Page 13 of Now to Forever (Life on the Ledge Duet #2)

Eight

Wren shows up every day for a week and it’s always the same: dark eyeliner, hair hanging in her face, combat boots, and a dark-colored sweatshirt despite the sweat on her forehead.

Our exchanges have been the opposite of revealing.

After asking about Zeb, she hasn’t asked anything else about my family.

Like I scared her straight by simply existing.

In return, I’ve asked very little about her.

She shows up, lobs me a few angsty remarks and eye rolls, helps me with whatever project I’m working on, and pets Molly.

Fucking Molly.

The dog does nothing but eat the things she shouldn’t and bark so much I think I’ve lost hearing in one ear. Yet today when Wren arrives while I’m in the middle of taking cabinet doors off the kitchen cabinets, Molly sits quietly and performs tricks like a circus pony.

Bitch .

“Looks like a crack house in here,” Wren says, as I pull a door from its hinges and stack it on the floor with the others.

I eye her. “How do you know what a crack house looks like?”

“I do.” She gives me a challenging look. “Got a problem with that?”

“You’re snippy.” I unscrew another door with two quick zips of the screw gun. “When’s your poet of a mother get back from her trip? I think you need a hug.”

Eye roll.

Something’s wrong. I have a negative number of maternal instincts, but I know a pissed-off kid, and she’s standing right in front of me. “You in trouble?”

She shrugs and toys with the hem of her sweatshirt. I take the last two doors off the cabinets and lean against the now doorless kitchen, studying her.

“I got in trouble a lot,” I say casually. “Let me rephrase that: I got in trouble a lot compared to my best friend, but not that much compared to kids from the wrong side of town. Half empty, half full, that whole thing.”

“My dad found weed in my backpack,” she finally admits, her gaze down on her shoes as she scuffs a toe against the linoleum. “He’s pissed. It wasn’t mine, but—it’s—he didn’t care. Gave me the company-you-keep speech.”

“Ah,” I say, walking to my toolbox and picking up two hammers, proffering one to her. “Guess we shouldn’t tell him about the stash in the shed,” I joke. She doesn’t laugh, taking the hammer. “He know you’re here? ”

She half shrugs, gesturing with her watch. “I’m being tracked, remember?”

“Hm. Well, here’s what I think in my monster-romance-reading opinion: Your dad is probably right.

If your friends aren’t willing to carry their own weed, they’re lazy assholes.

Nobody needs friends like that.” She almost smiles.

“And I can’t have you stoned on the job, so .

. . it would be better for me if you didn’t get arrested or grounded or whatever happens to fifteen-year-olds, so there’s that. ”

She laughs softly. “Yeah,” she says. “Okay.”

I bump her with my shoulder, feeling oddly affectionate toward her. She looks fragile. Like a girl made of glass. “Okay.”

We turn to the kitchen. I hand her a pair of safety glasses and work gloves, already slipping my own on. “Put them on.”

She does as I say, eyeing the openings of the cabinets and holes where the old appliances used to be.

“Why do we need these?”

“The countertops,” I tell her, tapping my hammer against the yellowed tile. “I watched a few videos on how to do it, but I can’t find the screws, and the tile makes them too heavy for me to carry myself anyway.”

“So . . . ?”

“So”—I hold up my hammer and grin—“we’re going to beat the shit out of them.”

She’s skeptical; I don’t hesitate. I raise the hammer over my head and pummel it down with an oddly satisfying sharp crack! Squares of tile crack, shatter, and spew bits of dust the second the hammer hits them.

I grin; she gives a half-assed swing, not even cracking the surface.

“Wimp.” I take another swing, shattering four of the squares at once, making me shout Ha!

She swings again, harder this time, and splits a tile in half.

I elbow her. “Fun, right?”

She laughs—reluctantly—and swings again, harder.

Another one breaks, then another, chips of archaic porcelain flying into the air. I put a record on—Red Hot Chili Peppers—and turn it up as loud as it will go.

We go through the entire side A of the album without stopping the work. I flip to side B and the smashing and random bubbles of laughter continue.

Molly barks, loud and high-pitched—we bust the tile.

There’s a knock at the door we don’t notice—we bust the tile.

The music stops abruptly and someone asks, “Y’all having fun?”—we stop.

Look.

Ford . Pinching the needle between his fingers with an amused smirk on his face.

“Wren,” I say, my attention on Ford as I peel my work gloves off. “Close your eyes so you can’t be a witness to what comes next.”

“Scotty, I need to tell you something . . .” she says, voice hushed, as she grabs my elbow. I do a double take; her eyes are wide and panicked .

“Jeez, I’m not really going to kill him,” I tell her, taking my eyewear off.

He moves to the opposite side of the now-demolished kitchen counter, wearing athletic shorts, a sweaty T-shirt, and tennis shoes. His eyes go from the destroyed tile, to me, and then to Wren. Molly whimpers as she steps over rogue pieces of debris to settle next to him, angelic as he pets her head.

“Officer,” I say, with a too-sweet tone and smile. “You still need a warrant even though your girlfriend couldn’t handle my jokes.”

“Jokes?” he asks, knowing look on his face. But his eyes don’t linger on me; they go to Wren. Where they stay.

His demeanor shifts. He squares his shoulders, crosses his arms over his chest and looks like a TV cop deciding what angle he’s going to run a case.

“Wrenny,” he says, voice more stern than I’ve heard it.

Wrenny? My eyes bounce from her to him. Is this about the weed?

I look back to Wren, confused. Her gaze is down, scrubbing the toe of her ridiculous combat boot through the rubble of tile, avoiding eye contact with him or me.

Her fingers pinch the cuffs of her sweatshirt.

Finally, she lifts her chin and looks at him, shoulders sagging.

In a voice so soft I can barely hear it, she says, “Hey, Dad.”

Shit.