Chapter Sixteen Party #3
I have to smile, just a little. Only my mother-in-law would use words like “picturesque” while chewing out her deadbeat son.
“This town is full of freaks and monsters.” Eli hisses.
“Eli, that’s pure nonsense. We have a vampire on the country club board of directors, and you know Miranda’s new husband is a yeti! You weren’t raised to take such dim views of those who are different.”
“It’s not that, Linda,” I interject. “It’s a dim view of anyone who upsets his perfect picture.
A wife with a mom bod? Out. A grandson he can’t distract you with every few weeks to keep you from getting on his case and looking too close at his decisions?
That’s a problem. Monsters and humans living in harmony when he can’t keep his own family together?
They must be disgusting and creepy.” I swallow the tide of anger that’s pushing out of my soul, held in for way too long.
“If you start now, and try really, really hard? You might be half the man Mercer is before you croak.”
Eli swivels from staring at his mother to getting in my space, his face reddish purple and screwed into a horrible expression.“You stupid, porky monsterfu—”
“Go. Eli. Go home now.” Linda throws Eli out before I have a chance to.
“Mom? I—”
“I am so deeply ashamed of you that I cannot look at you.” Linda closes her eyes and turns her head as if she’s in horrendous pain.
She probably is. “I love you with all my heart, but you’re breaking it right now.
You need to leave. Now. Before my grandson sees me give you the verbal thrashing you deserve! ”
Mercer must have seen Eli invade my personal space because he’s out of the house and across the small front lawn in seconds, a living, heaving shield.
“Do not ever speak to my mate like that again,” Mercer snarls in a voice that I don’t even recognize, like gravel in a thunderstorm.
“If you do, then I will remove your ability to speak, and that will be awfully inconvenient as you’ll need it to beg her forgiveness. ”
For a split second, I forget Eli’s even nearby. All I can do is try not to drool at my protective kraken.
“Fine! This is so stupid, I don’t know why I tried to come here anyway,” Eli shouts and sulks off, back to his car.
When he leaves, Linda sags. Mercer supports her and me, tentacles spread wide.
Zack chooses that moment to do what he does best—make my world better.
“Nana! Nana, Mercer is here, too! Grandma and Grandpa are going to be here so soon! It’s my birthday party! We can all eat cake! It’s the best day! It’s the best day!”
Linda’s arms tremble when she pulls Zack into a tight hug and buries her pale lips in his sunshine curls. “It’s the best day,” she whispers. “Yes, now that I can hug you again, it is the best day.”
“Can we make our cookies?”
Zack always bakes with his Nana, but I hesitate. “Oh, honey, Nana had a very long drive, and she’s probably worried about you eating so much sugar. There will be cake and ice cream at the party. You don’t need cookies, too. What would Nana say?”
Linda gives me a hesitant smile. “Nana says that if Mommy has cocoa powder, Zack and I can whip up a batch of double chocolate snowdrops by the time the party starts. We’ll have to clean up, though.”
“Okay! Mercer can help! I always sit on his shoulders when we cook.”
“Uh. Yes. Yes, I’ll be right in to help if Nana wants,” Mercer offers.
Linda looks at him, a slow, hopeful smile spreading on her face as her color returns. “I would like that very much.”
Zack leaps from her arms to cling to my legs. “The best day!”
“I don’t know how you have the energy, dear,” Linda murmurs later that night. The kids and my parents are catching lightning bugs in their hands and letting them go. Mercer is lifting Zack high above his head so he can catch the ones flying above the lawn.
“You did this. You were a single mom.”
Linda hesitates. “I was, true. But Eli was never close with his father. He was always working—working so hard that he gave himself a heart attack in the middle of a hostile takeover.”
I wince. “I never knew that. I mean, Eli rarely mentioned him, but I didn’t know the reason why. Or exactly how he died.”
“Oh, yes. And afterward, I had an angry fifteen-year-old son at home. I knew I was spoiling him. I knew his selfish streak was there. The ugliness in him, I saw it, but... But what could I do? Spoiling him kept him at home instead of out late, getting into trouble. I assumed an angry young man who’d just lost his father would lash out at the world.
So... I made the world to his liking, as best as I could. ”
I nod, trying to be understanding. “The trouble with that is that when they grow up, the spoiling and selfishness don’t go away, Linda.”
“I know that now. You’re younger and stronger than I was, and you're raising a boy who never knew life one way and had to adjust to another. And now,” Linda watches Mercer hand Zack to my dad, who makes him soar like a superhero in the twilight, “now he’s learning about a better life, a life he should have had all along.
” She nods towards Mercer with a melancholy smile.
“I like you and Mercer together. Listen,” Linda leans over conspiratorially, her hand resting on my arm, “this may be the oddest thing to offer, considering you were married to my son first, but Zack deserves a wonderful father who wants him, and who wants to be present in his life. I can tell that’s the kind of man Mercer is.
So, when you two go on your honeymoon, I want to help babysit Zack.
Do you have a date set for the wedding?”
“I...” I guess that at some point, Mercer’s role as “fiancé” slipped out again, or maybe Linda overheard more than I thought when she first arrived.
“Well, no matter. If it’s a week, two weeks, whatever, I’d like to split it with your parents. I’m thinking it makes sense if we all stay here to keep Zack in his familiar environment, but of course, we have some time to finalize things. We do, don’t we?”
“Um. Yes. We’ll work something out. When it’s time.”
“Your parents are such lovely people. I hope they didn’t decide to stay at a hotel because of me.”
“I think they did—but for a nice reason. I think they could tell I wanted a little alone time with you after how badly I was shaken up.” I smile at him. “You saved the day.”
Mercer coughs. “No, I just did what any mate would do.”
“Eli looked like he was going to wet himself.”
“Ah. Then I should be especially glad this mother warmed up to me by the end of the night.”
“It was quicker than that. As soon as she saw how Zack lit up around you, you were golden.”
“It wasn’t an act?”
“I don’t think so. She offered to babysit on our honeymoon.” I finish vacuuming up the last of the dino confetti and cross my arms. “It was nice to see them being friends again, too. Things have been strained since the divorce. I can’t believe they decided to stay with Linda at her rental.
Mercer stops gathering paper plates and plastic cutlery into a trash bag, a tense look on his face. “That’s so nice of her, especially considering I semi-threatened her son.”
“Semi? You threatened to remove his tongue—or vocal cords. Either way, that’s a total threat, not half of one.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I’m not. Someone needed to do it, and it was kinda nice not to have to do it myself. I was also completely thrown by how she took my side. I know I’d have a horrible time choosing to see my son as the villain.”
“Zack will never be a villain!” Mercer hisses in shock.
That’s not the point. Not the whole point. The point is, I appreciate what you did. You stepped in and shut Eli up when he was throwing around that stuff about two caregivers. And by saying we would get married, you put the idea of a second, stable income in his head.” And in mine.
“It wasn’t a romantic proposal, was it? But I can do better! I will, when you tell me it’s time.”
When I don’t say anything, Mercer drops the trash bag slowly, shoulders falling. “It’s too fast? Well, I’m not rushing. It’s just that I’m not afraid, and I already know.”
“Know what?” My throat is tight.
“That I love you and want to be with you. That I want to be with you and Zack, as a family, if that’s what you want, too.”
“Want? Mercer, I... You are everything I could want, but I’m just... Today reminded me how amazing you are, and dreaming of a life where you’re here permanently is wonderful, but it’s not necessarily going to happen. Not because of you. Because of me.”
Mercer licks his lips slowly, and I’m not sure if it’s from nerves or because he really needs to leave and get back in the water. I can’t imagine what it must be like, knowing you need water to live and yet choosing to leave your lake or ocean for a house on solid ground.
“Eli was your true love, and he broke your heart. Treated you badly. So badly that you don’t think I can heal it, even with everything I’m willing to do?” he whispers in a stricken voice.
“No! No, I’m just being realistic. It’s been a month. For a month, anyone can commute back and forth, but you need water. You deserve a habitat where you’re purely comfortable, and instead, you keep choosing me.”
“For you, I could live in a desert. I’d dig wells a mile deep to find water if it meant being beside you,” Mercer vows, taking my hand.
“Why do you say things like that?” I shake my head, unable to fathom a love like that. A love so deep and so fast to develop. Even if I feel it, too, a scared, shaky version of that all-consuming love, I don’t know how to return it, to believe that I can truly have it.
“Because I mean them. Because I love you.”
“No one has ever loved me like that,” I admit, and I’m ashamed. I chose Eli. A shallow love. Was it love at all, or just mutual attraction and convenience? If I was so stupid before, how do I know I’m not messing up again?