Meet Me Halfway (Learning to Love Series)

I stood on my porch, watching Jamie chase Garrett across our yard, hollering. The day after his first game, we’d come home to find a brand-new soccer ball waiting for him on the porch. Jamie had instantly dropped his bag to the cement and snatched it up, running his hands over it like he’d found the heart of the ocean.

I’d felt Garrett before I saw him, that familiar tingle running along the back of my neck. But it was the feeling that had run through my chest that worried me.

He’d been leaning against his Nova, which was finally out of the shop, watching us with an expression I couldn’t name. With a hat pulled low on his head and a leather jacket sitting over his hoodie, he’d looked off limits in the most enticing way.

The swift putter of my heart as his eyes had locked with mine had me questioning how smart it was to continue our friendship. He didn’t walk over, nor did he say a word. He’d just winked at me, sending that quivering beat lower than my stomach, and pushed off, making his way into his house.

Now here we were a few days later. Garrett had been outside when Jamie and I got home, and the kid hadn’t batted an eye about asking him to kick the new ball around. Garrett scoffed, making some playful comment about wiping him across the ground, and they’d started up a competitive game of one-on-one.

Incessant whining behind me demanded my attention, and I stepped back inside. Both dogs were at the door, beside themselves wanting to go play. Layla was out for the evening, and neither of them appreciated being left alone.

Pulling out the bag of treats we kept in the kitchen, I tossed one to each, shooing them out before digging into the fridge for dinner.

I heard Jamie’s laughter before I heard the click of the door opening, and it was one of best sounds in the world. As much as I worried about my growing feelings for Garrett, I could never regret having an extra person give my child the time and affection he deserved.

I poked my head around the bar, scrunching my nose at their flushed faces. “Ya’ll better not be sweaty and filthy.”

A smirk formed on Garrett’s face, and I knew better than to let him reply. “Never mind, don’t answer that. Go wash up, bud, dinner’s ready as soon as the potatoes are.”

“’Kay!” He took off, contentment oozing from him in such waves, I couldn’t help but smile.

“Garrett, would you like a baked potato or a sweet potato? I’m cooking two of each, and I can eat either.”

He was kneeling, in the process of giving Sadie a belly rub, but at my question he lifted his head. I realized I hadn’t even asked if he wanted to stay for dinner, just assuming he would.

“You don’t have to—”

“Sweet potato.” He stood, not taking his eyes off me while he slowly slid his jacket down his shoulders. He had two other layers on underneath, but the motion was unintentionally seductive, and I had to turn toward the stove to hide the heat creeping up my neck.

An hour later, I was curled up on the couch. The still-unfinished baby blanket was sitting in my lap, and I had a crochet hook clenched in my fist, but I wasn’t focused on a bit of it. My eyes were too busy watching back muscles flex and shift underneath a white shirt while Garrett moved about my kitchen, cleaning up dinner.

After we’d all annihilated our meals, he’d pushed back from the table, grabbing each of our plates and all but told me to get lost. I’d argued, demanding he was my guest, and I could clean my own dishes, but he’d turned that intense, unblinking gaze on me until I relented.

“Go relax, Maddie. I mean it. No homework. No cleaning. Go put on your PJs and curl up. I got you.”

So here I was, curled up on the couch, “relaxing,” while a man took care of the cleaning. It reminded me of my parents. For as long as I could remember, my dad had always said if my mom cooked, he’d clean. Watching Garrett do the same felt domestic. But more than that, it felt normal and right. And that scared the hell out of me.

I wasn’t sure how long I stared at his working form, but he eventually turned to look at me, a towel slung over his shoulder. “How long do you think you’ll be working on that?”

I frowned at the untouched project in my lap. “I’m not sure. Probably up until Jamie goes to bed since you didn’t give me much of a choice.” I raised an eyebrow pointedly. “Then I’ll have to study. I have a test this week.”

He nodded, folding the towel into a rectangle any perfectionist would appreciate, and rested it over the stove handle. I scooted over to make more room on the couch, but he didn’t come toward me. He went to the door and shoved his feet into his untied boots.

“Wait…you’re leaving?” Why was there a hitch in my voice? The man had no reason to stay, I was lucky he’d stayed as long as he did and helped clean up.

“I’m just going to grab something. I’ll be right back.” And with that, he dashed out the door, his departure pushing a gust of cold air through the living room and making me shudder.

Jamie’s door instantly opened. “Did Garrett leave?” He tried to ask it nonchalantly, but I could hear the mild disappointment in his tone.

“No, he said he had to go get something. You finish cleaning up your room?”

He stared at me, sighed, and walked back in his room without a word. I was still chuckling when Garrett barged back through the front door carrying a grocery bag and setting my furry security alarm off.

Giving Rugpants a small scoot with his foot, he ambled toward me, and if I didn’t know better, I’d say he was nervous.

“Please tell me that’s dessert.”

He froze, looking down at the bag in his hand. “I can go get dessert if you’d like.”

“No, thanks, I’m much more interested in what you have.” I smiled at him, and a blush dusted his cheeks, which only made me smile wider. “Come on, show me.”

I patted the cushion next to me, and he fell onto it hard enough to make me bounce. He scratched his chin, his nails scraping against the stubble. “It’s not perfect.”

“All right.”

“My second one is turning out better.”

I shoved his shoulder, which rocked me back rather than moved him. “Oh my God, Garrett, just show me.”

Darting one more glance my way, he untied the plastic handles and reached in, pulling out a blue bundle and handing it to me.

“Is this…a baby blanket?” I laid it out flat in my lap over my own. Although it wasn’t a perfect shape from several stitch miscounts in the middle rows, it was definitely a blanket.

He rubbed the back of his neck. “I told you it was bad.”

I gripped the blanket to my chest, eyes wide. “You made this?”

He nodded, pulling out a second, partially finished one in the same color. “This one is turning out better. It’s way harder than you made it look.”

I squeezed the first one tighter, pushing it against the chaotic beating in my ribcage, trying to settle the rogue organ. “What made you decide to learn to crochet?”

He nudged my knee with his own, a half grin peeking out. “The organization is important to you, and you seemed upset to be donating less than your usual amount. I thought I’d help.”

“How are you single?” The question burst out of me with such force, I was surprised I didn’t scream it. But even so, I couldn’t have stopped the impulse to ask if I’d tried. It didn’t make any sense for this man to be single. None.

He didn’t answer at first, scooting back to lean against the cushions and pulling the attached skein and hook out of the bag. He wrapped the yarn tail around his fingers and pulled up a loop, beginning a slow, slightly unsteady, row of single crochet.

Watching the way his fingers worked the hook in and out of the stitches was pornographic, and I had to do a self-check to make sure I wasn’t drooling.

“I was engaged.”

The desire to stare at him and see the subtle changes in his face was almost debilitating, but I knew how difficult it was to discuss the past while someone studied you.

Forcing myself to pick up my own project, I said, “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

“I want to.” His voice was gruff and firm, but he continued working on that squishy blanket with intense focus. “We’d only been together half a year when I proposed. I’d fallen quick and hard and was about to deploy. My desire to have someone miss me deluded me into thinking she could fill that role.”

I knew the story, or at least ones very similar. Living on a military base, I’d seen several guys marry girls they barely knew just because they were deploying. Seldom had those scenarios worked out long term.

“What happened?”

He breathed deep, tightening the yarn tail until I was sure his stitches would be two times too small. “A few weeks into my eighteen-month deployment, during one of our phone calls, she told me she was three months pregnant.”

I swallowed, a wave of nauseating anxiety hitting me with where this story was headed. Given Garrett was alone and had never mentioned a kid, it couldn’t be anything good. But I listened quietly as he continued.

“I was upset. Not because she was pregnant, but because neither of us had noticed before I left, and I was going to miss out on all of it. I’ve always wanted to be a dad, wanted to see a woman I loved swollen with my child.”

He cleared his throat. “I checked in as often as I could, asking her about appointments and updates, making sure she got plenty of money to buy anything she needed.

“Being deployed is something you have to experience in order to understand. It’s miserable. But I couldn’t imagine how hard it was for her to live alone, carrying the baby of a man who wasn’t around and could rarely call. I felt guilty the entire time. Every month, every week, every fucking day.”

He dropped the blanket onto his lap, clenching his fists over the top of it, and my heart paused its beating. I wanted to take his hands or lean over and rest my head on his shoulder. Something. Anything.

“I got back home expecting to find my fiancé with an almost one-year-old son. Devin.” He stopped, glaring down at his hands.

“Had she never been pregnant?” I asked.

He laughed, and it was a dry, ugly sound. “Oh no, she’d been pregnant. Turned out, he just hadn’t been mine.”

That nauseating feeling increased, pressing up into my throat. I set my project to the side, turning my body to face him. I couldn’t not look at him anymore, not with that torn expression distorting his face. “I’m so sorry, Garrett.”

“She’d already been pregnant with someone else’s child when I proposed.” He scoffed, “Which made more sense since I’d never fucked her raw, but I’d been too blind to see it before. Worst part was she admitted it freely. She wasn’t even ashamed.”

My nails dug into my pajama pants, and with all my wicked heart, I wished it was this unknown tramp’s face I was clawing at. “Why the hell would she say yes, if she was with someone else?”

“Money.”

That one word clanged through the room, hitting every wall, splattering across the ceiling and floor, coating every inch in a nasty film.

“What was her name?” I demanded.

He twisted to look down into my eyes, and I knew he could see every bit of the fury I didn’t bother hiding. “Why?”

“Because I want to bitch slap her right across her worthless face.”

His nostrils flared, his eyes darting down to my mouth before looking away, a muscle twitching in his cheek. “Her name was Courtney, but don’t you lose any sleep over it, it happened years ago. I took a paternity test to make sure the boy wasn’t mine, and then essentially told her she was dead to me.”

I recognized the name. I’d overheard him on the phone with her once, forever ago it seemed. Satisfaction shot through me when I remembered how vividly he’d told her to fuck off. “Does she contact you often?”

He shook his head. “No, she’s only called me once since I left, and it was to ask me to dig through some old insurance documents for something. I refused, and she hasn’t called again.”

I rested my hand on top of his, curling my fingers around his fist. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. She’s not worth your time or anger, Maddie.”

“Although I disagree strongly with that statement, that’s not what I’m sorry about.”

He turned his hand, opening it to allow my fingers to lace with his. “Then what are you apologizing for?”

“For the conversation you overheard when we first met. I’m sorry for ever making a joke about using men for money. I hope you know, I never meant it.”

He squeezed my hand. “I know you didn’t.”

I smiled, pulling my hand back and shifting to my original spot to give him his personal space. Something crossed his face, but it was there and gone in a moment, and I wasn’t sure I’d even seen it.

Picking my blanket back up, I asked, “So is that when you moved into the duplex?”

He mimicked me, grabbing his project and settling back into the cushions. “Yeah, I needed a new start and had my brother here to get me a connection with a job. Pretty cut and dry.”

“What made Harry move out here?”

He grunted. “Sarah.”

That didn’t surprise me. Anyone with eyes could see that man was head over heels in love with her. I had a feeling he’d move to Antarctica if she asked him.

“How often do you and Harry see your mom? If you don’t mind me asking.”

He didn’t immediately answer, setting his hook between his lips while he pulled a few stitches out to redo. “We usually fly to Cali to see her for a week or two during the summer.”

I was about to ask him more, but clamped my mouth shut when Jamie’s door creaked open behind us. We both turned, eyeing the messy head that poked out.

“Can I come out yet?”

“Did you finish your room?”

“Is your room done?”

Jamie’s eyes widened, darting back and forth between the two of us as we both spoke at the same time. I peered at Garrett to see a grin pulling at his lips.

I relented, giving in to the kid’s miserable puppy dog face. “All right, come hang out for a little, but I expect you to finish before bed.”

“Deal.” He ran out, almost tripping over Sadie’s sleeping form on the floor. Standing next to the TV, he clapped his hands together, smiling mischievously.

“So, who wants to play first?”

“What did you just say?”

“I said your fighting skills are worse than your soccer skills!”

I squealed, leaping out of the way when Garrett dropped his controller and leapt at Jamie, smooshing him to the ground and giving him a noogie. “Take it back.”

“No!”

Good Lord. I stood, folding the almost-completed blanket back in its bag and dropping it in the corner. Watching them roll around laughing was as fun as it was painful. It was exactly what Jamie had been deprived of.

I tried to be everything for him, the qualities often seen in a mother as well as a father, but there were some things I’d never be able to do. I knew for a fact, with our history, he’d never let loose and tackle me to the ground. And part of me wondered if Garrett knew that somehow.

They wrestled around, hollering for a few more minutes before they finally tired, lying across the floor like floppy noodles.

“All right, you crazies, it’s time for bed.”

It was surreal walking around the living room with Garrett, cleaning up while Jamie changed and brushed his teeth. It was even more surreal when Jamie brought his book out, and he and I read on the couch while Garrett stretched out on the floor, eyes closed and hands behind his head, listening.

One chapter and a heart full of emotional flutters later, Jamie was tucked away in his room with Sadie for the night.

Garrett had stepped into the bathroom, so I went to my room to set up my textbooks and laptop for the night. I was reading through my planner when a light tap sounded on my door.

“Hey, I’m going to head out.”

I busied myself tracing the words on my planner, pretending to be jotting something down so I wouldn’t have to turn around. Hearing his voice in the privacy of my room felt intimate, and I wasn’t sure I could hide my thoughts if I looked at him. With how flushed I felt, it was sure to be written all over my face.

“All right.”

I could sense him standing at the door, waiting for me to say something else, and I hated how ridiculous I was acting. I was being a wuss, and I didn’t want him to leave without telling him what I’d wanted to say earlier. What he needed to hear.

I twisted around, right as he began edging back out of the room. “Garrett, wait.”

He paused; his fingers curled around the door frame.

“I just want you to know, your ex was an idiot. Is an idiot. I’d like to think most women aren’t like that. Don’t let it keep you from being happy. You’re an amazing man, and one day you’re going to make some lucky woman the happiest person alive.”

He pushed the door open to accommodate his wide shoulders, and I dropped my gaze, watching his feet cross the floor until they stopped directly in front of me. One more step and he’d be touching me.

I was frozen, staring at his socked feet and considering my options when he pressed a quick, chaste kiss to the side of my head.

“Thanks, Maddie. And not just for that.”

Goosebumps erupted all down my arms, and I had no idea what to say. You’re welcome? My brain had logged out the second he entered my room, and at the touch of his mouth, it’d officially erected an Out of Commission sign. By the time I looked up, he was already pulling the door closed behind him.

Later that night, long after I’d heard the front door shut, I sat in bed staring at the same textbook I’d been holding for an hour. Still feeling the imprint of his lips against my head, I finally acknowledged what I’d been afraid to admit, even to myself.

I cared for Garrett Rowe much more than just a friend. Much, much more.