“I was engaged.”
The desire to stare at him and see the subtle changes in his face was almost debilitating, but I knew how difficult it was to discuss the past while someone studied you.
Forcing myself to pick up my own project, I said, “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”
“I want to.” His voice was gruff and firm, but he continued working on that squishy blanket with intense focus. “We’d only been together half a year when I proposed. I’d fallen quick and hard and was about to deploy. My desire to have someone miss me deluded me into thinking she could fill that role.”
I knew the story, or at least ones very similar. Living on a military base, I’d seen several guys marry girls they barely knew just because they were deploying. Seldom had those scenarios worked out long term.
“What happened?”
He breathed deep, tightening the yarn tail until I was sure his stitches would be two times too small. “A few weeks into my eighteen-month deployment, during one of our phone calls, she told me she was three months pregnant.”
I swallowed, a wave of nauseating anxiety hitting me with where this story was headed. Given Garrett was alone and had never mentioned a kid, it couldn’t be anything good. But I listened quietly as he continued.
“I was upset. Not because she was pregnant, but because neither of us had noticed before I left, and I was going to miss out on all of it. I’ve always wanted to be a dad, wanted to see a woman I loved swollen with my child.”
He cleared his throat. “I checked in as often as I could, asking her about appointments and updates, making sure she got plenty of money to buy anything she needed.
“Being deployed is something you have to experience in order to understand. It’s miserable. But I couldn’t imagine how hard it was for her to live alone, carrying the baby of a man who wasn’t around and could rarely call. I felt guilty the entire time. Every month, every week, every fucking day.”
He dropped the blanket onto his lap, clenching his fists over the top of it, and my heart paused its beating. I wanted to take his hands or lean over and rest my head on his shoulder. Something. Anything.
“I got back home expecting to find my fiancé with an almost one-year-old son. Devin.” He stopped, glaring down at his hands.
“Had she never been pregnant?” I asked.
He laughed, and it was a dry, ugly sound. “Oh no, she’d been pregnant. Turned out, he just hadn’t been mine.”
That nauseating feeling increased, pressing up into my throat. I set my project to the side, turning my body to face him. I couldn’t not look at him anymore, not with that torn expression distorting his face. “I’m so sorry, Garrett.”
“She’d already been pregnant with someone else’s child when I proposed.” He scoffed, “Which made more sense since I’d never fucked her raw, but I’d been too blind to see it before. Worst part was she admitted it freely. She wasn’t even ashamed.”
My nails dug into my pajama pants, and with all my wicked heart, I wished it was this unknown tramp’s face I was clawing at. “Why the hell would she say yes, if she was with someone else?”
“Money.”
That one word clanged through the room, hitting every wall, splattering across the ceiling and floor, coating every inch in a nasty film.
“What was her name?” I demanded.
He twisted to look down into my eyes, and I knew he could see every bit of the fury I didn’t bother hiding. “Why?”
“Because I want to bitch slap her right across her worthless face.”
His nostrils flared, his eyes darting down to my mouth before looking away, a muscle twitching in his cheek. “Her name was Courtney, but don’t you lose any sleep over it, it happened years ago. I took a paternity test to make sure the boy wasn’t mine, and then essentially told her she was dead to me.”
I recognized the name. I’d overheard him on the phone with her once, forever ago it seemed. Satisfaction shot through me when I remembered how vividly he’d told her to fuck off. “Does she contact you often?”
He shook his head, “No, she’s only called me once since I left, and it was to ask me to dig through some old insurance documents for something. I refused, and she hasn’t called again.”
I rested my hand on top of his, curling my fingers around his fist. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. She’s not worth your time or anger, Maddie.”
“Although I disagree strongly with that statement, that’s not what I’m sorry about.”
He turned his hand, opening it to allow my fingers to lace with his. “Then what are you apologizing for?”
“For the conversation you overheard when we first met. I’m sorry for ever making a joke about using men for money. I hope you know, I never meant it.”
He squeezed my hand. “I know you didn’t.”
I smiled, pulling my hand back and shifting to my original spot to give him his personal space. Something crossed his face, but it was there and gone in a moment, and I wasn’t sure I’d even seen it.
Picking my blanket back up, I asked, “So is that when you moved into the duplex?”
He mimicked me, grabbing his project and settling back into the cushions. “Yeah, I needed a new start and had my brother here to get me a connection with a job. Pretty cut and dry.”
“What made Harry move out here?”
He grunted. “Sarah.”
That didn’t surprise me. Anyone with eyes could see that man was head over heels in love with her. I had a feeling he’d move to Antarctica if she asked him.
“How often do you and Harry see your mom? If you don’t mind me asking.”
He didn’t immediately answer, setting his hook between his lips while he pulled a few stitches out to redo. “We usually fly to Cali to see her for a week or two during the summer.”
I was about to ask him more, but clamped my mouth shut when Jamie’s door creaked open behind us. We both turned, eyeing the messy head that poked out.
“Can I come out yet?”
“Did you finish your room?”
“Is your room done?”
Jamie’s eyes widened, darting back and forth between the two of us as we both spoke at the same time. I peered at Garrett to see a grin pulling at his lips.
I relented, giving in to the kid’s miserable puppy dog face. “All right, come hang out for a little, but I expect you to finish before bed.”
“Deal.” He ran out, almost tripping over Sadie’s sleeping form on the floor. Standing next to the TV, he clapped his hands together, smiling mischievously.
“So, who wants to play first?”
“What did you just say?”
“I said your fighting skills are worse than your soccer skills!”
I squealed, leaping out of the way when Garrett dropped his controller and leapt at Jamie, smooshing him to the ground and giving him a noogie. “Take it back.”
“No!”
Good Lord. I stood, folding the almost-completed blanket back in its bag and dropping it in the corner. Watching them roll around laughing was as fun as it was painful. It was exactly what Jamie had been deprived of.
I tried to be everything for him, the qualities often seen in a mother as well as a father, but there were some things I’d never be able to do. I knew for a fact, with our history, he’d never let loose and tackle me to the ground. And part of me wondered if Garrett knew that somehow.
They wrestled around, hollering for a few more minutes before they finally tired, lying across the floor like floppy noodles.
“All right, you crazies, it’s time for bed.”
It was surreal walking around the living room with Garrett, cleaning up while Jamie changed and brushed his teeth. It was even more surreal when Jamie brought his book out, and he and I read on the couch while Garrett stretched out on the floor, eyes closed and hands behind his head, listening.
One chapter and a heart full of emotional flutters later, Jamie was tucked away in his room with Sadie for the night.
Garrett had stepped into the bathroom, so I went to my room to set up my textbooks and laptop for the night. I was reading through my planner when a light tap sounded on my door.