Chapter Sixteen

Garrett

He wiped the condensation off the mirror in the bathroom and looked at the reflection staring back at him. The man in it was the same one who stared back usually, but he wasn’t naïve enough to not notice the differences in the way he held himself. Like there was less weight on his shoulders. Looking away, no longer able to look at himself, he held the edge of the countertop and closed his eyes as he dipped his head down.

Too much shit was swirling in his head. It’d been over a week since his stupid idea of taking Stefanie to meet his family. Over a week since he had woken up in the middle of the night to her worried eyes on him and her confession of what she felt for him. Over a week since he’d made love to her. Over a week since she’d cracked him wide open and he’d almost slipped up and said too much to her.

He knew he shouldn’t have let her worm her way into the center of his soul. His soul, not his heart. Hell no, she had pulverized through there without him noticing. Over a week ago, he had let them fall into a bubble of sorts. Where he was pretending to be a normal everyday guy with everyday worries and doted on his perfect-as-fuck girlfriend.

The problem was, he was far from a normal and everyday type of guy. A knock at the bathroom door made him jump.

“Garrett?” she called out. He wiped his face and stood straight before he cleared his throat.

“Yeah.” He wrapped the towel around his waist and put his hand on the doorknob when she spoke again.

“I gotta get going. Will you be okay?” she asked, and he froze. Could she sense how off he was feeling?

“I’m good,” he said as he opened the door and looked down at her smiling face. Something in his gut twisted.

“You sure? You were a little tossy turn—”

“Did I wake you?” he asked, worried about not letting her rest and not acknowledging the fact she was right. His sleep had been fitful.

“No, no.” She shook her head warily. “You just seem, I don’t know, tired.” She shook her head again, obviously uncertain about how to talk to him. He hated it. “You sure you’re—”

“I’m fine,” he clipped and winced, hating having slightly raised his voice at her. “I have an appointment today. I’ll see you tonight, yeah?”

“Yeah.” She looked down at her hands on his chest. “How can it be fair to look like this?”

“Like what?”

“You know what.” She grinned, her fingers doodling shapes on his chest. “I wish you had woken me up. I would have washed your back,” she said, standing on the tips of her toes. He couldn’t resist her and pulled her in.

“I should have.” He kissed her forehead.

“Tomorrow?” she suggested, the light extremely bright. There wasn’t any way he could say no.

“Sounds good.” His hands moved to her hips, ignoring the perfect way they fit the curves of her body. Like she was made for him.

She was dressed in black wide-leg slacks, white tank, and a ridiculously bright green cardigan with her beautiful hair up in a neat ponytail. She looked like the sexiest fucking receptionist he had ever seen.

“I’m not a receptionist.” Fuck. He’d said it out loud. This was one of the many ways how being around her took him off kilter, just spewing shit without thinking. Thankfully, she seemed amused rather than insulted, and he was going to go with it.

“But let’s say if I ever wanted to role play,” he shrugged with a playful wink.

“I’d be the best administrative assistant for you, Mr. Wright.” She laughed against his mouth before quickly kissing him and moving away. He knew she was playing, but he liked her teasing him and obviously being open to playing.

“I might just take you up on that.” Her laughter kept going, and she shook her head.

“I’ll see you tonight.”

“Tonight.” He nodded and watched her leave.

Stepping back into the bathroom, he looked at himself in the mirror again. No one would ever think the man it reflected back had a war waging inside him. His mind was battling his heart, and he had no fucking clue how the hell one could win without fucking up the other.

_______________

“What did you think about her meeting your family?” Doc asked. Garrett’s knee wouldn’t stop from bouncing as he sat on the olive-green recliner he’d chosen to sit in.

“I think…” It was a stupid idea. “It went well.”

“Hmm…” His therapist was writing shit down. Garrett couldn’t deny how fucking antsy that made him. Like Doc was trying to figure out some deep, hidden message. Garrett pulled at the suddenly too tight collar of his tee shirt. “Just well?”

“It was good. They got along.” Too well. He had his mom hassling him about taking Stef to Montana, and the worst part was he could imagine her there. With me. Sharing his favorite place in the world. He found himself aching to see that land through her eyes. Imagining her face as she watched the sunset there.

“You had said you wanted to see both your worlds together.”

“I did,” he gritted through his teeth.

The two sides of him. The past and present. But now, the future was…

“And all you can say is it went well?” dear ole Doc pressed, and Garrett sighed, his body sinking deeper into the chair.

“My grandma was acting weird.”

“Weird?” Jesus. Was the guy just going to repeat everything he said?

“She was so fuc— fudging quiet.” He frowned. “And she is never quiet. Ever. All goddamn day she was like a stone.” A humorless laugh escaped him. “And you know what? I did what you said. I gave Stef a heads up about her. About how loud and inappropriate Nicola can and probably would be. Anyhow, I went to the bathroom for a break. I went in, splashed water like you recommended, did breathing exercises.”

“Okay. Did you feel like it worked?”

“Yeah.” He shrugged looking out the window of his shrink’s office. “It was good. I felt more…. centered.”

Centered.

He sounded like some kind of yoga-doing hippy.

“What happened when you came out of the bathroom?”

“They were outside.”

“Everyone?”

“No. Stef and my grandma.”

“Okay.”

“They were talking. Donnie—”

“Your friend.”

“Yeah. He was watching them from the kitchen, keeping an eye on her.”

“That’s a good friend.”

“He can be, I guess.” He had always considered him more like Marc’s buddy than anything else, but thinking about it, it had been nice of the prick to watch out for his girl.

“You seem distracted,” he observed.

“She said she loved me.”

“I’m guessing it wasn’t your grandmother?” Doc grinned, and Garrett fought rolling his eyes.

“Right. Stefanie. We got home.”

“To her place.”

“Right.”

“And we went to bed. I woke up, and she was awake,” he shared.

“Does she usually wake up in the middle of the night?”

“No. I mean, I don’t know. I…” He swallowed hard. “I sleep pretty heavy when she’s there.”

“What did you say back?” the doctor asked, adjusting his thick, black-framed glasses as he looked at Garrett.

“I—” He had fucked her. No. He had made love to her. He was curbing on forty and had made love to a woman for the first time in his life. “I didn’t say anything,” he admitted, not missing the way Doc’s face seemed surprised.

“At all?”

“Right.” He hoped he had shown her. There was no way they had the connection they did, and she hadn’t felt what he’d tried to say by the way he had taken her.

“Okay, and she was okay?”

“Yeah. She seems to be. I mean, it’s been a week.”

“Right.”

“A week, Doc.” He shook his head. “She hasn’t said it again. We’re acting like nothing happened. Like…”

“She never said it?”

“Why hasn’t she said it again?” Garrett looked up at the doc, surprised the words were coming out.

“I don’t know.” He jotted something down in that notebook, then looked up at him. “Have you asked her?”

“No.” Hell no. Ask her why she hadn’t said it again? “Do I look like I talk about my feelings?”

“Garrett, it’s okay if you don’t love her and she loves you.”

“I do, though.” His voice cracked. “Seeing her… Fuck. Seeing her with my family. Just being with her. Me. I was just me around them.”

“What do you mean?”

“Usually, I gotta try, and I always fail, man. Fuck.” He ran his hand through his hair, the collar to tight around his neck.

“What do you feel like you fail at?”

“Being me,” he said without thinking. “Just how they want me to be.”

“They. Your family?”

“They want me to be who I was before.”

“We’ve talked about this, Garrett. We all change. Evolve. They have changed. Your youngest brother is a detective now. He wasn’t that before. You don’t expect him to be the same guy as before. You don’t have to pretend to be some eighteen-year-old kid.”

“No, I know that.” And he did. He knew it. But he knew that after his last tour to the Middle East, even though there wasn’t physical evidence, at least not with his clothes on, the man who’d returned wasn’t the same.

Not by a long shot.

“If you love her, why didn’t you tell her?” Doc asked, and Garrett found himself tongue tied. But that wasn’t new. He was always tongue tied when he thought about his little bit of sunshine.

“She…” His knee bounced, and he ran his hands through his hair. “I’ve told you about her.”

“A little.” Garrett laughed.

“You sure it’s only a little, Doc? I feel like that’s all I talk about. All I think about.” He shook his head before leaning forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “If you saw her, Doc, I swear, she’s this tiny thing. Just a spec of a woman, nothing like I usually…”

“Casually dated,” Doc helped him out, and Garrett nodded.

“Right. Casually dated.” More like fucked once and left.

Garrett had never done the whole relationship thing. Not even fuck buddies you got to know over breakfast or pizza. The longest fling he’d been involved was with a nurse at the last base he had been stationed at. They’d hooked up for a week of her two-week stay before she was shipped out.

Nothing like what he had with his girl.

“But Stefanie,” he sighed, “she has huge fucking brass balls.” He didn’t make sense.

“Brass balls?”

“Gutsy. Do you know the night she found me, she was fearless?”

“You said the memories were hazy.”

“Yeah, but even through the haze, I know what she did. This girl, she’s tiny, maybe a hundred and twenty soaking wet, top of her head maybe reaches my chin, and”—he clasped his hands behind his head and leaned his head against the couch—Stefanie just goes right over to these three guys and talks them into letting me go.”

“Have you asked her how she did that?”

“What? No. Should I?”

“Maybe. It would make for an interesting conversation. Plus, it would be good for her to hear why what happened, happened.” He didn’t miss what dear ole Doc was reminding him of.

Garrett had let those asshole millennials kick his ass. Yet they hadn’t talked in too much detail about what had happened that night. Might be a good idea. But the idea of talking about the anniversary of his friends dying in front of her… The images that swirled and flashed in his mind’s eyes were too much. With a hard shake to his head, he focused.

“Anyhow,” he sighed, “she gets this crotchety old man to help her haul my drunk ass into her death trap of a car.” Garrett looked away from the inquisitive doc’s eyes. “I begged her not to take me to the hospital.”

“Why?”

“You know why. I hate hospitals.”

“I don’t think anyone is rushing to a hospital for a good time.”

“I know that!” he bit and closed his eyes. “I asked, and she kept me.”

“But you didn’t just leave. You snuck out of her place. Why return?”

“I don’t know.” He shook his head. “I do know. There was something about her, Doc.”

“And that something evolved to—”

“Love.” His voice cracked as he answered immediately.

He knew what the doc was trying to do. Showing him how his feelings had evolved for Stefanie, proving Doc’s point of how everyone changed and weren’t the same versions of themselves.

“Love can be tricky. Complicated. Messy as hell,” Doc said, and Garrett laughed.

“Don’t sell it too much, Doc.”

“You’ve talked about your brothers and their significant others enough to know that isn’t me selling anything; it’s just fact. You know there are pros and cons to everything. Including love. I don’t think I am telling you anything you didn’t know,” Doc added. Garrett watched his face go slightly smug. “The question now is, what are you going to do about it?”

Fuck if that wasn’t the question he’d been chewing on for a week.

Stefanie

As I chopped veggies, my mind was running a million miles an hour as music played in the kitchen.

Life was good.

Life was really freaking good.

I had a great job. I had a meeting with my boss about my future in the company to move up next week. Kip’s health was good with how grouchy the old man had been during lunch. Then there was Garrett.

I had a boyfriend.

A boyfriend whose family I had met. Whose sisters-in-law had called me to plan a girls’ day. Girls’ day. I shook my head and put the knife in the sink. I was going to a girls’ day. Me. The girl who didn’t do stuff like that, the girl who didn’t get involved. Yet my contact list on my phone had doubled in the span of a week.

My hands held on to the edge of the kitchen counter as I closed my eyes. What am I doing? I asked myself, not for the first time since the night before Valentine’s Day.

“Stef?”

“In the kitchen,” I called out, rubbing my face, hoping none of my thoughts showed.

“Hey, you didn’t have to start dinner alone.” I peeked over my shoulder just in time to catch him lean in the doorway, crossing one leg over the other.

“I can tell, you rushing over to me to help,” I teased before turning away, slowing the speed of putting the veggies on a plate from the cutting board.

“You okay?” he asked, too observant for his own good.

“Yeah.” I turned and smiled.

“How was your day?” he asked, and I bit my lower lip. I had someone in my life who wanted to know how my day was. I swallowed down the emotion. “My boss talked to me today,” I shared.

“Oh yeah?” He crossed his arms, the muscles bunching up and making me weak at the knees. The seriousness on his face made him look like he was ready to pounce and protect. It had my insides squishy.

“She wants to talk to me about my future there and maybe moving up in the company.”

“Nice, babe. Congrats. Is that something you would want?”

“I wouldn’t say no.” I shrugged. “The pay would be better.”

“But do you like it? Would you be happy?” he asked like I knew he would, and I tried to smile.

“Of course.”

“Not very convincing, sunshine.”

“I don’t know,” I said, moving to the fridge and taking out the chicken I had marinating. “A job is a job, soldier.”

“It doesn’t have to be.”

“It does when you have rent and utilities and—”

“I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that,” he cut me off, and I frowned.

“What?” I looked up at him.

“You need to get that shit switched to my name.”

“Excuse me?” I raised an eyebrow. “For what?”

“So, I can pay it.” He kept talking, but I wasn’t listening. He wants everything under his name, so he can pay it.

“What?” I whispered, no longer looking at him but past him and over his shoulder and toward the living room.

“Babe, come here,” he ordered gently. The scowl on my face only deepened.

“No. You… You can’t expect me to just put everything in your name,” I blurted out, not sure of how I was still standing. He wanted everything under his name. He wanted to pay for everything.

“Why not? I should be paying—”

“And what about when you decide you’re done?” I blurted out, my lack of a filter getting the best of me. “Do you know what a pain in the ass that would be to change back?” I asked way too loudly. He cursed under his breath, so I found the courage to look directly into his dark, beautiful eyes. “When you’re done playing house here, and you’re gone, it’s going to be a pain in the ass to get everything back into my name.”

“When I’m done playing house?” he asked on a growl.

“Yes!” I stomped, knowing exactly how childish it made me look. “Look, Garrett, this is great. You hanging here and stuff between us—”

“Jesus Christ, Stef. Hanging out? Stuff between us?”

“Sex?”

“Sex?” His voice was deceivingly calm, but I was too freaked to notice.

“Yes, sex. Good sex, but we both know that—”

“What about what you said to me last week?”

“Stop cutting me off,” I bit. “I… I was half asleep. You can’t hold something said semi- unconsciously against someone,” I stuttered, not about to pretend I had no idea what he was talking about. I did. I’d said I loved him more than once that night, but he hadn’t said anything back. Not that I had expected or wanted him to. Liar, a voice in the back of my mind chided.

“You were half asleep while I fucked you sweet?” He stepped in closer, and I rolled my eyes. “Were you?” he pushed. “Were you not aware when I took you so soft, so slow, our fucking hearts synced?”

“You know I was,” I huffed, crossing my arms in front of me. “You can’t make huge requests like that.” I sighed, trying to be reasonable. “You wanna help? Awesome. Do the grocery shopping. You can eat a whole cow in one sitting—”

“Jesus.” He shook his head, but the light in his eyes showed he was amused.

“Am I lying?” I asked. “It would help out.”

“Help out?”

“That’s what you were trying to do, right?” I asked, trying to steer the conversation back to his request instead of focusing on the three stupid little words that hung between us like a huge elephant in a room.

“Help out?”

“Don’t be a parrot, Garrett. Look, I don’t need a man to just—”

“I’m not just any man to you, Stefanie.” The small space between us became non-existent as his long legs cut into the kitchen.

My eyes widened as his body came up right in front of me, blocking everything but him. His strong, manly-man hands fell to my hips, and without thinking, needing to touch him, I uncrossed my hands, which found their way to his chest like it was second nature. His very solidly built chest vibrated.

“Am I?” he asked, leaning his head down, and I knew I was in danger of drowning in the dark pools of his eyes.

Not one to lose and opportunity, he lifted me up and sat me onto the kitchen counter. I couldn’t resist opening my legs, so he could walk right between them, gently holding my face.

“Am I just any man to you?”

“No.” I sighed, relaxing into him. “You know you’re not.”

“Am I your man?”

“Yes.”

“Is this a two-way street?”

“But—”

“Is it?” he pressed, and I sighed.

“You’re giving me too much,” I whispered and felt his body go rock solid. I was giving away too much too soon, but I didn’t know how to stop.

“What did you just say?” he gruffly asked, an electric current running through the air.

“You’re giving too much,” I repeated.

“I haven’t given you anything but a headache that weekend you took care of me,” he answered. Now it was my body going still in his arms.

“That’s not true.” I looked up at him. “First your family and now this?” I swallowed hard. In for a penny, in for a buck. “You’re giving me more than I’ve ever had,” I said honestly even if there were red flags waving in the back of my head. I wasn’t just opening myself up to the possibility of getting hurt; I was cracking down to let myself implode.

“Sunshine.” His hands gripped my thighs, then quickly moved up to the waist of my skirt. “If this is more than you’ve had, I’m gonna make it my life’s mission ‘til my last breath to have your cup run over.”

“Garrett,” I gasped, feeling his words in my heart, the sincerity of his words reflecting in his gaze.

“Why haven’t you said it again?” he asked. My heart was beating into triple time.

“I…” I didn’t know why I hadn’t. I wasn’t used to saying it, and especially when he hadn’t said it back. “I’m not used to saying that. I’ve never said that to anyone and, well…. I… you know how I feel.”

His thumbs hooked into the waistband of my skirt, and he tugged it down. I quickly and unquestioningly lifted, so the material would slip off as he pulled it down, letting it fall to the floor.

“Do you know I’ve never had sweeter than this pussy?” His words should have turned me off; the raw crudeness of them should have had me cringing. Instead, they made me hot. Geez, maybe there is something wrong with me.

“Garrett,” I whispered. His nose flared, then his hands left me and moved to the belt at his own waist, where they diligently and quickly worked on getting it undone.

“That face. That body,” he enunciated harshly. “All that could be fucking disarming,” he gruffed. Something about the tone in his voice and the way he was touching me as if he was afraid I would slip through his fingers made a shiver run down my back.

“Then you add in your voice, your sweetness, your fucking laugh,” he gritted through his teeth, looking like a feral animal, wild and hungry as his hands clenched the hem of his own tee. “You have any idea what you do to me?” His hands pulled his shirt up and over his head the complicated way guys do, and damn, if watching felt like foreplay. “You have any clue? Any clue how hard you make it to stay away from you? From wanting that damn light you shine, wanting to cling to it.” His hands moved to the buttons of my blouse.

He did not work his long, thick fingers to undo every dainty little button like he had in the past. There was no teasing or buildup. He knew exactly what he wanted, and he wouldn’t tolerate anything in his way. I gasped when he yanked the material, letting the buttons fall where they would, ruining the blouse. Like a foreshadowing of what he would do to me next. Damn it, I wanted that.

I wanted him to ruin me even further than I knew he already had because there was no coming back from Garrett Wright. There was no coming back from everything he’d brought to life. There would never be anyone else who would compare.

Doing quick work of my bra, his hands drew one of mine over his chest, his skin hot to the touch, placing it right over his heart. There was something I couldn’t read in his eyes.

“Say it again,” he pressed, and my throat went dry.

“Garrett.” I suddenly felt too vulnerable, too exposed.

“You’re here,” he said, his eyes pinned to mine as his hand pressed deeply, his heartbeat furiously thumping beneath my fingers. “Do you get that?” he strangled, and I swallowed hard. “Do you get you’re under my skin? In the marrow of my bones?” My chest was heaving up and down as I took in what he was trying to say. “You’re. Right. Fuckin’. Here,” he enunciated, making sure to press hard with every word uttered from his lips.

I got it. He loved me.

“Baby,” I whispered. Dreams didn’t come true in real life, did they? If they didn’t, why the hell was he standing in front of me?

Garrett Wright was a dream I’d never dared dream. A dream so damn big, the disappointment of not having it come to fruition would be too much to handle.

“So fucking sweet,” he hissed before his lips landed on mine.

He was gentle but fierce as his lips moved against mine and his hands explored my body. Traveling upward, one stopped on my left breast, but the other kept on moving, tangling itself gently into the hair at the back of my head, his fingers in the strands, like every hair on my head was placed just to feel his touch.

Garrett’s fingers skimmed over my pebbled nipple and moved slightly above the swell of my breast to where my heart was beating furiously for him.

“I’m right fucking here,” he whispered against my lips, nipping and sucking softly. “Right fucking here.” His voice was full of wonder, and when my eyes opened, they met his dark gaze, his lips mere centimeters away from mine. “How the fuck did I get so damn lucky, sunshine? You gotta know I don’t deserve it.”

“You think you’re the lucky one?” I asked with a slight gasp, and I could feel his smile against mine.

“I don’t think. I know,” he whispered back, and just like that, any and all walls I had around my heart shattered, leaving me wide open to everything he could ever do to me.

In a blink of an eye, desire and hunger I didn’t think could have possibly existed between two other people before us ignited in the air. Mouths explored and devoured, hands teased and memorized. Everything happened in a blur as whatever was happening between us shifted and changed. We somehow had moved on to another level of whatever this relationship was. I hoped to God one day, I would somehow cheat life when she decided it was time for this to end. Because the day it did, it would ruin me, and I knew without a shadow of a doubt it would leave me a mere shell of the person I was right now.