Hold On (Page 168)

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.

I failed.

“I never met her,” Merry spoke over me. “But every word said about her was that she was nice, people liked her, and no one said she was dumb. Men like him, it’s part of the sickness, sweetheart, finding the skills to hide he’s sick. He needed something from you and he turned on the charm to get it, by that time having had years to hone his skills at manipulating things to get what he wanted to feed the sick at the same time hide it. He played you, Cher. That’s all he did. The reasons why were worse than the usual player who uses those skills to get you in bed or a con man who does the same to orchestrate his score. But in the end, that’s all it was. And you are far from the first person, woman or man, mother or not, who trusted someone enough to get played.”

I was staring at him again because something about the way he laid that out felt like a knot was being untied inside me. It had been tied together to hold back something important, something crucial, and whatever that was, it finally was let loose.

Or maybe it was that and freaking out on him, attacking him, and dissolving into a sobbing mess in his arms.

Whatever…that knot loosened, that thing inside me untied, it loosened something else.

My mouth.

Thus, I blurted, “I love you.”

“No shit?”

I didn’t stare at that.

I blinked.

Then I asked, “I say, ‘I love you,’ and you say, ‘no shit?’”

“Babe, had my head in my ass, bein’ my own brand of stupid, so I didn’t see it. But when I looked back, I saw it.” His lips quirked. “So yeah. No shit. Seein’ as you been in love with me a long time.”

Oh fuck.

He’d figured that out.

“I have not,” I lied.

“Liar,” he called me on it.