Page 34 of Reformation

I chuckle because I can’t help it. This kid is too much.

“As you can tell, my son is still a heathen. It hasn’t helped that he is now getting it from his father and his uncle.”

There. Charlie gave me the opening. It won’t be weird if I ask about it.

“Yeah, Cullen said something about Garrett moving in. He actually drew a picture of the family and I noticed there were three adults in the photo. Is he OK?”

Charlie nods as she situates Cullen in his booster seat. “In general? Yes, he’s fine. In the long run? He’s going to be better than fine. He’s finally starting the process to get out of the marriage he never should have gotten himself into.”

“Yeah, he said something the other day. I just didn’t know he moved out.”

Charlie hands Cullen his iPad and closes the door of her SUV.

“The other day? I knew that Garrett was helping out with the food drive. Do you see my brother-in-law regularly? And how do I not know about this?”

She says it with a begging smile, like a pre-teen friend at a sleepover who wants you to tell her about the boy you like. Or at least, that’s what I imagine it would be like.

“It’s nothing. There’s really nothing for you to know about,” I say, probably a little too quickly, but I don’t want her to think anything is going on between me and Garrett. “He asked me if there was more volunteer work he could do after the food drive meeting, so he came with me for the monthly school cleanup last Saturday. We went to breakfast after and he mentioned that he was trying to start the separation process. I haven’t talked to him since.”

Charlie doesn’t say anything right away, instead, giving me a kind of confused, kind of shocked look. She’s probably wondering why I rambled like that when explaining my harmless, purely platonic relationship with her brother-in-law.

“He told you about Annika?”

Out of all of that, that’s what she’s asking? “Yes. And his first wife. He started talking about golf, then it morphed into a conversation about… well, everything. I had a feeling he didn’t talk about that stuff a lot, so I wanted to give him an ear. I didn’t mean to pry. I felt like if I could give him a mini therapy session, it was the least I could do.”

Before I know it, Charlie is launching herself at me, wrapping me in a hug that I’m pretty sure could kill if she wanted it to. I really need to ask her one of these days what she does for a living.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” she says before letting me go. And if I didn’t know better, I’d think she shed a tear. “Mark has been hoping for years that Garrett would talk to someone. He hated it when Garrett married Annika because he knew he was just going down the same path as he did with Michelle. Of course, Garrett was hardheaded about it and didn’t see anything wrong with his decisions. But now, the fact that he’s volunteering with you, and talking, and he’s been so different since his scare, and I have a feeling that it’s because of you. So whatever you are doing, please, don’t stop.”

Now it’s my turn to be shocked. “I doubt it’s because of me. He just seemed like he needed a friend. I’ve been there before. Sometimes you’re just lost and you need someone to hold your hand. Even though you know where you want to go, you still need someone to help guide you. I’m just glad I could be there for him.”

That part isn’t a lie. I do know what it’s like to be lost and searching for purpose. Knowing where you want to go, and what you don’t want to go back to. And even though the path is free and clear for you, you just can’t seem to pick up your feet and get there.

“Well, you have been, and we can tell the difference in him. He used to be a huge asshole. Now he’s only a partial one.”

I laugh. “I’m glad to help.”

She gives me another quick hug goodbye before she walks to the driver’s side of her car. I just turn to walk away when I hear her say something that never in a million years I would have expected.

“I know he’s still married. And I know he has a long road ahead. But if you became my sister-in-law, I have to say that I wouldn’t hate it.”

I really hope she didn’t see me blush before she drove away.

Chapter Nineteen

Garrett

“Has hell frozen over?” Trevor jumps a bit at the sound of my voice, and even blinks a few times at my presence, which makes me laugh. “A bit jumpy, are we? And why are you looking at me like that?”

“I’m not jumpy,” he says, picking up his phone to frantically type out a text message. “I just didn’t think anyone else was here. What are you still doing here?”

I take a seat across from Trevor, kicking my feet up on his desk like I do every time I enter his space. “If you ever stayed late on a Friday, you’d know that I’m always here past five to make sure we aren’t coming up on any deadlines for clinic funding. I hate walking into paperwork on Monday. The question is, what in God’s name are you doing here? I didn’t think you knew that you didn’thaveto evacuate immediately at five o’clock?”

“Very funny, asshole. You act like I’ve never put in long nights here.”

“You know I’m getting old. My memory isn’t what it once was.”

I give Trevor shit, but we both know he’s right. Back in the early days of Innovative, we made sure to buy comfortable couches to sleep on because we knew we would be putting in long nights to get the practice up and running.

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