Garrett (28 page)

“Then why are you headed in one direction and she’s headed in another?” he asks amiably.

“Because I declined her invitation to get back together.”

Alex stops dead in his tracks, and I turn to look at him. “You did what?”

“I declined. Not interested.”

“Are you a fucking moron?” he asks incredulously. “Do you know how hard that must have been for her to lay herself out on the line like that?”

Taking a step toward Alex, I poke my finger in his chest and snarl, “Do you know how badly she fucking hurt me? Stomped on the trust I had in her? It’s not something I can overlook.”

“You
are
a fucking moron,” he sneers right back at me, giving me a poke in my chest in retaliation. “Yeah…she made a mistake. A huge, stupid mistake. But she realized it. She owned up to it. She apologized. And as much as you want to stay angry with her, and as ludicrous as her actions were, you can’t deny they came from a place of love. It didn’t come from hate, indifference, or selfishness. She did it because she thought it was best for you. She did it because she loves you. And if you’re going to throw that all away because your stubborn pride can’t seem to shake it off, then, yeah…you are a fucking moron.”

Every single one of his words slam into me…causing more guilt to eat at me and shame to prickle at my skin. I look past Alex’s shoulder…back to the area of the parking lot where I had just left Olivia. She’s gone.

I look back at Alex, and because I can’t admit to being the fool, I carelessly shrug and say, “Oh, well…looks like I’m a moron.”

Turning away from him, I head to my car once again and call out over my shoulder, “Catch ya later.”

Where are you?
I text Stevie as the nurse fiddles with my IV bag. He had dropped me off at the front door of Dr. Yoffman’s clinic twenty minutes ago, telling me he was going to park the car and would be right in behind me.

He doesn’t respond to my text, and I assume maybe he’s on an important phone call or something.

“You’re over the hump now,” the nurse says to me with a smile. “It’s all downhill.”

Yup. I’m starting my fourth treatment, and I’m more than halfway through my battle to put this cancer into remission.

“You want something to drink?” she asks me as she steps away from the IV stand.

“I’m good,” I tell her with a smile and I flip open a magazine. I stare blankly at the first page, trying to muster up some interest, but my mind keeps wandering back to Garrett.

I wish Stevie would hurry up and get here so I can bend his ear some more. Since that disastrous conversation with Garrett last week, I’ve been pumping Stevie for information, because I know they are still talking. But Stevie won’t indulge me. While he patiently listened to me at work the day after Garrett blew me off, and even rubbed my shoulders soothingly, he wasn’t overly sympathetic to my plight. I sort of expected him to be as exasperated with Garrett as I was…proclaiming to anyone who would listen that he was being a hardheaded, stubborn fool.

The most I got from Stevie was a final pat on the head and a cryptic “It will all work out for the best.”

It will all work out for the best?

Seriously…those were the best words of comfort my bestie had for me?

Ridiculous, but what could I do? Stevie was apparently of the opinion that I had made my bed, and I could at least lie in it for a while.

Sutton was slightly more comforting, but she was playing it straight down the middle.

“I understand both sides. I see where both of you are coming from,” she had said neutrally to me on the phone one night.

“Yeah…but I’m right and he’s wrong,” I asserted.

“You’re both wrong,” she said, and I suppose that was probably true.

God, I want that man back. No matter how hard my mom tried to lecture me on the mistake I had made, no matter the disappointment I saw from Stevie, no matter how much I hurt myself because I didn’t have Garrett anymore…none of that was strong enough to sway me from my mission of letting Garrett go so he could avoid pain later down the road.

No…only one thing had sunk into my thick skull, and it came courtesy of a man that I wasn’t all that close to.

Alex.

I had been so busy concentrating on contingencies if I died, I never once bothered to see the opposite side. All I could focus on is “What if I die?”

Alex had simply asked me, “But what if you fucking live?”

It was like a bolt of lightning had struck me, so strong was the epiphany I had. It made me think back to the very thing that brought me and Garrett together in the first place.

My desire to live life to the fullest. I took a wild gamble and hopped into bed for a rowdy one-night stand that was supposed to prove to myself that I still had a whole lot of living left to do. It was this zest for life, the insatiable need for me to thumb my nose at my cancer, that made it possible for me to even open up to Garrett.

Life…that is what it’s all about, and somewhere along the way, I forgot about it. I ended up getting sidetracked with negativity. Fear then controlled me…it made me its bitch. Then it gave me bad advice and had me send away the one thing in my life that I wanted to live for above all else.

Garrett.

So, I wised the fuck up and immediately made arrangements to go to Garrett’s game that night. Stevie had only a single ticket from Garrett, but a quick call to Sutton and Alex got three tickets for me, her, and Glenn.

Seeing him on the ice again…my heart filled with pride. I let the excitement wash through me and I felt invigorated.

I felt alive.

It was a little bit of a slap in the face when Garrett made brief eye contact with me, then looked like someone had rubbed his nose in shit. He didn’t look at me again, but I wasn’t going to let that dissuade me.

Even when I walked into Houlihan’s and saw those women fawning all over him, I wasn’t going to be cowed. I was going to get my man back.

And, yeah…it was another slap in the face that Garrett wouldn’t talk to me, but I walked out of Houlihan’s trying hard not to cry, but even at the same time letting my brain spin on overdrive, trying to figure another way to come at Garrett.

To get him to forgive me.

To get him to love me again.

I wasn’t going down without a vicious fight.

And…I got another metaphorical slap in the face when he nicely accepted my apology, but flatly refused to give me another chance. I wanted to shake him, knock some sense into him, but I could see what was driving him.

Anger and pain.

I knew it would do no good to keep after him that night, and that he probably needed some time to cool down. Alex had called me that night and wisely advised me not to give up on Garrett.

And because my focus is back on living my life to the fullest, there’s no way in hell I’m going to do that. I’m going to get him back somehow, but I just haven’t figured the angle yet. Stevie and Sutton have been a bust so far.

Maybe I need Alex to help me scheme. I’ve heard countless times the story of how Alex groveled to Sutton in front of the entire Cold Fury arena, begging for her to love him again. It worked like a charm, so I’m thinking maybe I need some type of grand gesture.

I know…I’ll beat this cancer, and then I can say with flourish, “See, Garrett…I did this just for you.”

That will surely win him back.

I snicker to myself over that, so very happy that I can find amusement even in my current predicament.

“What’s so funny?” I hear, and my head snaps up to see Garrett staring down at me. He has a small smile on his face, and his green eyes are sparkling. He doesn’t look mad at me, so that’s a plus.

“What are you doing here?” I ask, completely ignoring his question.

He shrugs and glances around at the other patients before pulling the guest chair over in front of my own recliner. He sits down opposite me and leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “I made arrangements with Stevie to let me sit in on this treatment with you. He just dropped you off, and he’s probably back at Fleurish now.”

My heart soars over this news, because it means something that he’s here. It means I still have a chance…a fucking good chance. I decide to play a little hard to get, though. “Well, maybe I don’t want you here. You sort of said it all the other night.”

Garrett scratches his head and gives me a sheepish look. “Yeah, well, I figured you might feel that way, so I waited until you got hooked up to the chemo before I came in. Figured you couldn’t run and would be forced to listen to me.”

I bow my head and place my hand over my mouth to hide the grin that forms on my face. Glancing up at him, I see he’s smiling back at me.

We just stare at each other. I marvel at the beautiful man sitting opposite me. Not just beautiful in the physical sense, although I will admit I wanted to jump him when I first laid eyes on him. I mean beautiful straight through to his soul. The fact that I failed to recognize how special he was, that I was willing to let that get away from me, is a blatant reminder of what an idiot I can be sometimes.

Garrett sighs and leans back in his chair, raising his legs up and propping his large, booted feet on my chair on both sides of my hips. He crosses his hands over his stomach and says, “Where the hell do we go from here?”

A little bit of the confidence I had gained from the mere fact that he came to see me fizzles because his voice sounds a bit desperate and lost. His eyes are sad and tired, and I’m now wondering…maybe he just wants to tie up loose ends. Part as friends, maybe?

“I had forgotten,” I say quietly as I reach one hand out to tug on the hem of his jeans. I fiddle with the material and look back up at him. “I had forgotten what led me to you in the first place.”

“What do you mean?” he asks curiously.

“I don’t think I ever told you…but pretty soon after I accepted your invitation for that first date…I had decided to sleep with you that night.”

Garrett’s lips tilt up beautifully and his eyes widen in surprise. “Hussy.”

“I know. It was so not me,” I say with a blush.

“So why did you do it?”

“Because I wanted to live. I wanted to feel, and be free, and I wanted to have fun…pleasure…orgasms. I wanted to be with a beautiful man who made me feel sexy and desired. I wanted it all so I could push the cancer out of my mind.”

“And you were hooked after that first orgasm, right?” he says, a little too loudly, because the woman next to us sort of jerks in her seat and coughs into her hand.

“I was hooked before that first orgasm,” I whisper to him with a laugh. “But I had forgotten that. I got so swept up in fear that I forgot that I needed to live. My glass went from half-full to half-empty. And Garrett…please believe me…I never did it to hurt you. I was trying to avert a deeper kind of pain. I did it out of love.”

Garrett’s eyes lower and he twiddles his thumbs together in thought. When he looks back up at me, he says, “I think, deep down, the reason I never was in a relationship before was because I didn’t want to get hurt. I mean…yeah, I was hurt by my high school girlfriend, but I think as I got older, and I realized what was important in my life, I think I subconsciously focused only on those things that were safe and made me feel good. But that all seemed to melt away when I met you. And then I fell in love, and I couldn’t see my life without you in it. When you cut me out…it really hurt. And then I got angry. I’m sorry that I hurt you back. It was wrong of me to do that.”

“You’re forgiven,” I tell him with a soft smile. “I’m sure I deserved it.”

“You deserve the world,” he murmurs, and my heart melts for him.

Playing-hard-to-get time is over with. Not that I was doing a good job at it.

I push at Garrett’s feet and he takes them down, sitting up in his chair. Standing up, I grab my IV pole and push it a little closer to Garrett. In two steps, I’m between his legs, staring down at him. He looks back at me with his eyes shining brightly, his head tilted to the side.

Raising a hand up, I touch him softly on the face, and I’m rewarded as his eyes close and he sighs in pleasure.

“I love you,” I tell him, and watch as his eyelids flutter open, those impossibly long lashes only making his green eyes pop brilliantly at me.

“I love you too,” he says with a smile.

“Good,” I say firmly, and then turn so I can sit on his lap. He doesn’t hesitate, swinging my legs up and turning me to the side. He carefully arranges the IV line so it doesn’t get tangled, and then his arms wrap around me snugly. I lay my head on his chest and he kisses me on top of my head.

“I missed you,” I say, rubbing my cheek against him.

“Never again, right?” he asks, his fingers stroking the skin on my arm.

“Never again,” I agree. “Not getting rid of me.”

“Damn right,” he says. “We have our whole lives ahead of us.”

“Yes,” I say dreamily, confident in my future existence with this man. “We both have a whole lot of living to do.”

F
ORTY-ONE YEARS LATER

“Grandma…hurry up so we can cut the cake,” Tamara squeals at me as she tugs on the hem of my dress.

Giving my hands a quick wash in the sink, I dry them and then turn to pick her up. Hoisting her little four-year-old body up high, I bring her back down to rest on my left hip. Yeah…I’m still pretty damn spry at sixty-six years of age.

“Want some cake, huh?” I ask as I tweak her on the nose.

She nods at me, her little blond ringlets bouncing up and down.

“Okay, but we have to find Grandpa,” I tell her seriously.

“He’s already sitting by the cake outside. He told me to come in and get you. Said to get your beautiful ass out there.”

“He said what?” I ask in mock outrage.

“He said—” she starts to repeat, but I lean in and blow a raspberry on her neck to stop the words. One curse word is fine…two reinforces it in her vocabulary, and I don’t want her preschool teacher freaking out and blaming her parents.

Tamara giggles as I walk out of the kitchen, through the large den, and out toward the back deck. I glance around our house, loving the country-chic flair that Garrett indulged me in when we bought it almost thirty years ago.

We settled in Denver, because after playing with the Cold Fury for seven years, he got traded to the Blue Devils and he lived out the rest of his hockey career here. By the time he retired, our kids were in middle school and we loved the area, so this is where we decided to stay. We still get back to North Carolina frequently to visit Alex and Sutton, and they come here a lot, but I miss them.

Stevie? Nothing to miss. He sold Fleurish, turning a very nice profit, and moved out to Denver three years ago with his love and life partner, Darren. They live a grand total of five miles from me and Garrett and I see him almost every day.

Stepping out on the back deck, I do a quick survey of my kingdom…of my living legacies sitting all around. My oldest, Felicity, so beautiful at age thirty-six, and the spitting image of her daughter, who I hold in my arms. Her husband, Ian, a funny Brit she met in college, sitting by her side and bouncing their son, Elijah, on his knee.

My eyes slide left, seeing my son, Mark, in a deep discussion with Stevie and Darren. He just turned thirty-two last week, as a matter of fact, and no doubt he and Stevie are arguing about politics. They are polar opposites when it comes to fiscal issues, but on the flip side, they are perfectly aligned on the social agenda. Mark is a pediatrician and practices here in Denver, and he’s so busy, he never dates. I’m despaired of ever getting grandchildren out of him.

Finally, my eyes land on Lucas, our last child. He’s thirty-one, and yes, we banged him out quickly after Mark, because we had set our limit at three. He has dark brown hair, just like his father, but has my murkier green eyes…more hazel than anything. Savannah, his wife, sits cuddled on his lap, and he rubs his hand over her swollen belly. Grandchild number three, and I cannot wait to see that little monkey.

Stepping down off the deck, I walk over and hand Felicity to her mother. Then I turn and walk over to the love of my life.

Garrett is still gorgeously handsome. He works out every day and still wears his hair a little long. His temples are streaked with some silver, but his eyes are still as bright and young as the day I met him.

Our life here in Denver is quiet. After he retired from hockey, he ended up going to college to get his degree and now teaches high school English. I’m not sure he’ll ever retire from that, and it keeps him busy. I work part-time at a local flower shop, something I’ve continued to dabble in over the years. I took time off when the kids were younger, especially because of the way Garrett traveled so much for his career. We both felt it was important to keep them grounded.

My gaze captures Garrett’s and he gives me a sly smile, crooking his finger at me. He’s sitting in front of a large cake with the words
Happy 40th Anniversary
written on it in large, scripted letters.

I reach my husband and crawl straight onto his lap, relishing in the feel of his strong arms as they go around me.

“Hey, hot mama,” he whispers in my ear. “I missed you.”

I tilt my head and give him a soft kiss…a lingering kiss. “Hey, stud,” I tell him with a smile, and Stevie calls out, “Hey…you two get a room.”

Garrett leans his head up and calls out over me. “We will…as soon as you all get the hell out of our house.”

Everyone laughs, including me, and I snuggle deeper into his embrace.

I’m feeling great. I’m healthy and whole.

My lymphoma was beaten into remission by Dr. Yoffman and has recurred only once, and that was more than twenty-five years ago. It scared the hell out of the kids, but somehow…somehow I just knew it was going to be okay. By then we were in Denver, and my oncologist here suggested a bone-marrow transplant.

I knew it was going to be okay because I had Garrett by my side. He never once let me feel sorry for myself, and because he was retired from hockey, and because he had more flexibility in his work schedule, he was able to finally be the one and only to take care of me throughout it all. It made him feel good. It made me feel better.

“And here we are,” he says as he kisses my temple.

“Forty years. Can you believe it?”

“Seems like just yesterday we were hopping into bed on our first date. You were quite the seductress.”

“Still am,” I affirm.

“That you are,” he says in a low rumble, a sound that never fails to make my heart race.

“Happy anniversary, baby,” I tell him. “Best forty years of my life.”

“Best of mine too. And we still have a lot of living still to do.”

“Yes, we do, my love. Yes we do.”