached the front entrance, and the horn beeped. It pulled up next to them, the passenger window rolling down. Inside, Tilly smiled at them, a man sitting behind the wheel.
“We’ll go park and be right there.”
Axel raised a hand in greeting as they pulled away, the window already sliding up again.
“I thought Landry couldn’t come with her tonight,” he said. “Or was that Cris?”
“That’s Bob,” Skye said.
“Bob?”
“Landry and Cris scened with him at the party. He’s the one I did aftercare with.”
“Oh.”
Shit.
Bob wasn’t bad-looking.
Sure made him feel a little less-than in comparison.
He watched as Bob rounded the car and opened the door for Tilly, helping her out. Unlike the sedate jeans, Crocs, and Deadpool T-shirt Tilly had worn for their lunch together, tonight Tilly wore bootcut jeans with red wedges that added at least four inches to her height, but the heels did nothing to decrease the dominance or intimidation factor of her purposeful strides. She wore an oversized black button-up shirt open over a red tank top. He suspected from the way the overshirt fit her, even with the sleeves rolled up, that it likely belonged to one of her men. Her dark auburn hair hung long, loose, midway down her back, and she didn’t seem to be wearing any jewelry other than her wedding rings and a small fluorite pendant on a gold chain.
Bob fell in step to her right, staying one stride behind her.
Tilly smiled when she reached them, reaching in to hug Axel, hesitating and motioning toward Skye with her right hand, but staring at him with an eyebrow arched.
Waiting.
