But he was right.

I’d made a decision to give us a shot. I’d promised him I’d give it the best one I had. And I’d promised myself I was not going to fuck this up.

And it had just been days and I was falling down on that job.

“Roger that, boss,” I replied.

“I’m spoutin’ important shit, she gives me the smartass.”

“It’s me.”

“It is.”

He didn’t make it sound like it was a bad thing.

“Are we gonna talk for the next hour so you’re only gonna be here for fifteen minutes before I get to go home to my kid and my guy? Or are we gonna hang up so you can get your shit done and come see me?”

Merry didn’t reply.

He hung up on me.

Which was too bad since he couldn’t hear me laughing.

Chapter Fifteen

Don’t Let Go

Cher

Ethan nearly knocked me off the couch when he shot off it to get to the door.

A second earlier, he’d looked through the break in the curtains.

I looked to the cable box.

It was Thursday night, ten to six, and Merry was there.

I turned my head left and saw Ethan throw open the front door and unlock the storm.

He waited a beat…two…three…all while I suspected Merry was walking up the walk.

Then he shouted, “Hey, Merry!”

I studied my son, wondering if Merry read the situation with him right.

Ethan had totally been down with Merry hanging with us and watching TV the night before.

And he was totally down with Merry walking up our walk and going to his gramma’s for a family dinner.

It didn’t appear Ethan needed space.

It appeared Ethan was like me and just needed Merry.

“Hey, man.” I heard Merry’s voice, and that was when I pushed out of the couch, grabbing the remote.

I was turning their way at the same time switching off the TV when Merry walked in and gave Ethan a man-to-man handshake.

They’d let go when Ethan informed him, “Gram’s makin’ her meatloaf.” He lifted a hand and shook it in a don’t-be-disappointed gesture. “I know it sounds like it sucks. But it doesn’t. Gram’s meatloaf is the freaking bomb. It’s like a huge hamburger baked with ketchup on top. She usually puts onions in it, though she won’t do that tonight.”

“Sounds good,” Merry told him.

“Then she makes this tater tot casserole to go with it. It’s crazy good.”

Merry grinned. “Sounds like it’s a good thing I’m hungry.”

Merry’s comments did not deter Ethan from his information sharing. “And fried corn.”

“Can’t call yourself a Hoosier unless you got fried corn stuck in your teeth at least once a week,” Merry replied.

Ethan burst out laughing.

“Okay, kid, now that you’ve broken down the menu,” I said, moving toward them. “Maybe we can get to your gramma’s and eat it.”

Ethan quit laughing and looked at me. “You just want me to shut up so you can be gooey with Merry.”

“That and I’m hungry,” I returned.

“Whatever,” he muttered to me and looked to Merry. “While you get gooey with Mom, can I go out and start your truck?”

As an answer, Merry tossed Ethan his keys.

“Right on!” Ethan shouted after he caught them.

He wasted no time rushing to the bucket chair to grab his jacket and then he raced out of the house.

The storm door whispered and banged.

I looked to Merry.

“Get over here and give me gooey,” he ordered.

The essence of hotness: a badass capable of uttering the word “gooey,” doing that shit and making my clit tingle.

I wasted no time either.

Merry met me halfway probably with a dual purpose, the second part of that being we were not in the door where Ethan could see when Merry took me in his arms, bent and laid a wet one on me.

When he was done I was wishing we had all kinds of time to be gooey.

Since we didn’t, I warned, “Don’t let Mom steal you away with her tater tot casserole. Just so you know, I have the recipe.”

Merry held me close in his arms and smiled at me.

My kid. My guy. My mom. Her tater tot casserole. And Merry smiling at me.

There it was again.

Fucking happy.

* * * * *

“This is delicious, Grace,” Merry told my mother.

We were sitting at Mom’s kitchen table.

Ethan was shoveling his gramma’s food in his mouth like he’d been told he was getting nothing but C rations for the next year after that meal.

I was freaking.

This was because somewhere between leaving my house and sitting at Mom’s table, something had happened to Merry.

Something extreme.

Gone was the mellow, funny guy he gave my kid. Gone was the thoughtful, gentlemanly guy he gave my mom. And gone was the teasing, hot guy he gave me.

He was quiet to the point he was distant, like he was there but he didn’t want to be.

Worse, he wasn’t hiding that.

At all.

Those four words were the first he’d spoken since conversation had awkwardly died when both mom and me sensed Merry retreating.

“Thank you, Garrett,” Mom replied. “I’m glad you like it.”

He nodded to her once, didn’t further engage, just turned back to eating.

My heart sank to my stomach.

That was so not Merry.

Mom looked at me and I instantly saw that her enthusiasm at having a new addition to her family dinner, this being a good guy who was into her daughter, had died.

She wasn’t freaking like me.

She was disappointed.

Then again, she didn’t go all out for dinner, cleaning her house, even putting out flowers Merry would most definitely see and know that was an outlay Mom didn’t splurge on often (her doing it to show Merry he was making the right choice of possibly wanting to be a part of this family) to have him act like the last place he wanted to be was there.

I had nothing for my mom, nonverbally and definitely not verbally, to explain what was going on with Merry.

What I wanted was to kick him in the shin, this my way of telling him to snap out of it at the same time asking him what the fuck was his problem.

That was the Cher way of dealing with things.

But after nearly blowing it with Merry, I needed to learn not to do shit like that. I couldn’t react, mouth off, or do something stupid and then face the consequences later. Not without risking fucking us up, and I’d promised myself I wouldn’t do that.

But this wasn’t Merry. Not even a little bit. I’d never seen him like this. Even when Tanner and Rocky were on the bumpy path of their reunion, something neither Merry nor his dad hid was just as bumpy for them, he didn’t get like this. Not when he had a shitty case he was investigating that took time and effort that, in the end if he closed it, only allowed him to give a small measure of relief to the people who’d had their lives irrevocably altered when the shit of life buried them under the stink.

“I hear you have a boat,” Mom noted, attempting to snap Merry out of it by engaging him in conversation.

“Yep,” he told his plate.

He said no more.

Well, that didn’t work.

“You got a boat?” Ethan piped up excitedly.

That got him. Merry looked to my son, the blankness leaving his face, and it softened.

“I do, bud,” he said quietly. “But, just to say, it’s for sale.”

I stared at him because I had no clue he was selling his boat. I’d actually never been officially informed he had a boat.

I didn’t do healthy relationships until now (arguably, especially at this moment), but that seemed like something to share, say, when he was hanging at J&J’s having a drink. Or perhaps when we were making out on my couch and feeling each other up last night after Ethan went to sleep. Or during dinner at Swank’s, waffles at my place, lunches (plural) at Frank’s, or in one of what I was now seeing were the not-very-informative texts he’d sent me.

“Why are you selling it?” Mom asked.