Hold On

I walked into the dark, but it wasn’t dark for long because Merry hit a switch and a not very attractive chandelier came on over a dining room table to my right.

Beyond that was essentially a galley kitchen, the “essentially” part because one side of the galley was not closed off but opened to the rest of the space, which was a living room. But it was still tiny.

The furniture was of decent quality, comfortable but sparse.

And I’d been right in my imaginings—Merry had a huge TV.

But other than a couch, a recliner, some end tables with lamps, a dining room table, some stools at the bar, and a media center, there was nothing.

No seascapes on the walls. No gun racks. No personality. No nothing.

Except some DVDs and CDs stacked in the shelves around the TV with three frames set amongst them.

Merry moved to a lamp in the living room and I moved to the only things that might give me insight into Merry.

On my way, I dropped my wrap and my purse in the seat of the recliner. I stopped at the first frame.

I saw, not surprisingly, that it was a photo of Merry, Rocky, and their dad, Dave Merrick. Dave was sitting. Merry and Rocky were leaning over his shoulders. I could see Merry’s arm around Rocky. All of them were smiling at the camera.

He looked younger, so did Rocky. It was definitely before I’d met him.

And the only thing it gave me that I didn’t already know was that Merry was hot ten, twelve years ago.

Not a surprise.

But he’d gotten better with age.

I looked to the other photo and it was a picture of Merry in a big, comfortable-looking chair, looking up at the camera, smiling beautifully, a wrapped bundle of baby held tight against his chest.

Merry and his niece, Cecelia.

Proud uncle.

I knew that too.

I moved across the front of the TV to get to the pictures on the other side.

This was a triple-frame spread across the shelf, the only thing in the space.

Center frame, a formal picture of Rocky and Tanner at their wedding, surrounded by Merry in his groomsman tux, Dave, Vera, Devin, and Tanner’s sons with his first wife, Jasper and Tripp.

Right frame, Tanner and Merry, arms around each other’s shoulders, far less formally posed but still taken by the wedding photographer in the same location as the middle picture.

The left frame, Merry in his groomsman tux and Rocky in her wedding dress. He held her in both arms; she’d wrapped hers around him. Her cheek was to his shoulder, their eyes aimed at the camera. Both of them were smiling, but Rocky looked like she was also crying.

I knew Rocky put that spread together for her brother. It was likely she’d framed the other pictures for him too.

And it shook me that all he had, all that was him in his pad, was his father, his sister, his niece, and his sister’s extended family.

I was so deep in this thought, it surprised me to feel Merry’s heat at my back, his hand touch my waist, and his lips at my ear, saying, “Best day of my life.”

I stared at the photo, letting those words move through me, wanting to believe. Wanting to believe that was true and not that he felt that way about the day he’d married Mia.

“Finally, one Merrick had the guts to hang on to happy,” he finished.

I turned, and he lifted his head as he took that opportunity to trail his hand along my waist so it lay light on the small of my back.

“It’s cool your sister has that, Merry,” I told him, and his lips curled up.

“More than cool for her, babe.”

“Yeah, but best day of your life?” I pushed carefully.

He looked beyond me to the frame, then back to me as his left hand hit the other side of my waist.

“Lucky for me, I’m not dead yet.”

I lifted my hands and rested them on his chest, curling my lips up as well.

“Right about now, that’s lucky for me too.”

His grin got bigger but only for a moment before it faded.

“You okay, sweetheart?”

He was reading me.

I drew in a big breath before I shared, “Ethan’s at Meems’s. Weekday sleepover.”