Hold On

I couldn’t do that. Too much was at stake. I had to be cool for Ethan but also because Merry was watching.

“Babe, I think it might be a good idea if we all found a time to sit down and talk,” I suggested.

She scooted the envelope closer to me, replying, “You’re at work, so I don’t want to take a lot of your time. I think Trent made things clear yesterday. Now, I need you to take this envelope, Cheryl. You know, so I know what’s in it is safe.”

“Maybe—” I began, but she scooted the envelope sharply another inch my way and cut me off.

“You’re at work and I have kids to get home to. If you’ll take this, I’ll know it’s good and I can get home to my family.”

Her words giving me no other choice, I reached out, and as I did, she quickly removed her hand so I could curl my fingers around the envelope and we’d not touch.

When I had it held safely in my hand, she nodded and declared, “We hope to see Ethan soon. Have a good day at work. See you.”

With that, she turned on her aerobics shoes and walked out.

I stared after her, belatedly regretting my play of the day before.

I got pissed, which meant Trent got pissed and tipped his hand, which meant Peggy got pissed, and I wasn’t sure Peg pissed was a good thing.

There was a reason Trent had come to heel. His kind of devotion to Peg could be won through reward or through punishment.

I was getting the sense right then it was punishment.

“You takin’ a payoff right in front of a cop?”

Merry’s voice, being Merry’s voice (meaning Merry was there and had seen that, then said what he said, even though I knew it was a joke), tipped me over an edge I’d been riding for a long fucking time. But that weekend it was sharper, so it didn’t take much for me to tip over.

Therefore I turned and snapped, “No it isn’t a fuckin’ payoff.”

Merry’s chin jerked down and his eyes narrowed.

“It was a joke, Cher,” he told me.

“It wasn’t a funny one,” I told him, pressing the envelope to my stomach.

He looked down to it and then up to me. “Who was that woman?”

“No one.”

At my answer, his ear dipped slowly to his shoulder before his head straightened and a look came over his face I’d never seen on him before.

But it was scary.

“What’s in the envelope, babe?” he asked, his tone forced to casual, which meant it wasn’t casual at all.

“Nothing,” I answered. “Listen, I gotta—”

“What’s in the envelope, Cher?”

“Nothing,” I repeated. “Now, goin’ back to what we were talk—”

He leaned an inch toward me and I was not a girl who was easily intimidated, but I had to admit, that inch was intimidating.

“What’d she give you? Who was that woman? Who is Trent? And what do they gotta do with Ethan?”

“Merry, straight up, this isn’t any of your business.”

That was when he leaned two inches toward me, and if one inch was intimidating, two was a threat.

This meant I should have known it was coming.

But knowing Merry, or thinking I did, thus thinking he wouldn’t have what he was going to give me in him, I had no clue.

“Made you come for me,” he whispered. “More than once. Straight up, Cher, it is. Who the fuck was that woman? Why is she passin’ off cash to you? And why’s it got you freaked way the fuck out?”

His words exploded in my head along with the knowledge he wanted to take me to Frank’s to lower a boom he didn’t know he was lowering to share, even after what we had, that we were just friends.

Therefore, so far beyond thinking about the right way to play it, I played it stupid, leaning forward and hissing, “Wouldn’t think I had to educate you, Merry, but seems I gotta educate you. Thrusting your cock in a woman like me doesn’t mean you own me.”

He leaned back, which meant he straightened, and seeing as even sitting on a stool he was taller than me and I had to look up, that sucked.