Liz grins and looks at us. “I’ve been driving him crazy. It’s all I talk about—”
“—from the moment we wake up till the moment we fall asleep,” Charlie says, finishing her sentence. “A church, a library, a museum…”
“There are just so many options!” says Liz. “And the venue sets the tone for the whole wedding, so it’s the most important decision we’re going to make. Isn’t it, babe?”
Charlie nods dutifully.
I glance over at Garrett again. He still looks miserable. I hear a little cry come from the carrier next to me, and I look down to see that Dylan’s awake. The crying grows, and within seconds, it’s a full-blown wail.
Garrett and I move to huddle around the carrier.
“I think he might be hungry,” I say. “Did you bring that squeezy fruit pack?”
Garrett starts digging through the bag next to the chair, and emerges triumphantly with the fruit pack. It’s mashed apples, peaches and pears—Dylan’s favorite.
I feel my friends watching as Garrett and I tend to Dylan’s needs. Garrett hands me a spoon, and I squeeze the mashed fruit out onto it. Dylan is flailing his arms around, his face scrunched up and red as he cries, but the minute I wave the food in front of his face, he starts to calm down. He opens his little mouth and smacks his lips together. I slip the spoon in and he slurps up the fruit.
“There, there,” I whisper. “That’s good, hmm? Yummy yummy.”
Dylan makes a happy sound and opens his mouth for more. I fill the spoon, and he waves his hands around with glee. Then, as I move the spoon towards his mouth, he swings his hand up, against the spoon.
Fruit mush flies off of the spoon, and straight onto Garrett—who is leaning in to fasten a bib around Dylan’s neck.
“Oh, shoot!” I say.
I look at Garrett. There is mashed fruit dripping in a big glob from his hair.
My friends, behind us, break out into laughter. I feel myself start to laugh, too, but then I see the look on Garrett’s face.
He’s not laughing.
His face is beet red. He reaches up and tries to wipe the baby food away. It’s dripping down his forehead, now, and as he wipes it away, it only smears more against his skin.
“Here,” I say, reaching for a napkin. I want to help, but he backs up before I can.
“I’m going to go clean up,” he mutters.
He turns and walks away, and I’m left holding the napkin. Dylan is hitting the side of his carrier. His fists make a soft little smacking sound when they hit the plastic. He’s asking for more.
I keep feeding him, and my friend’s laughter dies down as they become distracted by some new topic of conversation.
When Dylan finishes his food, I clean him up and then give him his pacifier. He’s content once again, and I know that within minutes, he’ll probably drift off into another hour-long nap.
At least fifteen minutes have passed, and Garrett still isn’t back from the bathroom. I keep looking at the dining area’s exit, waiting for him to reappear.
He doesn’t.
Finally, I can’t take it anymore. Where is he? I ask Liz to watch Dylan so that I can go check on him. I’m walking to the bathroom when I spot a small outdoor seating area and, learning against one of the stone walls, Garrett.
I stop in my tracks and relief pours through me. I walk over to him.
“I thought you might have left,” I say quietly.
“You think I would just leave you here without saying something?” he asks.
“That’s what you did, that first night,” I say.
He shakes his head. “I’m not that man anymore,” he says.
“I thought…I thought you might have been upset about the baby food in your hair.”
Garrett chuckles and reaches to touch his hair. “I washed it out,” he says.
It’s so good to hear his laughter. Maybe he’s not as upset as I thought he was. He’s really not the same man that I met at the bar, more than a year ago. Becoming a father has changed him.
“Why didn’t you come back in?” I ask. “You don’t like it there, do you?”
He glances over at the building’s interior. We’re the only ones in the outdoor area, and it’s quiet and calm. But inside, glowing golden lights illuminate the crowd of guests. Polite chatter and the clinking of glasses bubbles through the open door, reminding us of how stuffy and formal the evening has been.
“It’s not exactly…a scene I’m used to,” Garrett says. “This is the nicest restaurant I’ve ever been to in my entire life, actually.”
“We can leave, if you want,” I say. I don’t want him to feel uncomfortable.
Again, he shakes his head. “That’s not why I’m out here,” he says. He reaches for my hand and pulls me in, closer to him.
“Valerie…being here is making me think. I don’t want to embarrass you. I don’t want you to feel ashamed when you try to explain our relationship.”
“Garrett…I’m not.”
“You are,” he says. “I see it, when you talk to your friends. You can’t hide things from me, Valerie. I know you too well.”
This sends shivers up my spine. We have become so close. Until my maternity leave ended, we were spending every day together.
I sigh. “Okay, it is kind of…confusing, what we have going on. I mean, I enjoy it. I love what we have. But when I try to explain it to others, I start to feel confused.”
“I don’t want you to feel confused,” he says.
He lifts my hand up to face and places his lips on the back of my palm. He looks deeply into my eyes as he kisses my hand. I feel myself melting.
“Valerie,” he says. “Remember when we were in your kitchen, and you said that we weren’t dating?”
I nod. How could I forget the morning when Garrett opened up to me, for the first time?
“You said that it wasn’t off of the table. Is it…is it still? Is it still an option?”
My heart drops into my stomach. I don’t know how I expected for Garrett and me to move to the next level in our relationship, but I never thought that it would be in such a formal manner. I feel as giddy and nervous as if he’s proposing to me.
“I—Garrett—what are you saying?”
“I want you to be my girl, Valerie. I want to be your boyfriend. I want to make this official.”
“Official?” I stammer.
“That’s what I said.” He’s watching me carefully.
I swallow. He’s so handsome. These past few weeks, I’ve become accustomed to the feel of his body next to mine, but now, in this new capacity, I’m once again hyperaware of how it feels to stand next to him.
He’s become a steady presence in my life. A shoulder to lean on. A friend. A partner, when it comes to raising Dylan. He’s even been a lover, in the past.
But he’s never been my boyfriend.
“I think we make a good couple,” I say. A grin spreads across my lips. He pulls me in, looping his arms around my waist and lower back.
“I agree,” he says. And then, he kisses me.
I turned twenty-eight last month. Garrett, he’s told me, turned thirty in August. Tonight, out here on this balcony, I feel like we’re two teenagers who have just agreed to go steady.
It’s just a label we’re putting on our already wonderful relationship, but as we head back into the restaurant hand in hand, I feel like everything is different. We rejoin my friends, and Garrett circles his arm around his shoulder. He lets it rest there as we introduce ourselves back into the conversation.
Garrett is standing a little bit taller. I think our new status makes him feel more at home here, in this crowd. I know that it’s making me feel better.
Funny, what words can do. For the first time, I appreciate their power.
He’s still Garrett. He’s still the same man. But now, when I introduce him, I can call him my boyfriend.
When we arrive home from the dinner, around ten, Garrett lowers Dylan into his crib. We’ve p
ositioned it in my bedroom, off to one side of the bed. It barely fits between the bed and wall, but it fits. Once Dylan is all tucked in, Garrett looks over at me.
“Are you going to bed, too?” he asks.
We’re dating, now. Does that change our sleeping arrangements?
I bite my lip. “I don’t think I’m tired quite yet,” I say.
There’s a twinkle in his eye. “Good,” he says. “Me, either. Now that we’re dating…maybe we could hang out on the couch for a while? Watch a movie?”
I nod.
Two hours later, curled on the couch at Garrett’s side, with his arms around me, I fall asleep, blissfully happy.
The next day is Thanksgiving. The benefits of being Garrett’s girlfriend are never-ending. For the first time since Garrett started staying over at the apartment, my mom is actually being nice to him.
It’s such a relief. I know she was just being protective of me and my emotions, but her coldness towards Garrett was starting to drive me batty.
When I tell her that Garrett is now my boyfriend, she seems to relax.
“Finally,” she says. “I don’t know what you two were thinking, trying to keep things platonic.” She’s peeling carrots, and I’m stirring cream and butter into a large pot filled with boiled potatoes.
“Mom, you wouldn’t get it,” I say. “You and dad grew up in another era. The dating scene was completely different than it is now.”
“It was better,” she says. “There was none of this wishy-washy, complicated stuff. Couples were either going steady, or not. That’s it.”
I laugh. I’ve been in a good mood all day.
My mom and I have always done Thanksgiving together. My dad used to be there, as well as my mother’s parents, who lived in the area. But since my grandma and grandpa passed away, and my father followed three years ago, it’s just been my mom and me.
We stopped cooking. First, it was little things that we stopped doing. Instead of making mashed potatoes from scratch, we bought instant in a box. Since neither of us ever ate rolls, we skipped them altogether. We simplified our vegetable sides until it turned into just a bagged salad, and next, we transitioned to buying already-roasted turkey from the grocery store instead of cooking it ourselves.
But this year, we’ve pulled out all the stops.
It’s Dylan’s first Thanksgiving, after all. Plus, I think both of us want to serve a great feast to Garrett. I’ve told my mother about his foster-care upbringing, and she feels the urge to nurture him just as I do.
The oven timer goes off, so I take a break from stirring the potatoes and open the oven. I baste the turkey, being careful to keep my face far enough from the billowing clouds of fragrant steam that waft from the hot interior.
It smells so good.
“Be sure to get the sides,” my mom reminds me.
I’m busy trying to avoid the steam and baste when I hear Garrett’s voice. I look up, away from my work. He’s joined us in the kitchen. He’s holding Dylan in one arm, and he has a beer in the other hand. He’s smiling, looking at me with so much love.
“How’s it going in here?” he asks. “I smelled something so good, I had to come investigate.”
“That would be the turkey,” I say, returning his smile. “I think we have about an hour to go still. Think you’ll make it?”
“Oh, I’ll make it,” he says. “It’s this little guy who’s getting impatient.”
I laugh. “Don’t try to blame your son!” I say.
My mom laughs at our conversation, then joins in. “Here, Garrett…have a bite of this. It’s my mother’s stuffing recipe with Italian sausage.”
“Mmm…” Garrett says. He sets his beer on the counter top and reaches for a spoon to try the stuffing.
I turn back to my basting and finish coating the bird with gravy. Just as I’m closing the oven, a second timer goes off. This one is on my cellphone, and I completely forget what it is for. I look at my mother. We both have blank stares for a minute, and then she holds a finger up.
“That was for the rolls!” she says. “The dough is done rising. We have to shape them into the muffin tin.”
I haven’t finished the mashed potatoes yet, so I look over at Garrett. “Think you can stir with one hand, and hold Dylan in the other?” I ask.
“Then what hand will I eat with?” he asks with a teasing look in his eye. I know he’s being sarcastic, so I carry the bowl of potatoes over to him.
“Just work on getting the lumps out,” I say.
He still has Dylan in one arm, and I can’t help but lean in and kiss my son on his cheek. Dylan’s cheeks are round and he seems to have a constant smile on his face. I hope that this Thanksgiving will be a good one for him.
I know that it is, already, for me. It’s the best Thanksgiving I’ve ever had.
As I move to the fridge to take out the dough for our rolls, I glance at my mother and Garrett. It’s not just me—I think we’re all having our best Thanksgiving ever.
We’ve become a family.
Chapter 16
Garrett
I wake up in bed with Valerie. We’ve been spending the nights together these past few days, since Thanksgiving passed. Dylan’s crib is now out in the living room, and we purchased a monitor so that we can hear his sounds in the night.
At first, I think I may have woken up because of a sound from Dylan’s crib. I focus my attention on the soft, purring static of the monitor, waiting for the next coo or wail.
I hear nothing but static.
Valerie is asleep next to me, in the nude. Her arm is across my chest, her head nestled in next to my neck. Everything is as it should be. So, then, why did I wake up?
It’s barely getting light out…far too early for a natural morning wake-up. These days, Valerie and I are both so exhausted by the end of the day, and sleep is so precious, that we usually take all that we can get. Her alarm always goes off at six thirty, and it always feels too early.
I reach for my phone to see what time it is. Five thirty.
I have a new text message. Maybe that’s what woke me up. With a twinge to my gut, I realize that the message is from Clint.
As I stare at my phone, thinking of a way I can put off messaging my boss back, another text comes in, and then another. The message-alert sound is loud, but despite the beeping sounds, Valerie keeps breathing softly.
I shift in the bed more and manage to extract myself without waking her. I walk to the living room and check on Dylan, who’s also sleeping soundly. I don’t want to wake him with the sounds from my phone, either, so I move down the hallway and then out the front door. The late November morning air has a chill to it, reminding me how much time has passed since I first showed up at Valerie’s door.
All those weeks ago, back in early October, I let my boss know that I would be unavailable for a while. I told him six weeks, max, and he okayed my absence. But over the past two weeks, he’s been texting me every day, asking me when I’ll be back.
I flip open the small cellphone and scroll through his messages. Apparently, he has urgent work for me. Everything is urgent for this guy.
Over the past month, I’ve learned a few things about setting stress and anxiety aside. I’ve learned what it feels like to feel happy and relaxed. My boss, on the other hand, seems to have never learned those lessons.
I stare at the messages. At one point in my life, the thought of a new target and mission would have excited me. I’d feel excited to do what I do best: track and kill bad guys. It was what I was trained to do in the Navy. It was what I was skilled at.
But now, I’ve found out that I have other skills, too. I’m learning to nurture life, not impose death. I’m learning how to support Valerie—how to show her love and affection. I’m learning to be a good father and a good boyfriend.
I don’t want to take the job.
Before I can figure out what to say in response to my boss’s text, the phone rings. I know that it’s him, the impatient bastard.
“What’s up, Clint?” I say.
When he speaks, it’s through that damn voice distorter. His words are slightly garbled, as if he’s underwater. The tone is deep and artificial.
“Garrett, I have work for you. You didn’t respond to my messages.”
“I’m still tied up with some family stuff,” I say.
“Well, you’d better get yourself untied, because this job can’t wait.”
“Clint, I don’t…I don’t want the work.”
I hadn’t planned on saying this, in such definite terms, just yet. I thought I might need more time to think, but the words just come out. And they feel right. I’m ready to let go of this gig. I no longer feel attached to killing bad guys. I have a new purpose, now.
There’s a pause on the other end of the line, and then, thick, syrupy laughter pours through the phone speaker.
“You think you can just stop working for me, just like that?” the voice says. “As if this is an office job, and you’ve just put in your two weeks’ notice?” He laughs some more.
“Listen, Clint,” I say. “I can decide to do whatever I want. You can’t force me to do anything.”
“Garrett…you have no idea what I’m capable of. Listen to me carefully. I respect you. I’ve seen your work. I have enjoyed using your skills to my advantage.”
I wait for the other shoe to drop. He pauses before laying it on me. I can hear his heavy breathing, which for some reason makes me picture an overweight man, sitting in a dark room and smoking a cigar.
“I make the decisions, Garrett. I’ll tell you when you can stop working for me. Do you understand?”
My blood is starting to boil. I don’t like the way he’s talking to me. But I also know what kind of a man I’m dealing with. Even in war, there are rules and laws. I know that Clint works well beyond the laws that society has established. I’ve seen what he’s willing to do. Hell, I’ve done his dirty work for him. I don’t want to be on the other end of his lawless wrath.
Secret Daddy Surprise - A Secret Baby Romance (Once a SEAL, Always a SEAL Book 4) Page 11
