“Fuck. Never thought to turn that table, but Cher’s right.”
She was.
For years, Garrett never turned that table either.
Mia was it. The one. Tormenting his mind. Owning his heart.
He’d been happy with her. She’d been happy with him. It had been good. Beyond good.
They’d had it all.
Then he’d ended it, and he didn’t even know why he did it until Rocky came apart that day—Rocky, having done the same thing to Tanner years before, deep down into her bones terrified that happy would vaporize like it had the night Cecilia stood strong to protect her daughter, her husband’s work, then lost her life doing both.
He also never would have guessed that the day he lost Mia for good was the day he’d see things for what they were.
Tanner and Rocky had it. Colt and Feb. Cal and Vi. Dusty and Mike.
Garrett might have it, he didn’t know.
What he did know, now that Cher had pointed it out, was that Mia didn’t.
Getting that knowledge from Cher, it was like he’d been yoked, that yoke heavy but also invisible. He didn’t even know it’d hung around his neck, dragging him down.
And then it was just gone.
And now he was free.
“Good to know you’re doin’ okay,” Tanner said.
“Yeah,” Garrett muttered.
“Now, brother, CeeCee’s down, so Roc and me got about five seconds of alone time and, no offense, I wanna spend that time with my wife.”
Garrett grinned into the night again and replied, “Then I’ll let you go. Later, Tanner.”
“Later, Garrett.”
They disconnected and Garrett stared into the parking lot, wondering what it would feel like to have an actual yard as he finished his smoke.
He turned and bent low to the crappy-ass, cheap, white plastic table that sat between two crappy-ass, cheap, white plastic chairs in order to stub out his cigarette.
He did this thinking back to if he’d ever smoked in front of Ethan.
Friday night, Cher had come out with him twice as they were getting hammered so he could have a smoke, standing in front of him on her high-heeled shoes, shifting from foot to foot in the cold, while he told her to get her ass back inside and she gave him all kinds of shit for smoking.
But Ethan? No. Garrett wouldn’t do that. He’d never smoke in front of any of his friends’ kids. Not when they were Ethan’s age. Not when they hadn’t already learned better.
He turned, pulled the sliding glass door open, and shut it behind him, intending to go to the fridge and get a beer.
He didn’t get a beer.
He looked at the living room/dining room/kitchen part of his condo, all of it easy to see because it was condensed into as few square feet as a builder could design those three spaces.
He had crappy-ass balcony furniture.
The furniture inside was only a shade above crappy-ass, but it was still shit.
Immediately, his mind filled with what he’d seen of Cher’s place.
He was not surprised that she lived in a house that looked like it was decorated by Janis Joplin’s slightly more together sister. Stuffed full, dark at the same time bright with color, it had personality. It was unique. It held warmth that hit you the second you stepped foot over the threshold.
It was Cher.
The living room was good; her bedroom was better.
Her bedroom said anything goes. Her bedroom said your wildest fantasy could come true. Her bedroom said you were safe to be what you were, think what you want, do what you like, eat like a pig, drink like a fish, fuck like an animal, sleep like the dead, no worries, leave life at the door and just be.
And she’d delivered. They’d only had hours in that room, so she didn’t deliver on it all, but the instant they fell to her bed, tearing at each other’s clothes, she’d more than delivered.
On this thought, Garrett moved to his refrigerator, pulled out a beer, twisted off the cap, and turned to rest his hips against the counter, looking into his shitty condo, the eclectic warmth of Cher’s pad not layering over what his eyes saw.
The feel of her, the smell of her, the memory of being with her in her bed was what filled his mind.
For years, he had stupidly tried to fuck Mia out of his head and his heart, knowing he was doing it and completely unable to stop himself.
And to make that shit even shittier, he’d done it by actually fucking Mia any time after their divorce that she came around to get a dose of his cock.
More often than not, though, when he sunk his dick into a woman who was not his ex-wife, Mia filled his head. Drunk or sober, it happened. It made him feel like an asshole. But he kept doing it.
With Cher, it did not.
With Cher, he was with Cher.
On a night when he was trashed and that shit was sure to happen, it didn’t.
On a night where he never expected he could do it, he’d laughed. Not a little, a lot. His gut clenching with it. His eyes watering with it.
And he did that with Cher.
No, he didn’t just do it with her, she gave him that.
You came here to get me to go to Frank’s so you could tell me what went down with us was just a drunken fuck, no more. We don’t change. Am I right?
She’d been right.
Garrett looked to the clock on his microwave.
It was just before nine thirty. Her shift that day was noon to eight thirty.
She’d be home.
He engaged his phone, opened his texts, and shot her one.
Ethan got a sleepover this weekend?
He took another pull from his beer, thinking Cher’s early shift was noon to eight thirty and her late shift was eight to three thirty. He knew that because he was a cop and he paid attention to everything, an occupational hazard, so he’d noted it just from being a regular at her place of business.