I heard, “Jesus, baby,” and I was up.

I curled into him, and when we were down and my ass was in his lap, I burrowed into him.

Through this they fell.

The tears.

Uncontrolled.

Choking me.

Drowning me.

They felt strange. Hot. Ticklish. Shameful.

Hateful.

“I’m right here, Cherie,” he murmured, one arm holding me tight, the other hand stroking my hair. “Not goin’ anywhere. I’m right here. Talk to me. Where’d that shit come from? What’s goin’ on, honey?”

I tried to suck in breath.

Through the sobs, I barely got any in.

I burrowed closer like he could give me oxygen.

“Okay, sweetheart,” he whispered. “Just hold on and get it out.”

I did as told.

I held on and let it go.

He held on too. He stroked me.

And he absorbed it.

This went on for what felt like years before I started to quiet.

He said nothing. He didn’t push. He didn’t ask.

He just kept holding me, stroking me, and letting me let go.

Just like Merry.

Perfect.

“I should have known,” I whispered into his skin.

“Shoulda known what, brown eyes?” Merry whispered back.

“He did me on my stomach. Hands and knees. Only those. He never let me look at him. I thought it was his kink, but I should have known that wasn’t kink. It was sick. I didn’t know that if he let me look at him, he would have seen me. Me. And he wouldn’t have been fucking Feb.”

I wheezed as Merry quit stroking and both his arms tightened so hard, I couldn’t breathe.

Just as quickly as he did it, his arms loosened.

But not by much.

“I triggered a memory,” he muttered.

He did.

“Yeah,” I whispered.

“Fuck.”

I pushed even closer. “Not your fault.”

He was silent a second before he urged gently, “Give it to me.”

I took my moment of silence before I said softly, “In the beginning, before I learned, learned what he didn’t like, he held me down and would say it. ‘Stay down.’”

“Fuck,” he repeated.

“Not your fault, Merry.”

“We’ll avoid me fuckin’ you on your belly in the future. And definitely those words.”

I closed my eyes tight. “No.”

“Cher—”

It took a lot to pull my shit together and give him my puffy eyes, my red face, any ability to look at me at all after that scene.

But I did it and I did it because he was Garrett Merrick.

I looked at him.

He wasn’t freaked. He wasn’t disgusted. He wasn’t angry.

He looked troubled.

And he looked upset.

For me.

Yes, that’s why I could look the way I looked after what had just given me that look and give the evidence of it all to Garrett Merrick.

“He doesn’t get that,” I told him.

Merry put a hand to my face, rubbing his thumb through the wet on my cheek. “Whatever you want.”

“All that was going down, us getting together, my neighbor, your ex, Trent and Peggy, I didn’t…” I trailed off but finished, “You were my first…after him. I should have guessed I’d need to keep a handle on it. I didn’t guess.”