Page 16 of Now to Forever (Life on the Ledge Duet #2)

I scoff defensively as I look around the dated interior. Sure, the seats are uncomfortable and it’s a bit bulky, but . . . “Of course I like it,” I snap. “And I like you better when you don’t talk.”

She rolls her eyes. “I’m just saying, it doesn’t look like something you’d drive.”

“Noted,” I mutter, turning my attention back to Ford, blissful amongst his birding equipment. “He always this weird about birds?”

“Yep.” She waves at him as we start to open our doors. “He’s obsessed. Apps on his phone, guidebooks everywhere.”

She makes her way to the bird feeders, thumping one before giving him a half-hearted hug.

He says something that morphs her face into a reluctant eye-rolling smile then scrubs a hand in her hair.

Glancing over her to me, he smiles with his whole face.

He’s a good dad. The way some people know a house is solid by simply knocking on a random wall, I can tell by watching Ford that he’s the kind of father any kid would be lucky to have.

It’s a one-two punch to my solar plexus.

By the time I get to him, Wren is lifting her bike out of the grass. To me: “Your poems need work.”

“So do your social skills.”

She shrugs, almost smiles, and pushes her bike a few steps before riding away, zigzagging freely down the street .

“Hey,” Ford says, stealing my attention. “How was the tattoo shop?”

I raise my eyebrows. “Never thought I’d have a matching ass tattoo of a dragon with a fifteen-year-old, but here we are.”

He chuckles. “How is she?”

“Well.” I sigh. “She wasn’t talking to me for the last few days, so I decided to add some more trauma into her cocktail of life and show her where I grew up.”

His eyes widen. “How did that go?”

“Glory was on the porch. You can imagine what Wren thought. But”—I shrug—“she talked to me before she left. Actually, she told me what she thought about the Bronco.” I give him a stupid-ass kids these days look. “I guess it worked.”

He looks toward the lake. “You see your mom much?”

I follow his gaze; a swimmer with effortless strokes cuts across the water followed by a boat pulling kids on a tube. Laughter mingles with the hum of the motor.

“Every month. Keep the lights on. Make sure she’s not dead and has something to eat other than beer and Slim Jims.”

“I’m sorry,” Ford says, falling into step next to me as I head toward the house.

“About Glory?” I say with a slight chuckle. “You didn’t make her.”

At the bottom of the porch steps, he shakes his head. “Not about that.”

“Okay. Then you’re going to have to be more specific because I got a list of grievances about a mi— ”

“That I left,” he says, eyes searching mine. “That I never called. That I—that I loved you and ran.”

His words deliver yet another sharp jab straight through me.

“Water under the dilapidated bridge,” I say with faux indifference, stopping in the middle of the porch. “I love you means something different when you’re a kid anyway. It’s all hormones and hard-ons, you know?”

He doesn’t laugh.

A palpable silence follows. Like it has a pulse and power over the situation. Like it’s required for whomever stands in it to drown in thoughts marred by missed opportunities and mistakes and godforsaken maybes.

“Right,” I finally say, leaning against one of the pillars on the porch and shoving my hands in my back pockets.

“You want to get a drink tonight?” he asks.

A loud laugh spills out of me. “Why?”

“Talk. Laugh. Pretend I didn’t fuck up and you don’t hate me for it.”

“Unresolved issues you’re trying to deal with, Golden Boy?” I tease.

His hands settle on his hips and a boyish grin consumes his face. “Something like that.”

I will not be able to sit with him and not get all swoony. I know it by the way my hands itch to move and my throat burns when I look at him too long.

“When did you get that tattoo?” I ask. “The one Zeb had? ”

“Hm.” His tongue bats around the inside of his mouth. “Wondered if you saw that. Day after he died.”

I had no idea my brother was gone, and Ford was already memorializing him on his flesh.

“I’m moving,” I remind him, more of my weight pressing against the wooden post.

He blows out a sharp breath. “I know.”

“In months.” My pulse pings in my throat. Why is he doing this? “As soon as Thanksgiving is over.”

“Well, it’s August.” His lips twitch like he’s fighting a smile. “Seems like enough time to get a drink.” My nostrils flare as he adds, “Unless you were planning on the drink lasting three months.”

My fingers curl in the back pockets of my jeans. His amusement makes his face more punchable than usual.

“Fine,” I say, eyeing a bird at the feeder I think to be a chickadee based on Archie’s old guidebooks I’ve been studying. “I’ll have a drink.”

His grin is so fast it’s like it’s been waiting in his lips. “Yeah? Six? Liberty Tap?”

“Fine.”

I don’t move from my position on the porch, hands still tucked in my back pockets as he retreats to his truck.

Window down, his face is perfection. All smile lines and warmth.

As he drives away, my chest hurts. Like each pump of my own heart is killing me.

I won’t show up—I can’t. Because I loved him once and he left.

Because I loved him once and my life fell apart after.

But most importantly, because when I look at him, it’s like none of those things matter.

And as much as I want to be the person he thinks he sees when he looks at me, I’m not.

Probably never was. And I’m leaving. One drink with him will make things more complicated. More painful.

Instead of getting ready, I put a Matchbox Twenty record on, pour a plastic cup of whiskey, and spend my night ripping the rest of the shag carpeting off the floor of a house that will never really be mine.

The fucking dog barks the entire time.