Chapter 10

10

Just as Iknew it would be, The Wild Buffalo was packed. Which meant that before our meal hit our table the gossip chain would be activated and by the time our bill was paid it would be all over town that my ass was in a booth next to Garrett with Marion sitting across from us.

Us.

Me and Garrett.

Garrett and me.

The two of us together eating dinner with his mother.

I should’ve fought harder, explained in depth why this was a bad idea. The dinner would be hard enough to get through but it was the aftermath that would kill. Back in the day this was a normal occurrence. Me out with Garrett and his parents, or not as frequently, us out with mine. Since Garrett split, I’d only been out to dinner with his parents sixteen times and those were for my birthday dinners they insisted be fancy.

Anything worth celebrating is worth getting gussied up for, and you, girly, are worth celebrating.

Every year that’s what Dave said when I protested going out instead of staying in like we normally did when I came over for dinner.

I don’t know if Dave instinctively knew going out to eat in public, the three of us together without Garrett, would cause talk or if he, like Garrett, preferred to eat at home. Either way, it saved me from being the topic of gossip. That didn’t mean I didn’t go shopping with Marion or go out for coffee or lunch with her, but that never activated town talk.

But us—me and Garrett having what looked like a family dinner with his mother—was going to spread like wildfire.

“Tell me, Mellie, how did Christian like the batting cages?”

Marion’s question pulled my attention to her, and I smiled at the mention of my nephew.

“Not a fan.”

“Really? I thought he’d rather enjoy it.”

“Nope. The more balls that got past him the more frustrated he got,” I explained.

“Garrett should take him,” she happily if not connivingly suggested.

“He’s five, right?” Garrett asked.

“Six,” Marion corrected. “The same age you were when you started playing ball.”

Garrett had been the star first baseman in high school. Before that he was the standout in rec ball as well as on the travel teams he’d played on. If Garrett hadn’t already had his life mapped out, he would’ve had his pick of division one universities. He was that good. No, he was incredible. From the time we’d become friends I’d never missed a single game he played in. Not rec, not travel, not high school.

At the end of each season, he’d given me his jerseys. He didn’t wear them home and wash them before he gave them to me. He literally took them off after the final team picture was taken and handed them to me. Of course, his freshman year of high school the coach was not happy seeing as the uniforms belonged to the school. However, after Dave explained this was not only tradition but Garrett was superstitious and him giving me his jersey was like how some players didn’t wash their socks during the season, the coach relented if Dave would pay for a new uniform. Dave, understanding what those stained, sweat soaked jerseys meant to me, agreed.

I still had them all safely tucked away in a box in my closet. Still stained just how he’d given them to me. I wish I could say that in moments of weakness, times when I’d missed him so badly, times I needed him close, I was strong enough not to pull them out. But I had. Too many times to count.

I had a lot of mementos from the years I was with Garrett, but those jerseys were my most precious possession. That box was the one and only thing I’d grab and run with if my apartment building, God forbid, caught on fire.

“I could take him.”

Pain slashed clean through me at Garrett’s offer.

“No, that’s okay, Dad’s gonna take him.”

“I’ll give your dad a call. Set something up.”

He. Was. Killing. Me.

Seriously, the only thing more painful would’ve been a literal knife to my heart.

With no way to verbally stop him from causing me more mental trauma without making Marion uncomfortable, I unclasped my hands resting in my lap under the table and reached over to squeeze Garrett’s thigh. Unfortunately he was ready for this move, seeing as it was my go-to back in the day. He caught my hand, twisted it, and threaded our fingers together before lowering our hands to his leg. Now I was totally screwed. If I yanked my hand away, Marion would see. If I said something Marion would ask questions.

Bastard.

“Did your mom tell you her and your dad stopped by Northpoint to visit with Dave?”

What?

Not only had my parents not mentioned it but Dave hadn’t either.

“No, when did they visit?”

“Just tonight, after you left for the day. Oh, and I’ve been meaning to tell you we haven’t forgotten about your promotion. As soon as Dave is back to fighting fit, we’re going out to celebrate.”

“You got a promotion?” Garrett asked.

I tightened my fingers around his to communicate his participation in this conversation was not welcome.

“It’s not that big of a deal. No need to make a thing out of it,” I told Marion, hoping she’d let it drop.

No such luck.

“Nonsense. We already have it all planned out. But you know Dave, he’s not walking into Delgado’s with a cane, so it might be a few months.”

Delgado’s was the fancy steak house we went to for my birthday every year. Yet, when either of their birthdays came around, they refused to allow me to do anything special for them. The most I got away with was bringing over cake—black forest cake for Dave, vanilla poke cake with raspberry topping for Marion. Yet, they insisted on spoiling me.

“What kind of promotion did you get?” Garrett tried again.

“It’s not—”

“Melissa.”

“I was promoted to office manager.”

Not that the ten percent raise had cured my money troubles, but it had helped. And I was still an hourly employee until my sixty-day eval. That was if I made it sixty more days without being fired after all the time I’d had to take off for attorney meetings that for some reason my parents insisted I attend.

Shit.

That was uncool.

All of this was overwhelming for them—attorneys, mediation, visitation schedules, and now suing for full custody. They were still grieving the loss of their daughter while trying to get her children safe. Of course, they needed me at the meetings.

“That sounds like something worth celebrating,” he noted.

Thankfully our server, April, stopped at our table pausing—and if I had my way, ending the current conversation.

“Hey, Mrs. D., how’s Dave doing?” April asked.

I didn’t miss the look of shock that marked my friend’s face when she saw Garrett sitting next to me. I also didn’t miss the effort it was taking her to concentrate on Marion instead of me and Garrett.

“He’s making progress. Hopefully he’ll be home by the end of the week.”

“That’s great news. Please tell him I miss him and be sure to stop in when he’s up to it.” April finally shifted her gaze around the table, barely pausing on Garrett before she locked eyes with me. “The usual, or do you feel like spicin’ it up tonight and trying one of the other twenty menu options you’ve never tried in one of seven-hundred and eighty-five times you’ve been here?”

April was only exaggerating a little. The Wild Buffalo—or for the locals just the Buffalo—was a staple of my dietary needs. In my thirty-seven years I had indeed probably had dinner here over seven hundred times. Though my “usual” was only added to the menu a few years ago, so I had eaten other things on the menu, it was just that no one made a patty melt quite like the Buffalo.

“Actually, I think I’ll try the corn chowder,” I told her.

April scrunched her nose and asked, “Since when do you like soup?”

“She doesn’t,” Garrett cut in.

Of course he’d know that.

Ugh.

“I’m trying new things,” I lied. “Broadening my horizons.”

“This coming from the woman who eats like a two-year-old,” April muttered.

“She’ll have her usual,” Garrett ordered. “And I’ll have a 50/50 burger, please. Medium. With extra ketchup. And a basket of fries.”

“Excellent,” April chirped, not sparing me another glance before she turned to Marion. “Cobb salad with extra dressing on the side?”

“That’ll be fine, April, thank you.”

With that, my friend turned and walked away.

I saw her reach into her pocket and pull out her phone as she walked across the room.

It was a crapshoot if she would be texting me a WTF or her sister to share that Garrett and I were having dinner together.

Seconds later my phone pinged, and I smiled.

“Do you need to get that, Mellie?” Marion asked.

No way was I checking my messages with Garrett sitting next to me.

“It’s rude to use your phone at the table.” Then I changed the subject, hoping this time it would stick. “Tell me about your latest painting. Did you finish it?”

The older woman’s face lit. The smile that accompanied her happiness was so much like how Garrett used to smile. I felt it like I always did when she beamed me with her smile—straight through my heart.

Garrett unlaced our fingers, but before I could pull my hand back to safety, he placed my palm on his thigh and put his hand over mine.

And that was where it stayed as Marion told us all about the painting she had just finished.

“I have to say, you’ve outdone yourself with this one, Mom,” Garrett proudly praised.

“Thank you, Garrett.”

Thinking back over the last year of my life, all the tragedy that my family had endured—losing my sister, fighting for her kids, money struggles, watching my niece and nephew go through the pain of losing their mother. All of the sadness. The heartbreaking pain. Sitting next to Garrett across from Marion was in the top five most painful events.

And as I sat there through dinner listening to them banter that pain grew into anger.

This, something as simple as this, Garrett had taken away when he left me. I didn’t taste a single bite of my patty melt. All I could think about was all the dinners we should’ve had in the last seventeen years.

How we’d had seven years together, but we should’ve had twenty-four.

So by the time we said goodbye to Marion I was seething. Not that she knew there was a problem when I kissed her cheek and gave her a hug.

But Garrett knew.

That meant he didn’t say anything until we were on the road back to my house, and when he spoke he did it carefully. “I know that was hard. Thank you for giving that to my mom.”

More emotional manipulation.

Asshole.

I turned my head and silently stared out the window the rest of the way to my apartment.

When he got out of his rental to walk me to my door, I was both irate and happy.

This needed to end.

And the only way to get through to Garrett was to lay it out. My only issue was I had to keep my cool and not let my temper get the best of me. He was the only person in life who had ever made me lose control. I had never thrown an object at anyone else. But, with Garrett, it was like he evoked so much emotion it built up until it exploded.

I unlocked and opened the door, not bothering to hold it open for him seeing as he was already pushing in behind me.

Perfect.

We were doing this.

I tossed my purse on the couch and whirled on him.

“It’s my turn to talk, Garrett, and I need you to listen to me this time.”

Surprisingly, he nodded. But not only that; he kept his face neutral and his body relaxed.

I was not relaxed. Every muscle in my body burned like I’d just had a five-hour workout. Not that I’d actually know what a five-hour workout was like, since I normally gave up after forty-five minutes of any physical activity. Mostly because my muscles ached and I was out of breath, so it was a pretty good guess that after five hours my body would be on fire.

“You know when you left me, I didn’t just lose you once.” I heard Garrett suck in a breath, but I ignored it and went on. “I lost you over and over again. I lost you every night when I went to sleep, every morning when I woke up, every time I made a bag of popcorn, every time I drank a root beer, every time a song came on that we used to listen to. I’ve lost you so many times I got used to the pain. The sharpness of it wore off to a dull throb, but it’s still there. Every day, Garrett, I live with the loss of you.”

I paused to catch my breath and blinked back the tears.

“Mellie—”

“No, Garrett, I need you to listen! I can live with this pain, I’m used to it. But I cannot go back to the raw, piercing agony that kept me awake at night. I can’t go back to wondering how the hell I’m gonna make it through a day without you. I cannot go back to that.”

“I’m sorry.”

I screwed my eyes shut at his strangled words and held back the tears that threatened to fall.

“Please, Garrett. I can’t do this again.”

I heard footsteps, then I heard the door open and close.

It was then I opened my eyes.

Gone.

Again.