Ready For You

by J. L. Berg

  We’d talked about the future, and I thought that meant our future would be together, but that didn’t mean he wanted to marry me.

  He had wanted to once, but maybe he’d since changed his mind.

  He still might after I finally come clean.

  My panicked eyes turned up to his, and he only smiled.

  “There’s no one else I’d rather have than you, bad cooking and all.”

  I exhaled, and my knees went wobbly. Garrett had a gift of knowing exactly what to say to make my heart take flight. It had been free flying for weeks now.

  “So, you’re saying I am a terrible cook?” I joked.

  He angled downward, his lips hovering over mine in a sly grin. Feeling him this close to me made my shaky knees feel weaker.

  “The worst.” He laughed as he placed playful kisses all over my lips and cheeks.

  After a brief, playful make-out session in the kitchen, involving Garrett licking every bit of batter off my cheeks and chest, he finally saved the day by taking over.

  Within fifteen minutes, the brownies and the first batch of cookies were baking in the oven.

  I stared in wonderment. I was completely amazed and astonished that he could accomplish so much in such a small amount of time—and with no mess. “How did you do that?”

  “I followed the directions on the box. Baby, it’s not that hard.”

  I folded my arms and sulked. “For you maybe.”

  Within the hour, everything was baked, cooled, and packed up. I’d run upstairs and managed to make myself look presentable in a pretty floral sundress that brought out the subtle red highlights in my dark locks and the blue of my eyes.

  “Forget brownies. I want to eat you,” Garrett growled as I joined him back downstairs.

  “That can be arranged…later,” I teased.

  “Not funny.”

  “Come on, we need to get going, or we’ll never make it.”

  His eyes lingered, taking in every curve of my body in my brightly colored dress. “I’d be okay with that. I don’t think they’d miss us too much.”

  I rolled my eyes as I took his hand and pulled him toward the door. He dragged his feet but reluctantly came, making sure to grab the goodies by the door before we left.

  I’d never been to Leah and Declan’s house. Since Leah and I had become such close friends, I tried not to think of her husband as a famous movie star, but when we pulled up to their driveway, it was difficult. Their house was massive and beautiful. It had perfectly landscaped lawns and flower beds, a beautiful brick exterior, and a white picket fence. A large wide lot gave them privacy and room to let the children run.

  After we made our way up the walkway, Garrett didn’t bother knocking at the front door. He just turned the knob and walked in like he owned the place. I guessed family could do that. Leah and Declan’s house was regal and sophisticated from the outside, but once we entered, I immediately felt at home. Inviting, warm colors and soft, plush fabric made the large spaces feel intimate and cozy. Children’s artwork hung from the walls, and toys were shoved in every corner in an effort to keep things tidy. It screamed family, and I could see bits of my new friend scattered everywhere.

  “Hey, Goober!” Leah greeted us as we entered the kitchen.

  She was putting the final touches on a salad, and Clare was drinking a glass of wine while sitting at the counter.

  “I really hate that nickname,” Garrett grumbled, causing the three of us to burst out laughing.

  “I think it’s adorable.” I placed a sweet kiss on his cheek.

  The gesture didn’t go unnoticed by Leah and Clare, and I saw them share a quick grin of satisfaction.

  “Garrett, the guys are outside, pretending like they know how to use a grill. Why don’t you go out there and help them?” Clare suggested.

  He gave me a sideways glance, and I smiled in approval even though I wanted to hurl. I’d become comfortable and close with Leah. I could handle her blunt personality and witty humor. Clare was a wild card, and I didn’t know how she would react to me without Garrett around.

  “Okay, but be nice,” he warned.

  Leah and Clare put on their best innocent faces. Garrett only grunted in response, shaking his head, as he made his way out of the kitchen. He slipped out the sliding glass door, and I heard a bunch of manly greetings follow. I stood quietly and pretended to be highly interested in the curtains and beige wall color.

  This is not at all awkward.

  “You think we’re going to interrogate you, don’t you?” Clare asked, amusement flickering in her emerald eyes.

  “Kind of,” I answered honestly.

  “Oh, please,” Leah answered. “We just wanted to thank you.”

  Shocked senseless, I managed to ask, “Why?”

  “For giving us our brother back,” Leah answered. “Since you returned, he’s found his way back to the living. He smiles, he laughs, and he’s not holed up in his office twenty-four hours a day.”

  “But aren’t you mad that it was my fault he became that way in the first place?” I asked.

  Both Leah and Clare spoke at once, but Clare took the lead. “We all make decisions, Mia. I don’t know what led you away from my brother, but I do know he chose to live the way he did. No one made him put his life on hold and wait for you. That was his own decision. It was painful to watch, but in the end, I think it was the right one.”

  “All that matters is that we have you both back,” Leah added.

  “Thank you.”

  They both nodded, and Leah laughed. “Okay, now that we have that out of the way, let’s hug it out and then uncork some more wine!”

  We ended up huddled together, laughing and hugging and shedding a few tears.

  I knew how much these two had gone through with the death of Clare’s father and how much they still must be hurting. Garrett would put on a good face, but there were still times I’d catch him looking sad and distant, and I would know he was thinking about his father. I would try to be there for him as much as possible for I knew it wasn’t easy—for any of them. Yet, here they were in the midst of their grief, embracing me as one of their own, and I couldn’t thank them enough.

  Garrett came in and found the three of us in tears.

  “Hey, I told you to be nice! Why is she crying?” he asked, coming quickly to my side.

  “Happy tears,” I simply said.

  “Oh. Well, good. I wasn’t looking forward to kicking Leah’s ass.”

  “Because you know I’d win,” she shot back with a wicked grin.

  “Damn straight. You’re fucking psycho.”

  ~Garrett~

  Spending time with my family with Mia by my side only made our new bond even stronger in my eyes. She was cementing herself into my life, laughing and crying with my sister and Leah and joking with the guys. She’d sat down and spent time with my mother, and when I saw them hug toward the end, my chest tightened with overwhelming emotion.

  The entire day was filled with emotions as we had our first family event without my father. Leah and Declan had done a wonderful thing for our family by offering to host the end-of-the-summer party. It was something my parents had always done, and we’d all known my mom wouldn’t be able to go through with it on her own. Each of us felt the loss of my father everywhere. There was a silence where his boisterous laugh used to fill the entire backyard when he’d tell a joke or chase around the grandkids while growling like a grizzly bear. His absence was like a gaping void, reminding us of what we’d lost.

  As each of us sat down to eat, everyone had become eerily quiet. The children still made noise, but all of the adults had fallen strangely silent.

  “I know this is difficult,” my mom finally said, breaking the silence, “but this is exactly the way he’d want us to carry on. Life without him is so very hard, but we all still have each other, and that needs to be celebrated.”

  Everyone agreed, and eventually, the dinner took a turn. We were soon talking and filling the ba
ckyard with laughter again. It sounded different without him there, but life had to move on even if we weren’t quite ready.

  Later on, we all started saying our good-byes. We thanked Leah and Declan for taking the reins and continuing our family tradition at their house. We knew this was the first of many family traditions we’d have to reevaluate now that Dad was gone.

  “Maybe we can have the next family get-together at your place,” Leah whispered in my ear before giving me a secret grin.

  I shook my head and rolled my eyes. She’d never stop meddling with Mia and me, not until the ink was dry on our marriage license and she’d escorted us to our honeymoon suite. I wasn’t even sure she’d stop then.

  As Mia and I headed home, an idea came, and I suddenly turned down the next street.

  “Where are we going?” she asked.

  “Somewhere we haven’t been in a long time.”

  It took a bit of time to find. I got turned around several times, and all the streets looked the same. Eventually, I found it and parked. We both got out of the car, and I grabbed an old blanket from the trunk before we quietly walked down the beaten trail to the place where it had all started.

  “It hasn’t changed,” she said softly, taking in the panoramic view of the river.

  I laid the blanket down on the soft earth. “Some things don’t,” I reminded her, wrapping my hands around her waist to draw her hips closer to mine.

  She nuzzled up to me, and I softly kissed her forehead.

  “Do you think we would have made it?” she asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “If things hadn’t happened the way they did and we’d done everything we said we were going to do in high school. Do you think we would have survived?”

  I tilted her chin upward, and she stared back at me.

  “I think we can survive anything,” I answered. Gently cupping her head, I kissed her lips softly.

  This time, when I made love to her next to the river bank we used to call our own, I knew just how precious she was. The first time I’d told her I loved her was at this very spot, but I hadn’t realized just how far I had truly fallen. Letting my hands and mouth slide over every inch of her body, I worshipped her, knowing exactly the depths of my love. I’d lost her once, but I would never lose her again. She was my life.

  We took our time leaving that night, redressing each other slowly. We watched the moonlight dance across the rushing water, and then we quietly folded up the blanket and made our way back to the car. I opened the car door, and she moved to get in, but then I stopped her. I had this overwhelming need to kiss her at this spot, just one last time. My hand cradled her head as I brought my lips to hers.

  “I love you, Mia,” I said softly.

  “I love you, too, Garrett—always,” she vowed.

  I held her hand as I drove back to her house. I hoped it would become our house one day. It was large enough to last us for years, and as we spent more and more time fixing it up together, I felt like we were finally fulfilling one of those dreams we’d had as kids.

  “So, you can fix cars. Can you do anything else?” she teased.

  I rolled out from under the car. She watched me from across my parents’ garage as I stood up and wiped the grease from my hands. I threw the towel down, took a few steps and quickly cornered her.

  “Oh, I assure you, I can do all sorts of things,” I said with a cocky grin.

  “You’re evil, Garrett Finnegan!” She laughed. “I was being serious.”

  “So was I.”

  She raised her eyebrow and gave me a look that said I was being ridiculous.

  “Okay,” I said, throwing my hands up in surrender. “I can do all sorts of things with my hands.”

  She laughed and smacked me on the head.

  “Ouch! I was being serious! It’s not my fault you keep thinking dirty thoughts of me. I was talking about fixing things. My dad always asks for my help around the house, so I’ve gotten pretty good at being handy.”

  “So, you’ll be able to buy me a big, old house and fix it up one day?” she asked with a big grin on her face.

  “No, we’ll buy the house and fix it up—together.”

  Her eyes softened, and she gave me a small kiss. “Deal.”

  “Why are you so quiet over there?” she asked.

  I pulled up to the curb. “Just remembering when you asked me to buy you a big, old house and fix it up for you, like you were a princess.”

  “I am a princess,” she insisted. Her mouth twitched as she tried to keep a straight face.

  We got out of the car.

  “Is that why you wanted to paint your bathroom pink?” I joked.

  “It was not pink. It was a dusty red!”

  “Baby, it was pink.”

  “It was not!” She laughed.

  Our laughter halted when we reached the porch. The front door was unlocked, and the lights were on inside.

  “Did you leave it unlocked?” I asked, knowing she never did.

  Mia was many things, but reckless was not one of them.

  “No, I didn’t. Maybe Liv came by and left it open? She has a key.”

  Liv would never have been so careless, and she certainly wouldn’t have left the lights on. That was a criminal offense in her mind. I pushed over the plant that covered Mia’s hidden key and found it missing. I suddenly felt uneasy, and I had an overwhelming urge to throw Mia over my shoulder, turn, and run.

  “Go get in the car, Mia,” I turned around and whispered.

  “No, it’s my house. I’m going with you,” she insisted, folding her arms and giving me the Mia equivalent of the death stare.

  I weighed my options for a half a second and seriously contemplating the throwing over the shoulder routine, but knew I’d be flayed alive for it. So instead, I pushed forward, pulling her behind me for protection. She could complain about equal rights all she wanted, but I was still sticking her behind me.

  We entered slowly and quietly. Sam met us at the door, wagging his tail and panting with excitement.

  Some guard dog you are.

  I looked toward the kitchen and saw nothing. We rounded the corner to the living room and found our intruder. The man rose from the couch as we entered, and his eyes immediately focused on me, narrowing as if he were sizing me up. He looked nothing like a burglar with his expensive clothes and country-club looks, but I wasn’t taking any chances. I turned to tell Mia to run, but she was frozen in place at the sight of the man invading her living room.

  “Aiden?” She said it so soft, it was almost a whisper.

  “Amelia,” he breathed out in relief.

  I pivoted back around to her in utter confusion. “Is this your boss?” I asked, remembering the name from the bouquet of flowers she’d received.

  As I watched her face morph into pure horror, I realized the truth. This was not her boss.

  “Mia, who is this guy?” I asked, trying to keep myself from leaping across the room to tear him apart.

  He was staring at her with a look of pure adoration and affection. There was emotional history there. My fists tightened at my sides, and I instantly saw red. I didn’t want anyone looking at her that way.

  “Who am I?” he asked, his eyes brimming with anger. “I’m her fiancé. Who the hell are you?”

  I felt physical pain from his words, and my hand flew up to my chest as my heart convulsed. I turned to her for some sort of sign that this was a joke, but all I saw were tears. Her silence told me everything I needed to know.

  “Who am I? I’m no one,” I answered before walking out the door.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  ~Garrett~

  Fiancé.

  The word had rattled around in my brain like a runaway ping-pong ball since the night I ran out of Mia’s house almost a week ago. It was like a broken record on an endless loop, repeating over and over in my head, until I thought I might go mad from the constant repetition.

  That singular word would be my first
thought when I woke up with sweat dripping down my back from once again reliving the terror of losing her in my sleep. That horrible word would silently torment me as I buried myself in work, desperately trying to forget the past three months of my life. Drifting off to sleep, it would be the last thought I had along with the image of her tear-stained face following me when I’d walked out her front door.

  She’d tried to call me. Hell, she’d tried to contact me by using every modern means of communication there was, but I hadn’t responded to a single one.

  She hadn’t run after me that night, begging me to come back inside and swearing it wasn’t true.

  No, she’d let me go and stayed with him—the fiancé.

  She’d lied to me. For three months, she’d done nothing but lie to me.

  Yet, my traitorous heart ached for her, and my body begged to be near her again.

  I’d stormed out of her house that night and sped down the street, anger surging through every molecule in my body, and I’d just driven with no particular destination in mind. I’d driven until I found myself in the empty parking lot of the cemetery where we’d buried my father just a few weeks earlier.

  I’d pulled myself out of my car and absently walked the short distance to my family’s plot where my father’s grave was now, still freshly packed with dirt and marked with a temporary nameplate. My brother-in-law, Ethan, rested nearby.

  I didn’t know why I had gone there. I had just wanted to be close to my father. I’d knelt down on the soft, dewy grass next to where his body was buried, and I’d listened to the crickets chirp and frogs croak while I’d silently screamed inside.

  Now, a week later, I was sitting at work, and I still felt exactly the same. My phone vibrated on the top of my desk, shaking me out of my thoughts. I leaned back in my office chair and picked it up to see another text message from Mia.

  Please, Garrett. Call me. Let me explain.

  I ignored it, just like I’d ignored all the others, as I shoved my phone in my desk drawer.