“D-d-dude—” Ryan stuttered.
“Answer me!” Merry barked.
“Y-yeah,” Ryan whispered.
“Who put you on that job?” Merry asked.
“Merry—” I tried again.
“Shut it, Cher,” he clipped, his eyes not leaving Ryan. “Who put you on that job, Ryan?”
“I…I…n-n-no disrespect, Merrick,” Ryan stuttered, “but the dude who has me on the job would lose his mind, I shared that with anyone.”
Merry stared into his eyes, then pushed him off and Ryan’s chair tipped up on two legs. Ryan threw his arms out, wheeling them as his feet kicked so he wouldn’t slam to his back. He seemed suspended until his chair tipped forward and he was safe.
But I was not.
Because Merry had turned his attention to me.
“You know who’s got Ryan on this job?” he asked.
“Merry—”
“My name is not an answer to my fuckin’ question, Cher,” he bit out. “You know who’s got Ryan on this job?”
I looked into his eyes, my heart taking that moment to kick in, beating too fast.
This was me fucking things up.
I should have told him.
Merry this pissed off was a good deterrent to open sharing about things such as these, though, and if he gave me the opportunity to defend myself when he was calmed down, I would tell him that.
But the fact remained, he was Garrett Merrick. He was a cop, but he was just that guy. That guy who would want to know if someone he cared about was close to something not good. And he was definitely that guy who would want to know if the woman he was seeing and her kid were close to something not good.
Shit.
“Cherie…” he prompted on a sinister whisper.
I drew in breath.
“Ryker,” I told him.
His face turned to stone.
I moved closer to him, though not too close (his face was stone, but he was breathing through his nose in a way that was scary as shit).
I put my hand light to his abs and started talking.
Fast.
“I don’t know anything, honey. I just know Ryker warned me to stay away from the guy. And since he did, when I saw Ryan outside his house tonight, I lost it and called him in to give him a safety lecture.”
“You think, Ryker warned you to stay away from this guy, maybe you should tell your man the likes of Ryker told you to stay away from this guy?” Merry asked.
Okay.
There it was.
Relationship-wise, even though I’d failed the relationship test spectacularly (twice), I still knew right then that where I was with Merry was not a good place to be.
“Well…uh…” I began, carefully starting to pull my hand away from his abs.
I got nothing more out and didn’t even get my hand back because Merry’s shot out. His fingers curled around my wrist, pressing in so my palm was flat against his hard abs.
Normally, I’d enjoy the feel of his hard abs.
His blue ice look, which was freezing me from the inside out, curtailed my enjoyment of his hard abs.
“You’re seeing Merrick?”
This came from Ryan, and we both looked his way to see him staring in shock at me.
I thought his crush was over, what with me leading him to a whackjob serial killer whose chosen weapon was an ax, the resulting blood, gore, horror, computer confiscations, and police interrogations (etc.).
The look on his face said that I’d thought wrong.
“Ryan—”
“Geez, Cher, you might wanna pick up a phone sometime,” he snapped. “It’s not just on Ethan’s birthday and when the Colts make the playoffs that I like to hear from you. You get a decent guy in your life, the least you could do is share so I could come over and we could toast it with a beer or somethin’.”
Whoa. Wrong again.
I blinked at Ryan.
He glared at me.
Okay. Right.
Was he seriously giving me shit about being a bad friend while Merry was about to lose his motherfucking mind?
“You mind if I have a go at her now?” Merry asked Ryan.
Shit.
“Sure,” Ryan magnanimously answered.
Shit!
“Good, then, to finish up with you, the job you’re on just ended,” Merry declared.
Ryan got pale again. “But—”
“The job…you are on…” Merry said slowly, enunciating each word clearly, “just…ended.”
“Right,” Ryan mumbled.
“Go get a beer,” Merry ordered.
“Right,” Ryan repeated on a mumble, shoved back, got up, and scuttled away.
Leaving me with Merry.
That was what I got for being a shit friend who didn’t call her geeky mastermind buddy to share that her love life had taken a turn for the better.
“Cher,” Merry called.
My eyes drifted from Ryan’s back to my guy.
When I caught his, I whispered, “Merry, don’t be pissed. It wasn’t—”
“You make me happy.”
I shut my mouth, my feeling of being freaked about how great things were going as well as being worried Merry was right then ticked at me and I was messing everything up instantly mingled with a feeling that was as giddy as it was warm and squishy.
“I gotta learn to live in the now so I can feel that happy and not think about shit that might or might not happen that’ll fuck with that happy,” he declared.
“Oh…kay,” I said softly, slowly, cautiously, thrilled he seemed to have made a breakthrough with crap that was screwing with his head but wondering why we were on that subject now.
He slid my hand from his hard abs up to rest against his beating heart.
I held my stance and my breath when he dipped his face close to mine.
“Do not do anything stupid that will take away our happy,” he said quietly.
Oh.
Now I got him.
“I worried it wasn’t right, but Ryker—”
“Ryker does not love you in his tee in his kitchen, bitchin’ about his skillet. He does not love to make you laugh. He does not love it when you make him laugh. He might think your kid is the shit but not as much as I do. He probably wouldn’t give a fuck that you’ve decorated your pad for the sole purpose of making Jefferson Airplane comfortable on the off chance they pop by, but I think it’s hilarious and it’s you and I love that too. I could go on. I won’t. What I’ll do is finish by sayin’ it’s best you don’t worry about Ryker when you should be talkin’ to me.”
“Point taken,” I said quietly, all he’d said making me feel giddier, warmer, and squishier.
Merry kept hold of my eyes a beat before he nodded.
“You don’t know anything about this guy?” he asked.
I shook my head but belatedly laid it out. “Just that he’s bad news. Ryker told me to steer clear. I heard him and his woman shouting, and she’d mentioned Carlito. And, well, uh…” I trailed off.
Merry pressed my hand harder against his heart.
He said nothing, but I got his gist.
“He asked me out,” I finished.
Merry stared at me, muttering, “Of course he has.”
“Well, until recently, I have been a dickhead magnet,” I explained.
“No, babe. You’re fuckin’ pretty, you dress great, and you got a fantastic body. Pretty much any guy who has a functioning dick would take one look at you and want in your pants. That’s why he asked you out.”
And Merry gives me more.
“That’s a nice thing to say,” I murmured, even though it wasn’t.
It was a bunch of amazing, awesome things to say.
“I take it you said no,” he noted.
“I’m kinda seeing someone.”
His brows shot together. “This was recent?”
I nodded and added, “He hasn’t been living there very long.”
His head tipped slightly to th
e side. “He hit on you and he’s got a woman?”
“I think they broke up.”
“Mm…” he muttered strangely but said no more.
“Are you gonna go apeshit on me?” I asked, feeling hopeful that, since he hadn’t yet, he wouldn’t.
“No,” he answered.
Good news.
“Are you gonna go apeshit on Ryker?” I went on.
“Absolutely,” he answered.
“Good,” I mumbled, dropping my eyes to my hand on his chest. “I’m pissed he pulled Ryan into whatever he’s got goin’ down. He deserves scary apeshit-Merry.”
“Babe.”
I lifted my eyes back to his.
“We learn a lesson?” he asked.
I was not a big fan of him asking that question with the nuance he thought I was a little girl who needed the big man to educate her.
That said, I’d definitely learned a lesson.
Not to mention, I knew better.
The minute Merry and I became an us, I should have stopped keeping things from him.
“I’ll answer affirmative to that only with the warning that if any future communications hold a nuance of condescension, especially full scale of the same, they will be responded to with knee action requiring hours of ice downs and render our sex life moot for a week,” I declared.
“You got trouble living two doors down,” Merry fired back. “You essentially knew about it. Didn’t tell me about it, even though two seconds after we became an us, the first thing I told you was that you laid that shit on me. And you’re makin’ threats because you think I’m being condescending?”
“Yes.”
He studied me.
Then he grinned as he moved my hand from his heart, curling it around his side as his other arm curled around me, drawing me close.
“It’s good you’re fuckin’ pretty and I’ve been in your pants and liked what I go so want to go back for more or you might get apeshit.”
It seemed like the crisis was averted, which was a relief.
At least for me.
Ryker was another story.
But I figured he could handle himself.
“I need to get back to work,” I told him. “Or to work at all, seeing as I didn’t even start. Ryan showed and I just let ’er rip.”
“Then I best let you go so I can find Ryker and tear him a new asshole.”
“Tear him a bigger one for me.”
He shook his head before he dipped it and touched his mouth to mine.
On the upswing, he muttered, “Came in for a drink with my girl.”
“You’re in luck. I’m a bartender and can see to that,” I replied.
“Can’t have a drink and go out and rip Ryker a new asshole.”
“Do that and then come back and hang with me.”
“She’s bossy even after she fucks up huge.”
I shrugged, being cocky, only because I could.
And again with the happy.
Because I’d fucked up huge; it was true. Merry wasn’t a big fan of me doing that; this was true too.
But it seemed he was big enough to get beyond it.
Or better, he liked me enough to get beyond it.
Or both.
So I could be cocky.
But I also felt happy because this said a lot about Merry, about me, about the relationship we were building. A fuckup like that could have led to a fight that could have torn down some of what we’d built, paving the way for us to tear down more.
Instead, we’d ended it like we’d started it.
Just us.
So yeah, I could be cocky.
And happy.
He studied me as I had these thoughts, ending them with my lips going up in a small smile.
Seeing that, he shook his head again, gave me another mouth touch, then murmured, “Get to work. I’ll be back.”
He started to walk away and I started to follow him, but then he stopped.
I did too.
He twisted to me. “Steer clear of that house, baby.”
Something in his face freaked me.
Shit. Did he already know something was going down at that house?
I didn’t ask. I nodded.
He nodded back, turned around, and kept walking.
Only when he tipped up his chin did I notice Colt leaning against the wall that delineated the pool area from the rest of the bar.
I walked right to Colt, who didn’t move, and stopped.
“Did you call him?” I asked.
“Nope,” he answered. “You barely rounded the corner to get to Ryan when he walked in the front door. I just told him where you were.”
Bad timing.
“Though,” Colt went on, “you plus Ryan equaling disaster, or just Ryan bein’ a dumbass on more than a rare occasion equaling disaster, Merry showin’ saved me from makin’ the call I was just about to make.”
“Traitor,” I muttered, only slightly joking, and made a move to pass him and finally get to work.
“Cher.”
I stopped at his side and looked up at him, raising my brows.
“You mean a lot to me. The pain-in-the-ass little sister I never had,” he announced.
Shit.
More warm and squishy, even with the pain-in-the-ass part.
“Sayin’ that to soften the blow of sayin’ this,” he continued.
Fuck.
“Take your big brother’s advice,” Colt stated. “You’re a tough chick and we all get that. But you hooked your star to a guy who makes a living providing protection. That is not a job. It’s a calling. Do not take that away from him. I don’t give a shit if it’s somethin’ you think is stupid, like fightin’ over who takes out the trash. But definitely shit like this, Cher. You gotta let him have shit like this or you’re not gonna keep him.”
Apparently, Colt had been our audience for a while.
“I thought I was protecting him,” I explained.
“You got that job, babe. Definitely. But when you do that, actually do it. And you aren’t doin’ it, keepin’ anything from him.”
I had noted late in life, after getting Colt in that life, that having a big brother rocked.
Except in times like these when he shared badass wisdom and relationship advice and it compounded the feeling of being an idiot I already felt.
It sucked to admit it was lucky for me he did. I’d already come to this conclusion about how to proceed in a relationship with Merry, but his added wisdom wasn’t entirely unwelcome.
Just mostly unwelcome because it compounded the feeling of me being an idiot.
I powered past that because I had no choice and because the jig was up, and since it was, I had to see to my part of the protection deal with Merry.
“Ryker’s got somethin’ goin’ on with that house, Colt, and I’m not thinkin’ Merry’s gonna be too happy when he finds out what it is.”
“I’ll talk to Mike. I’ll talk to Tanner. We’ll have his back.”
That made me feel better.
“Thanks,” I muttered, again moving to pass him.
“Cher,” he called again.
I stopped on an audible huff and gave him big impatient eyes.
I knew by his dancing he was going to give me shit, but I had no clue how the kind of shit he was going to give me would make me feel.
“You ask anyone else other than me to give you away at your wedding, it’s gonna piss me off.”
All the oxygen evacuated my body. Gone. I couldn’t breathe. And when you can’t breathe, you can’t move. So that’s what happened. I stood there, immobile, not breathing, staring at Colt, thinking of walking down an aisle in a church toward Garrett Merrick.
Since Colt got me and got me good, he smiled huge, moved into me, tossed an arm around my neck, and forced me out of my statue state to walk tucked into his side toward the bar.
“Holy crap, what’d Merry do to her?” Feb asked as we got close.
“Nothin’. I just called givin’ h
er away at her wedding,” Colt declared.
I wheezed.
Feb grinned.
Then she put in her two cents. “I think Ethan should do it.” She looked to her husband. “Merry’ll want you to stand up with him anyway, babe.”
Ethan giving me away.
How perfect would that be?
“Are you serious?” Ryan snapped. “Shit, how long you been seein’ Merrick?”
“My count, officially, they been together just over a week,” Colt shared helpfully.
“Are you serious?” Ryan repeated on another snap, his eyes aimed at me getting squinty. “A week? And you’re getting married? The dude’s a good guy, but are you crazy?”
I pulled my shit together and snapped back, “We’re not getting married. Colt’s just bein’ an asshole.”
Ryan looked somewhat relieved but mostly confused.
I felt Colt gearing up to say something else, so I pulled out of his hold and ordered, “Everyone, shut up about Merry.”
Colt didn’t shut up about Merry.
He declared, “I’m beginning to see how this whole Merry and Cher thing is gonna be fun.”
I shot him a look.
He burst out laughing.
I rolled my eyes.
Luckily, everyone else shut up about Merry.
And I finally got to work.
* * * * *
Garrett
Garrett stood, leaning back against the front of his truck, his eyes to the door of the bar, his phone his ear, wishing he had a goddamned cigarette.
Since he’d quit, he didn’t.
The bar wasn’t J&J’s. It was a bar in Clermont where Ryker liked to do business.
But he knew Ryker wasn’t there because he’d done a walkthrough of the inside and didn’t spot him. He’d also asked the bartender, who wouldn’t say shit on a normal occasion, but she said he hadn’t been around all day and Garrett believed her. And the biggest clue, his Harley wasn’t outside the bar.
Ryker was hardcore. Even in winter, if the roads were clear, the forecast was good, and Ryker had to go somewhere, he was ass to his bike.
Right then, no bike.
That meant no Ryker.
With not a small amount of annoyance, he listened to his phone ring.
It was late. Not too late, but late.
Still, Tanner would be up.
“Yo, brother,” he answered.
“Yo,” Garrett returned. “Need a few minutes.”
“You got ’em.”
“You know where Ryker is now?” Garrett asked.
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