I kept staring at him.

Then I whispered, “You’re here.”

The humor fled from him completely, his handsome face turned beautiful, and he replied, “Got your text, baby.”

My insides convulsed.

My text?

Oh shit, had I somehow accidentally sent my text?

Before I could play my life in rewind to figure out how that might have occurred, Merry bent and tossed my remote to the coffee table and walked my way. When he got to me, he pulled the vacuum out of my hand, swung it aside, and got in my space, chin dipped into his neck to look down at me.

“Your apology was sweet.” He grinned a small grin. “Your brand of sweet, considerin’ you dropped the f-bomb twice givin’ it to me. And I appreciate it, Cherie.”

Cherie.

Not Cher.

Not the dreaded Cheryl.

He gave me back his Cherie.

A weird but not unpleasant warmth I’d never felt started to creep over me.

“I appreciate it, but you didn’t need to give it,” he went on, lifting his hand to cup my jaw and bending so his face was closer to mine. “I knew before I left that you were sorry.”

I stared into his blue eyes that were looking into mine, communicating amazing things.

Somehow, that text got sent and there he was, in my living room, accepting an apology I didn’t know I gave.

Here was another boon that life had thrown at me.

And before I could think better of it, I latched on ferociously.

“I overreacted,” I blurted on a whisper.

The pads of his fingers dug into my skin gently. “I get that.”

I held his eyes and gave a careful shake of my head so I wouldn’t lose his hand on me. “No. Ethan and me…the way things have been…how our lives are…” My quiet voice dropped quieter. “I only ever get his mornings guaranteed.”

“I get that, honey,” he repeated. “I stepped over a line. It might not have been right how you communicated that, but that doesn’t mean you weren’t right to be angry.”

I gave another cautious shake of my head. “No, I was totally out of line being that ugly.”

“Cher, you love your kid and that’s your time. Lots of shit is goin’ down, not the least of which I was pushin’ at a time when I should have been goin’ gently. You’re you. You reacted like you and like the mother you are. It happened. It’s done. You apologized and I’ve admitted I didn’t play that right. We’re movin’ on.”

That was good. I wanted that. I wanted us to move on. I wanted the quiet understanding he was giving me. I didn’t want him to be angry. I wanted him back in my life.

I also wanted to explore where his manner was saying we were going.

But what I needed was to get him to understand completely.

“It was ugly and it might have been right why I did it,” I told him. “But it was also wrong. Ethan talked to me about it and he liked havin’ you around.” I saw a flare in his eyes I liked, but I didn’t take time to let it register deep. I had to get this done, so I powered forward. “He liked you two doin’ somethin’ together to look out for me. He gets that I look out for him all the time and he’s a good kid. He wants me to have that sometimes too. And he liked doin’ that with you for me.”