I swallowed so I could laugh without choking.
I did it thinking, this is how it feels…happy.
Outside many miraculous moments with my son, which were all about lucking out by having a kid as awesome as Ethan, I had no clue.
I had no clue just sitting across from the guy who did it for you at a booth in a diner could make you so…fucking…happy.
But it did because that was what I felt, sitting with Merry, trading smartass back and forth, and eating fantastic sandwiches.
Just that.
And that’s all I felt.
Fucking happy.
* * * * *
“Shit.”
It was Wednesday evening. Darryl was behind the bar with me. He was yanking out the bins full of recyclables in order to clean them out.
When he cursed, I looked to him to see he was bent to his task but his head was tipped back, his eyes were at the front of the bar, and his face was set to displeased.
I looked that way and felt my body get tight.
She’d timed it meticulously. I was a chick so I knew that to be true. Just after six on a weekday, the bar was full of patrons who wanted to get loose after their day by throwing back a drink.
She was there at that moment because she wanted an audience. She wanted people to know she’d thrown down with me. She might even be wanting to save face.
And if she thought Merry was testing her, she wanted that shit to get back to Merry.
As for me, I was pissed she was there. I was pissed she was there with her eyes locked to me and her expression telling me where this was going. I was pissed she was bringing this to my place of work.
But I was also curious.
Not only at what she was going to say but because Tanner Layne was there to witness it. Tanner was sitting at the end of the bar in what looked to be a debrief work huddle with his buddy Devin.
They’d both been in since things with Merry and me started officially (and even when it was unofficial). I knew they both knew what was going on, Tanner probably more than anybody.
But in that time, they hadn’t treated me any differently.
Tanner liked me. We were buds.
That said, I knew Tanner had pushed Merry to get back with Mia. And he was too good of a guy to let me know to my face that he thought Merry was making a mistake with me.
Now, if that was the case or if it wasn’t, if Mia forced something, whatever that was might be unleashed.
“Cheryl.” I heard snapped, and I stopped thinking all this and focused on Mia, who’d positioned herself at the bar where there were two vacant seats.
As I did this, I noted I wasn’t the only one focused on Mia at the bar. The entire place was almost silent because everyone was focused on Mia at the bar.
“Cher.”
That was growled angrily from behind me.
I twisted my neck and looked up to see Darryl right at my back.
“I’m good, Darryl,” I told him.
Just his eyes shifted down to me.
“And I’m good standin’ right here, makin’ sure you’re good,” he returned.
Seriously, Darryl was all right.
“Fine,” Mia bit out, and I turned my attention back to her. “Cher.”
I moved closer to her at the bar and decided to start out by playing dumb.
“You need a drink, Mia?”
“No, I don’t need a goddamned drink,” she spat. “I need you to leave my man alone.”
I sighed.
Definitely making a statement she wanted to get back to Merry.
“And I need you to know I’ll fight for him if you make me,” she went on.
“Listen, babe, I’m at work. Can we not do this here?” I requested, then added, “Or, say, at all?”
“You need to understand the way things are.”
That meant no.
I still could not engage (even if I wanted to).
“Okay, I understand,” I told her. “Now, do you want a drink?”
At that, she seemed confused, probably because she was expecting a different response from me.
“Woman, this is a bar,” Darryl entered the conversation when she hesitated one-point-five seconds. “You’re in here, you drink. You don’t drink, you’re not in here.”
“No offense,” Mia said to him. “But I’m not talking to you.”
“Don’t care if you are or if you aren’t,” Darryl returned. “Fact remains, you’re here, you drink.”
“I have a few things to say to Cher,” Mia retorted.
“You said ’em,” Darryl shot back. “Now order a drink or gonna hafta ask you to leave.”
Mia decided she was done with Darryl and looked to me. “Everyone knows he’s mine. The whole town knows. They don’t want the likes of you for him. They want him for me.”
Shit, now she was making me mad.
“The likes of me?” I asked, though I shouldn’t have. I was keeping it together. I didn’t need to give her the ammunition to make me lose it.
She looked me up and down. “You know what you are.”
Yeah, she was making me mad.
With effort, I beat it back and nodded. “I know what I am. I know Merry likes what I am. And I really don’t give a shit what everyone knows or wants for Merry. Merry wants me and that’s good enough for me.”
“Merry doesn’t know what he wants,” she fired back.
Christ, she was annoying.
“He doesn’t?” I asked sarcastically. “Weird. He seemed pretty sure Thursday night. And Friday morning. And Saturday.”
As I meant to do, I got in there. I knew it when her admittedly pretty face twisted and she didn’t look so pretty.
“I’m sure he did,” she hissed. “What you forget is you weren’t the first he was sure he wanted, though I bet with all your on-the-job experience, you gave it good.”