Hold On

She shook her head like she was clearing it and her brows drew together. “Are you serious?”


He stared down his nose at her. “You know, woman, I’m not a cheat, on either side of that deal. How the fuck you got it in your head you could come here tonight, I don’t know. But this is done. And just to make things clear to you, Mia, even if it doesn’t work out with that guy, when I say this is done, I mean that any way it can mean. This shit is done because we are done.”

She stared up at him, stunned.

“But…we’re never done,” she informed him.

“Never just became a fuckuva lot shorter,” he informed her, stepped back and shut the door in her face.

He locked it and turned away.

She didn’t knock again, and it was good she didn’t bother because he hadn’t lied.

They were done.

Christ, it sucked in ways she’d never understand that Cher didn’t recognize the fucked-up mess they already had was a fuckuva lot healthier than the fucked-up mess he and Mia had become.

All of a sudden this thought made him smile, because if Cher was right there and he could’ve shared that with her, she’d bust out laughing.

Garrett turned out the lights and headed to the bedroom thinking, yeah, his brown-eyed girl had a week. That was as long as he was prepared to sit on his ass and wait for her to come to him.

If she didn’t, she was ready or not, he was going to her.





Chapter Eight


A Week

Cher



Thursday Afternoon

My phone sounded with a text as I drove home from the grocery store, six bags of shit that had absolutely no nutritional value in the back of my car (plus four of those baby carrots snack packs).

In other words, I was good to go to keep my “cool mom” crown because Ethan and Everest were going to hit the better-living-through-chemistry food mother lode at about five tomorrow night when Everest came for his sleepover.

I’d also stopped by the bank and opened a new account with Trent and Peggy’s thirty-five hundred dollars. It and anything else they gave me was going to stay set aside.

I didn’t know why I did this, I just felt it prudent.

And if nothing came of whatever they planned to do but them giving me that money (as well as the hundred bucks every two weeks that they’d promised), then at least it was in a savings account earning interest until whenever I deemed it time to hand it over to Ethan.

I parked in my driveway and grabbed my phone.

The text was as I’d feared—not from Merry.

It was from Trent.

Call me. We need to talk.

I threw my phone back in my purse, got out, grabbed the bags, and took them in the house.

It was after I’d put everything away that I got my phone out again.

Just got back from the grocery store. I’m worried that my nutritional selections for my kid are preserving his body for science. So I bought carrots.

I stared at the text I typed in Merry’s text string, the bubble hovering over it still declaring DONE.

Then I backspaced through the text, tossed my phone on my purse, and walked out of the kitchen.

*

Friday Evening

I moved through the living room with my phone in one hand, the snack-size four-pack of baby carrots in the other.

I saw my son and his buddy lounging on the couch, controllers in hands, twisting and turning as they hit buttons, eyes glued to the TV, the detritus of a feeding frenzy in front of them so extreme, it covered the top of the coffee table and leaked over all four sides.

I kept moving as I tossed the packs of carrots in the middle of it, causing a bag of half-eaten microwave popcorn to shift, littering popped kernels all over my carpet. It also caused an opened bag of bite-size Snickers to fall off and spray baby candy bars everywhere.

I didn’t pause to clean up (though I did pause to snatch up a couple of Snickers for myself).

I spoke as I quickly negotiated the area in front of the TV so I didn’t obstruct their view.