Page 14 of Now to Forever (Life on the Ledge Duet #2)

Nine

“So that’s Kid Doe?” I ask as we watch Wren ride her bike down the street toward what I now know is Ford’s house.

Two blocks away.

Where she lives with him.

Because he’s her dad she was supposed to meet at home thirty minutes ago.

“That’s Kid Doe,” he parrots as we step up onto the porch. “How’s she seem?”

I lean against the doorjamb; he stands at the top of the steps with a wide stance and arms folded over his chest.

“Like a judgmental little shit.”

He chuckles. “What else?”

“She told me her mom’s a traveling poet.” I cock a skeptical eyebrow.

A heavy sigh drains from one side of his mouth. “And what did you think about that? ”

“At first, I thought it was an interesting lie to conjure up.” I pause, waiting for him to deny it. When he doesn’t, I add, “Now I’m wondering how you ended up with a poet.”

He laughs softly, but it’s hollow. His gaze goes to the lake. “Didn’t end up with a poet. An addict though. In prison.” He lets the words land, and they most certainly do. Right in my sternum, crushing my chest.

My “What?” comes out like a gust of wind.

“I met her at a bar—only saw her a couple of times. Definitely didn’t know about the drugs.

” He puffs a sound sadder than a laugh and looks off toward the tree line.

My brain feels like a snow globe filled with shards of glass being shaken.

“She was high and drunk when she hit another car, killing the other driver—just a college kid—instantly. Part of the reason we’re here. ”

“How long?”

“Accident was about two years ago. She went away last year. Sentenced to ten to twenty.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah.”

A heavy silence follows. Wren has a mom in prison.

“How’d your night end with the math teacher?”

I give him a don’t be a dumbass look.

He chuckles. “Right.”

“How about Anna? Did my little pep talk encourage her to let you get to second base?”

“Far from.” He raises his eyebrows. “She wanted to talk . ”

“That’s very grown up of her,” I tease. When he doesn’t smile, I more seriously add, “And how did that go?”

“Well . . .” he says, glancing out over the water and scrubbing his hand across the back of his head. “She said you and I have unresolved issues we need to work out in order for me to become more emotionally available.”

I bite back the laugh that begs to come out. “And do we?”

He blinks.

“Have unresolved issues that are keeping you from being emotionally available?”

“Do we?” he asks.

It’s a simple question but the way he spins it on me sends me back to the barstool where I was all but ready to rip my clothes off as our dates stood right next to us.

My neck heats.

I swallow.

Force a smirk.

And lie.

“I’m resolved.”

He looks at me so long I wonder if he’s trying to count my eyelashes.

“So,” he finally says, putting his hands on his hips and peering around me into the house. “What’s your plan here other than beating the hell out of the countertops to the tune of ‘Scar Tissue’? You hire a contractor?”

“I’m doing it myself.”

He laughs, incredulous. “You? ”

“Yes, Ford. Me . In case you didn’t notice while you were palling around with my idiot brother and sneaking out with me to get naked on back roads, I didn’t exactly grow up having things done for me.

I’ve been on my own a long time, I can figure it out.

I have a toolbox with tools.” His amused expression almost makes me smile.

“Plus, I’m trying to save money since I’m selling it.

God knows Vince wants his full commission check.

” He regards me for what feels like a full minute.

“More important,” I add, “breaking shit’s cathartic. ”

He smiles fully, white teeth and perfectly curved lips making his face more attractive. “I would say if anyone can do it, it’s you, Scotty.”

“Careful, Ford, that sounds like a compliment.”

“Might be.”

I hate every inch of myself that still feels like that na?ve teenager that got swept up in make-believe twenty plus years ago.

“You know Wren was coming here?”

He nods. “I wasn’t sure if you’d met, but then figured you had when you described the girl feeding Molly.”

“She told me about the weed.” I squint at the water, the late afternoon sun making it blindingly bright.

“And?”

“And she said it wasn’t hers; I believe her. I also said I agreed with her overbearing dad. Too bad I didn’t know it was you, would have told her about the time we got stoned and naked under the bleachers after your game. ”

He drops his head back with a booming laugh, scrubbing a hand across his hair to make the longer strands on top stick up on end. “Damn. That was another lifetime. Parenting is hard. Hell, life is hard.”

I have so many things I could say back, but instead: “Yeah.”

Molly trots across the yard and a pontoon boat cruises by with Jimmy Buffett music blasting.

“Birds were hungry.” Ford eyes the nearly empty feeders.

I snort a laugh from where I’m still leaning against the doorway. “You really turn into an old-man bird nerd, eh, Golden Boy?”

He shakes his head, lips twitching as he fights a smile. “Had to fill my time with something that kept me out of trouble.”

I look at him. His face is the same as it ever was, just a little more grown into.

His short and seemingly accidental beard has subtle strands of silver and slopes across the once bare jaw of his youth, failing to hide his now-deeper dimples.

His eyes are still bright as ever, just bordered by lines that suit him.

With the afternoon sun shining, he’s him amplified.

Who he was the last time I saw him when I was twenty and who he became.

It unnerves me.

He works his teeth over his bottom lip, shifting his weight between his tennis shoes on the bottom step of the porch. “I have a favor to ask. An exchange really.”

I don’t hesitate: “No.”

“I haven’t asked!”

“You have nothing I want, Ford. You actually have an excess of nothing I want. ”

“Can you just hear me out?” The desperation in his voice intrigues me. I’ve seen men at this point before: so pliable. “It’s about Wren. I think you can help her.”

I scoff. “How?”

“Spend time with her. Let her help you. See if she talks.” He shrugs. “She won’t talk to me—not about the big things—and she dances circles around the counselors we’ve tried.”

Something about that visual pokes at my heart like a needle in a pin cushion. Her ridiculous eyeliner, oversized sweatshirts, and combat boots. And now: the mom in prison.

But he doesn’t know that.

“Take off your shirt,” I say coolly, not moving from my easy stance in the doorway.

His eyebrows pinch. “The hell, Scotty? Why?”

“You want something from me, I want something from you. Take. Off. Your. Shirt.”

To my surprise, he does, annoyed look on his face once his shirt is over his head and balled up in his hands. His body is as annoyingly good as I expected it to be. Muscular, not ripped, subtle dusting of hair on his chest but not enough to be offensive. Familiar and new.

If I was interested, I would be very happy with the sight before me.

He holds his hands out to the side, as if asking what the fuck, but I don’t budge from my position nor react. “Now your shoes. And pants.”

“What?” His eyes widen .

“Unresolved issues. Do it.”

He mutters under his breath before reluctantly dropping his T-shirt on the porch, toeing off his tennis shoes, and dragging the athletic pants down his legs, scowl on his face as he steps out of them.

I smirk, bored.

“And the rest.”

“Are you kidding me right now, Scotty?” He looks around like someone could be watching him.

I scoff. “I don’t know, Ford , were you kidding me when you handcuffed me and forced me to talk to you?” Nothing. “That’s what I thought. Strip and beg or I’m not playing.”

To my surprise, he does. He bends over, slides his boxer briefs down his legs, and when he stands, both hands are covering his crotch, and his face is flushed.

Victory.

My eyes drop to his hands and linger as I say, “I’m listening.”

He clears his throat. “As I was saying—dammit, Scotty, will you look at my face?”

“No,” I say, keeping my eyes on his crotch until a couple kayakers on the lake pass by, gawking at Ford’s bare ass that’s facing them. I smile—wide—and wave enthusiastically.

“Ledger’s finest, y’all!” I shout. “Here to serve and protect.”

Their laughter dances across the water in a wobbly echo.

Ford turns, gives what I imagine is both a humiliated and apologetic smile before looking back at me with clenched teeth.

“I was thinking,” he grits out. “Maybe Wren could keep coming back. And, I don’t know, you can talk to her.

Tell her about your life. She needs help, and she won’t talk to me or anyone. ”

“You want me to help your kid?” I laugh, unamused, the irony of the situation neither lost on me nor missing the chance to karate chop me in the throat. “I grew up in a dumpster fire, Ford, I don’t know the first thing about kids.”

“But you know about dumpster fires, Scotty. Her mom is an addict. In prison! And doesn’t give a shit about her!” When his voice raises, he takes a steadying breath. “She told you she was a poet. Please.”

I look him over. Naked as a jaybird except for a pair of socks.

“I’m leaving. As soon as this place sells,” I remind him. “I’m fixing this place, selling it, and leaving Ledger.”

“Okay,” he says. “Fine. You’re leaving. I’ll take whatever you’ll give.”

I pick at my fingernails, disinterested. “What’s in it for me?”

His knees bend with a kind of anxious bob. “You’ll have help with the house. Wren. Me—I’ll help.”

“Hm.” I don’t really want anything. And yet, I walk toward him—slowly—keeping my eyes locked with his for the four steps it takes for me to get less than a foot away from his naked body. I rake my gaze down him before kneeling to scoop up his clothes. “These will do.”

I turn, stroll to the house, toss the clothes inside on the floor, and let the door slam behind me without looking back.

“Scotty!” His shout of my name is muffled through the door where my back is pressed. “Are you kidding me right now? ”

He knows I’m not. If I knew where a lighter was, I would have set the clothes on fire in front of him.

Another muffled shout: “Give me my damn clothes!”

I peel myself from the door and stand at one of the many windows that fill the wall. His panicked eyes flick to mine. I smile and wave through the glass, mouthing, I can’t hear you , cupping a hand around my ear and shooting him a helpless grin.

Molly wags her tail from her position next to me. In her mouth, a destroyed pillow.

Bitch.

For a second, Ford’s pissed-off scowl makes me think he might bulldoze the door down, but instead, he does the last thing I expect: He drops his hands and smirks when my eyes slip to the prize between his thighs.

My, my. I didn’t think he had it in him.

Hands on his hips he shouts, “You could have just asked, Viper.”

Despite the heat crawling up my neck, I laugh, but when he turns to walk away, it dies. Along with my ability to breathe.

Because it’s not the news that Wren has a mom in prison, or the fact that Ford stripped naked with a body like that I’ll be thinking of when I lie in bed tonight.

It’s not even how absurd it is he thinks I’m at all capable of helping his kid.

It’s the single strip of music notes he has tattooed down his spine that I’d recognize anywhere.

The exact same ones my brother had.