“Why are you selling it?” Mom asked.
Merry looked to her. “In the market to get a house. Got a realtor; she sent some listings. Looked through eighteen of ’em. Didn’t like what I saw except for two, both outside my price range. To make ’em in my price range, I gotta liquidate some things for the down payment.”
I kept staring at him, because selling your boat might not be something that you’d share with the woman in your life but buying a house definitely was.
I wanted to be smart. Not get ticked or more freaked but instead twist that to something happy.
First, Merry out of that crappy apartment. Second, the idea he was doing that now, after he’d decided to take a shot at an us with me.
But the way he gave Mom that information, void of emotion, didn’t sit well with me.
Mom didn’t care about the void-of-emotion part.
She went straight to the twisting.
“You’re in the market for a house?” Her voice was an octave higher, filled with hope and excitement.
“Yeah, Grace. Don’t live in a great place. Time to move on,” Merry answered, no inflection in his tone at all.
Mom gave happy eyes to me.
Ethan declared, “A boat is better than a house.”
“You don’t have my view, buddy,” Merry replied.
“View is always better from a boat,” Ethan informed him.
Finally, one side of Merry’s lips curled up. “Can’t argue that.”
“Have more corn, Garrett,” Mom urged, seeing his plate almost clean and picking up the bowl of corn.
“Prefer seconds of that casserole, Grace,” he returned.
She dropped the corn so fast it clattered and nabbed the casserole.
With Merry reengaged (sort of), the rest of dinner and dessert went okay.
Not great.
Just okay.
And okay was so…not…Merry.
After we were done, Mom shooed the boys out so the women could do the dishes, something she’d normally never do because she wasn’t about “women’s work” unless that work involved pushing out babies, which was only women’s work due to biology.
Which meant she wanted to be alone with me to hash out what was going on with Merry.
The guys hit the living room and I hit the sink, wanting to hash out what was going on with Merry too. The problem with that was, in this scenario, it was me who had to provide the information and I had no clue.
Mom got close with the meatloaf platter and a Tupperware container.
“Garrett’s being strange. Are you two okay?” she asked under her breath, seeing as her house was nearly as tiny as mine and they were in the next room.
I thought we were.
For the life of me, I couldn’t imagine the way Merry was at dinner had one thing to do with him and me.
I just couldn’t think of what it did have to do with.
“Yeah,” I told her.
“He wasn’t him…” She paused. “At all.”
“Yeah,” I repeated.
“Except with Ethan,” she revised.
At least there was that.
“You need to talk to him, honey-sicle,” she advised.
I looked from filling the sink with soapy water, to my mom.
“Maybe I should let this slide,” I suggested.
Her face started to go mom-like, so I rushed on.
“We’re new, Mom. Still feelin’ each other out. It’s only been a week since our first date. Not your fault, I was all for it, but maybe dinner at the mom’s house was too soon.”
This was a possible option of what was going on with Merry.
But even as it came out of my mouth, I didn’t buy it.
“He’s sat at that table before, Cheryl,” she reminded me, swinging her hand to the kitchen table. “I fed him and Mike when they helped out with my house, and I fed him lunch when he was takin’ care of my walls. He filled his plate with food from that table when I had Ethan’s ninth birthday party. Stuffed his face from that table at last year’s Christmas party. He is not a stranger to this house. He’s not a stranger to me or Ethan. But he was a stranger tonight.”
She was right.
I looked back to the water filling the sink and turned it off. I was shifting to go to the table to grab plates, but I stopped when Mom’s hand caught my forearm.
I gave her my eyes.
“Whole town’s watchin’, you know that,” she said quietly. “Whole town’s waitin’ to see what comes of you and Garrett Merrick. Figure most of ’em are rootin’ for you two. Same’s I figure most of ’em think you’re gonna go down in flames, that bein’ you who ignites that blaze or, due to history in this scenario, more likely it bein’ him.”
Her hand left me, but she didn’t quit talking.
“I know my girl. I know you want everyone to think you don’t care what they think. But I also know you care about that man in there.”
She jerked her head toward the wall on the other side of which was her living room.
She then kept going.
“It is no secret Tanner Layne had his hands full beatin’ back the demons that plagued the woman he loved, demons that drove her away from the only man for her and she knew he was just that. She still let those demons win, sugar. Story told so often in this town, I know. Everyone knows. And what we know is Tanner made one mistake in all that. In the beginning, he gave up. But Raquel put up a hell of a fight to make him quit and they were young so neither of ’em knew better. You and Garrett are not at that place.”