Hold On

“Cher—”

It took a lot to pull my shit together and give him my puffy eyes, my red face, any ability to look at me at all after that scene.

But I did it and I did it because he was Garrett Merrick.

I looked at him.

He wasn’t freaked. He wasn’t disgusted. He wasn’t angry.

He looked troubled.

And he looked upset.

For me.

Yes, that’s why I could look the way I looked after what had just given me that look and give the evidence of it all to Garrett Merrick.

“He doesn’t get that,” I told him.

Merry put a hand to my face, rubbing his thumb through the wet on my cheek. “Whatever you want.”

“All that was going down, us getting together, my neighbor, your ex, Trent and Peggy, I didn’t…” I trailed off but finished, “You were my first…after him. I should have guessed I’d need to keep a handle on it. I didn’t guess.”

Merry didn’t reply. He just watched his thumb slide across my cheek.

“You think I’m a girl,” I muttered.

His thumb stilled and his eyes cut to mine. “What?”

“Freaking out. Falling apart. Sobbing in your arms,” I explained.

His face froze and his body under mine got tight.

And his voice sounded weird when he noted, “Honey, you are a girl.”

“Yes, but—”

“And I’m pretty fuckin’ glad you’re a girl.”

He would be.

“Of course, but—”

“And seriously, you havin’ it totally together with this relationship thing was fuckin’ with my man mojo. Takin’ on my shit. Balancing me and your kid. Building two relationships at the same time—the one we got, the one you gave me with Ethan. Weathering every storm like it’s nothin’ but sprinkles. Not a big fan of you losin’ your mind in my bedroom after I fuck you. But there are far worse things than bein’ there for my girl while she cries in my arms and lets go of some serious shit that’s burning a hole in her soul. It means something to me that you trusted me with that. It means something that you trusted me to be strong enough to handle it.”

I stared at him.

“Though, don’t make it a habit. My brown-eyed girl is a girl, but she’s also a tough chick,” he went on.

That was a tease. He didn’t mean it.

I could cry in his arms every day of my life and he wouldn’t give a shit.

(Though, I’d never do that.)

I kept staring at him, doing it for the first time since it all went down with Dennis Lowe, feeling safe, being safe, totally safe to let it go.

But as I did it, my eyes filled with tears again.

I felt one break free and slide down my cheek.

Merry watched it go.

I started talking.

“I was so stupid.”

Merry looked back at me.

“So stupid,” I repeated. “He didn’t want to meet my mom. He never asked us to his place. I never met any of his friends. His bullshit in bed was fucked up. Even if it was kink, I should have had more self-respect than to let him do that to me. And it wasn’t that I didn’t see it, Merry. It wasn’t that I didn’t put it together. It was all textbook at the very least for him being married but also him bein’ possibly fucked in the head. So it wasn’t that I couldn’t put it together. It was that I refused to see it, because after my dad, after a bunch of shit guys treated me like crap, after Trent, I needed so badly to believe. To believe I could find some happy. So I refused to see. And that’s bad enough just for me. But I exposed Ethan to that. I exposed my baby boy to that kind of crazy just because I wanted us to have a little bit of happy.”

“You weren’t stupid, Cherie.”

“I so was.”

He gave me a squeeze. “In all their years together, how many signs do you think Lowe gave his wife?”

“I know, but—” I tried to cut in.