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Part of me wished I’d stayed. Maybe everything wouldn’t be so damn awful now. Maybe I wouldn’t be filled with so much regret. Maybe Colette wouldn’t absolutely hate me. And maybe, just maybe, we would’ve found a way to be together. Or maybe neither of us would even be here to have a second chance.

I’d become someone entirely new since leaving. Someone I no longer recognized in the photos that scattered the rest of the wall. I wasn’t that same, timid boy. I wasn’t the same kid who finished every fight Colette started when she wasn’t watching. I wasn’t the same boy who had run away at eighteen.

Maybe running then had been easier. I’d left a world where everything I’d wanted, I couldn’t have had. Of all the things that had changed, that hadn’t. I still wanted those same things. Or rather, that same person. Iwanted her. I wanted my family back, and I wanted Colette. Even though she’d changed too.

Coming back clearly wasn’t the easier choice. Avoiding facing the consequences of choices I’d made was always easier. But facing them, owning them, and getting what the fuck I wanted was worth it because I had fucked up. And most importantly, I wasn’t scared of her fucking parents anymore.

I couldn’t dwell on the what-ifs any longer. That wouldn’t change them.

“Why didn’t you ever tell anyone about Colette and I?” I finally asked, and she stopped rocking.

“And tear you two apart sooner?” She raised a brow.

“Are you going to say anything now?”

She slowly shook her head. “I don’t think there’s anything to say, seeing as Colette stabbed you.”

I pinched my brows together. “How the hell do you know that?”

She grinned wickedly. “I know everything, Ford. Now, go shower. You really do smell.”

I stared at her for a moment longer and then turned away.

She didn’t know everything. Not really. Not anymore. Because Colette stabbing me hadn’t meant that she wanted nothing to do with me, but that she was still pissed. She wouldn’t still be pissed if she didn’t still feel something for me. I loved my mawmaw, but this time, things would be different. Fuck the rivalry that was still there, fuck the threat that had forced me out of town fifteen years ago, and fuck O’Connor. I wanted her. Period.

I would get what I came back for.

Because I wasn’t that kid anymore. I was someone else entirely. I was a monster who danced with the devil daily. And I’d have what I wanted because I had nothing left to lose.

Chapter 9

FORD

Ibraced my palms against the cold tiles of the shower, enjoying the warm water sliding down my back as it washed away the final bubbles of soap. Being typically too tall for a decent shower, it was really nice being home, seeing as my father had made sure that both the master shower and this one would fit him—and now me.

That look in Mawmaw’s eyes had told me everything. I understood my own mistakes; they’d haunted me long enough. But it was only during that conversation that I recognized that same pain in her own eyes. She’d made a mistake. One she couldn’t take back, just as I had. We’d both spent enough time holding on to the regret. Now seemed as good a time as ever to let it go.

The hairs on the back of my neck stood up, despite the steam from the warm shower. Something in me set adrenaline coursing through my veins. My skin prickled like a thousand needles as I turned my focus past thecrinkled, white plastic shower curtain and strained my ears for any unusual sound.

A brief cool sensation washed across my wet body, and I cautiously pushed off the wall, straightening to my full height. Someone was here. Someone who moved as stealthily as I, though not because they were trained, or they’d have known to avoid standing where a shadow would cast itself across the curtain.

I smiled as I stared at the warped shape of a barely five-foot-tall woman, braced against the back wall, directly near the edge of the tub. If she wanted in, she’d have to climb, which also led me to reason that she had no idea this was probably one of the worst places for an ambush.

I watched as one hand slowly raised a shadow shaped to a point. Watched as she quickly pushed some curls away from her face and then shuffled closer to the shower curtain.

My stomach churned. Heat cascaded down my back as I still faced the shower, but the warmth that pooled low in my core had little to do with the water. There were two options in front of me. Speak, and alert Colette that I knew she was there, giving her time to escape the same way she snuck in—through my bedroom as we’d done more than once growing up.

Or…

Continuing to watch through my peripherals, I grinned even wider. I liked the latter option much better. It was much more like the current Ford, and less like the shy kid who had always let her take the reins. It would be much better to ease Colette into this new idea of me, instead of doing a one-eighty some random time in the future and be like “Surprise, Cher.I’m aggressive and demanding now, and both of those things play into how I plan to fuck.”

Shit. Maybe the latter reason wasn’t better…

Remaining still, I watched slender fingers slither around the edge of the shower curtain behind me. Well, the latter reason was the only option now because she was about to try and rip open that route anyway.

In a flash, I spun around, grabbed her wrist in one hand, and yanked her off the ground. Pulling her into the tub, I stepped between her legs and pinned her back against the wall with my hips.

Her eyes widened as a stifled gasp fled her lips. “Wh—Wh—” she attempted to say as I grinned and tipped my head.