But Ethan? No. Garrett wouldn’t do that. He’d never smoke in front of any of his friends’ kids. Not when they were Ethan’s age. Not when they hadn’t already learned better.

He turned, pulled the sliding glass door open, and shut it behind him, intending to go to the fridge and get a beer.

He didn’t get a beer.

He looked at the living room/dining room/kitchen part of his condo, all of it easy to see because it was condensed into as few square feet as a builder could design those three spaces.

He had crappy-ass balcony furniture.

The furniture inside was only a shade above crappy-ass, but it was still shit.

Immediately, his mind filled with what he’d seen of Cher’s place.

He was not surprised that she lived in a house that looked like it was decorated by Janis Joplin’s slightly more together sister. Stuffed full, dark at the same time bright with color, it had personality. It was unique. It held warmth that hit you the second you stepped foot over the threshold.

It was Cher.

The living room was good; her bedroom was better.

Her bedroom said anything goes. Her bedroom said your wildest fantasy could come true. Her bedroom said you were safe to be what you were, think what you want, do what you like, eat like a pig, drink like a fish, fuck like an animal, sleep like the dead, no worries, leave life at the door and just be.

And she’d delivered. They’d only had hours in that room, so she didn’t deliver on it all, but the instant they fell to her bed, tearing at each other’s clothes, she’d more than delivered.

On this thought, Garrett moved to his refrigerator, pulled out a beer, twisted off the cap, and turned to rest his hips against the counter, looking into his shitty condo, the eclectic warmth of Cher’s pad not layering over what his eyes saw.

The feel of her, the smell of her, the memory of being with her in her bed was what filled his mind.

For years, he had stupidly tried to fuck Mia out of his head and his heart, knowing he was doing it and completely unable to stop himself.

And to make that shit even shittier, he’d done it by actually fucking Mia any time after their divorce that she came around to get a dose of his cock.

More often than not, though, when he sunk his dick into a woman who was not his ex-wife, Mia filled his head. Drunk or sober, it happened. It made him feel like an asshole. But he kept doing it.

With Cher, it did not.

With Cher, he was with Cher.

On a night when he was trashed and that shit was sure to happen, it didn’t.

On a night where he never expected he could do it, he’d laughed. Not a little, a lot. His gut clenching with it. His eyes watering with it.

And he did that with Cher.