Hold On

by Kristen Ashley

  He crossed his arms on his chest, held Colt’s gaze, and kept going.

  “I have no clue how this is gonna roll. I got shit I gotta deal with. She does too. But right now, we’re lookin’ at doin’ it together. We can tough it out, I see good things. We can’t, we can’t. But that’s ours. Not yours because you want to cushion her from any hits life might land. Not anyone’s. I gave it time because I needed that time to know exactly where I was before I took it further. I gave it time because she needed to know I gave it that time for her and her kid. I’m all about doin’ this right and that’s also for Cher and for Ethan. That’s said, so now you need to stand down, Colt. If not for me, wantin’ me to have good in my life, then for her.”

  “You better—” Colt kept trying.

  But Garrett was done with this shit.

  “Don’t say more. Don’t threaten me. Don’t warn me. Don’t do shit, Colt,” Garrett interrupted him again. “Not shit you can’t come back from. You know I’m only givin’ you what I just gave you because of what she means to you. You don’t cut me some slack, we got problems, and straight up, man, I do not want problems with you when my attention needs to be on sortin’ my shit so I can bust my ass to make a good woman happy.”

  Garrett knew he finally got to Colt before he watched his friend’s eyes narrow as he asked, “Some asshole walked right up to her door to get to her about Lowe?”

  Garrett nodded. “She says it doesn’t happen much anymore, but it happens.”

  “He didn’t call first?”

  “He called. Cher didn’t take his calls, so he decided on a face-to-face.”

  “Fuck,” Colt hissed.

  “Rumor’s spreadin’, seein’ as this guy probably has a hit list and Cher was just his first, and Ryker’s heard.” Colt’s face froze, but Garrett kept talking. “You know how protective Ryker is about the citizens of this ’burg, so I think Walter Jones might soon feel induced to find his way to the town limits.”

  “Shit, Cher’s never learned, you got a problem, you court it gettin’ bigger if you don’t tell somebody. She could have told me about the calls and I could have had a chat with this moron over the phone and convinced him a trip to the ’burg would be a waste of his time. Instead, she didn’t take his calls, you were there when he made his play, and now I don’t know what’s worse, whatever Ryker’s gonna do to ‘induce’ this guy to take a hike or you bein’ a bigger lunatic than Ryker because you know he’s a lunatic and you set him on this guy.”

  “And you would have played it how?” Garrett prompted.

  “My play would have been personal,” Colt returned.

  And that was why Colt and February didn’t catch this shit.

  “Yeah, and that gets messy. The cap, every one of your brothers, every man and woman in this county, and every judge at the courthouse would see your play because they’d play it the same way. Lowe spent decades where he existed only to destroy your life. He nearly succeeded in that. They’d get that. Me actin’ for a woman I haven’t even taken on our first date? Not so much.”

  Colt said nothing for a beat before he sighed.

  That meant he saw Garrett’s play.

  “We done with our brief?” Garrett asked. “I got cases to close.”

  “We’re done, brother,” Colt muttered.

  That also meant they were good.

  Garrett nodded and started to turn away when Colt called his name.

  He gave the man his attention.

  “Would be good, you got some happy. Would be good, Cher did too. But you couldn’t have picked a bigger challenge, Merry. I hope you know the work you got cut out for you, man.”

  “It’s taken me nearly two weeks to get her to a place where I could even talk to her about a date, Colt. I think I know that.”

  Colt grinned.

  Garrett shook his head. They were done. They were good. Time to get to work.

  So he left Colt to do that.

  But before he took off with Mike, he called Swank’s, got the only reservation they had left, and texted the time to Cher.

  He knew she was still on a course to surfacing, not retreating, when he and Mike didn’t even make it to the bottom of the back stairs before his phone sounded with a return text.

  Got it. And just so you know, I’m only going because I know you put out on the first date.

  This meant Garrett Merrick walked out of the station laughing.

  * * * * *

  Cher

  I walked down the hall into my living room.

  My son, on the couch, eyes to the TV, looked at me.

  “Whoa,” he said. “You’re ready way early.”

  I was.

  This was due to the fact that I’d called Mom to ask her to come early because we had to chat. And because I’d called Feb and Vi to tell them I needed a dress for a date with Merry at Swank’s. Since I didn’t need to be spending two hundred dollars on a dress when my ex was threatening attorneys, I needed to borrow one, so I was hitting the bar early to do some dress borrowing in the office.

  And last, because I needed to have a sit-down with my boy.

  “Hit mute, kid, would you?” I asked.

  He looked at me, then he lifted the remote from his thigh and hit mute.

  I curled my leg under me as I sat on it on the couch, turned toward him.

  “What’s up, Mom?” he asked.

  “Merry came to visit me today.”

  I’d practiced this. I didn’t know how to begin, but I thought sharing that information and waiting to see how he’d react would guide my way.

  How he reacted was how I figured he’d react with one addition I didn’t expect.

  That being his very first reaction was such extreme excitement, it was a wonder he didn’t burst from the couch, propelled by its power.

  Damn.

  It hit him what I was saying and how Merry’s visit came to be, so his first reaction was quickly dampened by panic mixed with guilt.

  “Yeah, kid, I know you sent my text along with your own,” I said quietly.

  “Mom—” he whispered.

  “Not good,” I cut him off to whisper back.

  His face was pale but his cheeks were red, and I knew when his eyes started shining that he was close to crying.

  That was not what I wanted to do to my kid, ever, so I moved things along.

  “First, I’ll tell you that, with your invitation, Merry showed. We talked. Since you read my texts with him, you probably got the impression that something was goin’ on between him and me. It wasn’t, but it was. I didn’t think either of us were ready to tackle that. Today, Merry convinced me differently.”

  The color came back to his face as the excitement came back to his eyes, but I had to keep going.

  “We’re goin’ out on a date tomorrow. You’re stayin’ the night with Mimi and Al.”

  “Cool,” Ethan said softly, clearly not sure how to play this because my tone was crisp and informative and not much else.

  “I’ll tell you that I’m glad me and Merry got the chance to talk, because I like him. I like that you like him. He’s a good guy, and if things go okay, he’d be good for us. I’m a little bit scared of that, but I’m gonna give it a shot.”

  “I’m glad, Mom.”

  “What I don’t like,” I kept talking like he didn’t, “is my son invading my privacy.”

  He leaned slightly toward me and started, “Mom—”

  “No, son, listen. Don’t talk,” I said gently, but the tone was a mom tone that I didn’t pull out very often because I didn’t have to. I didn’t think I’d used it in the last year. It could even be two.

  He was getting it now.

  “What you need to get from this discussion is that what you did might have led to good things, but it also might have led to bad things. It might have put your mom in a super uncomfortable situation with someone who means a lot to her. You had no idea what was goin’ on. Merry and me are friends, and part of me bein’ scared about startin�
� somethin’ with him is because that friendship means a lot to me. That gets messed up, it’s gonna hurt. You coulda messed that up at the get-go, not knowin’ what was happening and doing what you did.”

  “But you and Merry—”

  I nodded. “We talked it out. It’s all good and that’s important for you to know too so you don’t beat yourself up about it too much. But I’m tellin’ you now, you’re almost eleven. In a few years, you’re gonna have things in your life you wanna keep private. I figure then you’ll look back at this and think about me bein’ in your business and you’ll get what you did is how it is. I’m gonna give you your privacy because I trust you and I trust you to do right. But nothin’ is gonna erase the fact you invaded mine. It’s gonna sting, kid, when you look back at it. Don’t let it sting too much, but learn from it.”

  He bit his lip, eyes big and again shining, and I worried he’d lose it, so I had to keep going so he wouldn’t do that.

  “Now, like what happened with our neighbor when you did what I asked you not to do, this is the same. There’s a lesson to be learned, Ethan, and all I want from this is that you learn it. But this is bigger than that. See, you aren’t gettin’ your own phone until you’re at least thirteen. But you need to use my phone sometimes, and I don’t wanna be givin’ you passwords and changin’ ’em only to have to give them to you again and change them ’cause I can’t trust you. So, even though you did somethin’ untrustworthy, I still gotta trust you. Which means I gotta make sure my point is made and you get how big this is. So, sorry, kid, but for the next two weeks, you got cleaning the bathroom and mopping the kitchen floor duty and you’re not gonna get paid ten dollars when you do it.”

  He slouched back into the couch.

  “You also keep the kitchen clean and the house picked up, all by yourself. I’ll talk with your gram so she knows when she’s around to leave you to that. You just got two weeks of it and then you’re back to getting an allowance, you do more than your chores. But just need to hammer home you did wrong so you’ll have a few times cleaning the bathroom and doin’ the dishes on your own to think on that. Okay?”

  “Okay, Mom,” he forced out, sounding like it was not okay but definitely getting my message.

  “Okay,” I mumbled, happy that was over because, even if it had to be done, these were also the kinds of times when being a mom sucked.

  I was about to push up but Ethan speaking stopped me.

  “You told me you two weren’t together,” he said in a way that was like an accusation.

  “Honey, straight up, I’m your mom and some stuff is just not your business, and that doesn’t have anything to do with you bein’ a kid and me bein’ grown up. It’s just not your business. But I’ll tell you, at that point, I didn’t lie. Things were kinda changin’ between Merry and me and both of us wanted it, but I was tryin’ to put a stop to it because I got more than just me to look after. Merry broke through and that was partly to do with what you did with those texts and partly to do with what you said to me the other night. But that doesn’t make what you did right.”

  “Okay, then, you told me that Merry was hung up on his old wife. That was, like, a week ago or somethin’. How is he tryin’ to be with you when he’s into someone else?”

  Shit, I did tell him that.

  And, shit again, Ethan had been thinking on things.

  And, more shit, he’d put things together in his little man way.

  And the worst of that shit, I had the same question.

  “And don’t say that’s not my business,” Ethan continued, “because I like Merry and I’m guessin’ you know that since I sent those texts. But now you’re goin’ on a date with him and you said that to me, and I gotta know my mom’s goin’ out with a guy who’s into her, not some other lady.”

  “That’s part of what we talked through today.” I drew in a deep breath and hoped I was giving him the truth, a hope I had for him and for me. “He took time to have a think on things to know where his head was at, and he realized his head was with me. So that’s why I’m goin’ out with him tomorrow, because I like him more than just friends and I believe him when he says he wants to be with me.”

  Ethan stared at me, and he must have believed it too because he nodded.

  I nodded back.

  I had to do my last spritz of perfume and put on my shoes before Mom got there, then I had to chat with her and get to the bar, so I also had to get a move on.

  I got up, about to tell my son we were all good, but as I was finding my feet, he spoke.

  “I know I didn’t do right. I know what I did was bad,” he declared, looking up at me, right in the eye, face set. “I knew it then, but I decided I didn’t care. But you gotta know I thought about it before I did it. I just didn’t do it. You also gotta know that if Merry makes you happy, I’d do it again. I don’t care if it wasn’t right. Because sometimes, Mom, you gotta take chances even if you might be goin’ about it wrong, if what comes out of it is right.”

  “I could argue that logic, baby,” I said softly.

  “Then you’d be wrong,” he returned. “’Cause I’m not stupid. I’m a kid, but I got eyes and I got ears and kids talk. So do parents. I know, Mom.” His voice dipped. “I know you did some things even you thought weren’t right to take care of me. But you did ’em because takin’ care of me was right. So, in the end, they were the right thing, even though other people might think they were wrong.”

  Shit, he had me there.

  “I’m thinkin’ of tradin’ you in for a kid who’s a whole lot more stupid than you,” I announced, and his face cracked, his mouth quirked, and finally he couldn’t fight it anymore and grinned at me.

  I started walking to my bedroom.

  And I did it talking.

  “Right, smart guy, when you win the Nobel Peace Prize, don’t forget your momma in your acceptance speech.”

  “Whatever,” he called to my back, but I knew he did it still grinning.

  I couldn’t help but grin too because that was done and I’d managed to get it done with my kid grinning.

  I hit my room. I did the spritzing thing, strapped on my high heels, and grabbed my leather jacket.

  I walked back out and was collecting my phone and grabbing a pack of Butterfinger Cups to throw in my purse (in case I needed a candy hit during work) when I saw Mom pull up to the curb.

  “Okay, Ethan, I’m outta here. Be good for your gramma,” I said as I went to the door.

  “Lucky for you, you can take it easy at work since you don’t gotta make as many tips because you got free labor since I did somethin’ stupid that still got you a date with the coolest guy in town,” he returned.

  I wanted to be “severe mom” who put the kibosh on her kid being a smartass.

  But the operative part in that was “smart” so I just shot him a smile before I walked out the door.

  I met Mom halfway up the walk.

  “Why’d you want me to come early?” she asked. “And where are you goin’?” She looked to the house and kept at me before I could even answer her first question. “Is Ethan okay?”

  “I needed you to come early so I could tell you that Ethan’s got additional chores, a deal we made because he did somethin’ not right. He’s got kitchen duty and needs to keep the place picked up. He’s had dinner, but if you guys make a mess, it’s up to him to clean it.”

  She looked back at me. “What’d he do?”

  “Think that might be better it’s between him and me for now, Mom,” I told her quietly.

  She’d been at my side with Ethan since I pushed him out, and during the pushing him out part, that was literally. This meant there were things she had with my boy, good and the odd times he was bad. I had the same things. Sometimes, Mom and me shared about those things. Sometimes, for Ethan, we did our own thing so the bad he did didn’t spread and make him feel like a loser.

  It worked for all of us.

  So at that moment, without another word, she nodded.
>
  “Also, before it flies through the ’burg like I know it’s gonna do, want you to know I got a date with Merry tomorrow night.”

  In the shadows cut liberally by my front light, I saw her eyes get huge.

  Now, my mom, even at fifty-six, with a life that didn’t often treat her kind, had never lost hold on her girlie.

  She demonstrated this right then, grabbing my hands and giving a little hop.

  “Oh, my beautiful baby girl, that makes me so happeeeeeeeee.”

  It made me happy too.

  But for me and my mom, since life didn’t often treat us kind, she had to cool it with her expectations.

  “Mom, it’s just a date.”

  She leaned toward me, looking like a girl who just got her hand kissed by David Cassidy.

  “With Garrett.” She leaned back. “He’s very handsome.”

  “I’ve noticed.”

  “He’s also very tall.”

  “I’ve noticed that too.”

  “Girl like you, you got length and you wear heels. Not easy for you to find a man who can top you, you’re wearin’ heels. Worried you’d find a boy and it’d be like Tom Cruise when he was with that pretty Kidman lady. They looked good together but never right. When you two walked into my house last week, holdin’ hands, I thought to myself, that there looks right.”

  “Mom—”

  “Quiet, baby girl, let your mom be happy,” she whispered in a way I snapped my mouth shut.

  She’d never met Dennis Lowe. Not my choice, he’d found excuses not to bury himself deep in my life. Excuses I should have seen as red flags to at least share the fact he was married if not that he was a whackjob.

  And, obviously, me being with Trent didn’t make her happy.

  Garrett Merrick was the kind of man who’d make any mother happy.

  If, of course, she’d never been around when he was keeping a loose hold on losing his motherfucking mind.

  But my mother, I knew, could be around that and want him even more for me.