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

“Mel.” He smiles slightly—the ease of it hitting me like a sledgehammer—then turns his head toward me. “I do. Scotty.”

His elbow is casually propped on the open window of the car and his aviator sunglasses hide what I know to be bright blue eyes.

In the warm afternoon light, hair that I knew to be the darkest brown two decades ago is now subtly dashed with salt.

In another ten or fifteen years, he’ll be considered a silver fox.

I want to gouge his eyes out, scalp him, and feed his bits to the buzzards.

“Don’t be modest, Officer ,” I say, turning to Mel. “I’ve had Ford’s dick in my mouth.”

Ford lets out a choked snort while Mel pinches the bridge of her nose, squeezing her eyes shut with a sharp exhale.

“Then I guess you know she only speaks in razor blades,” she says to Ford.

He chuckles— bastard —the sound making me seethe as he looks up at me. In the lenses of his sunglasses, my own reflection scowls at me.

“Don’t worry, Mel,” he says, smirk tugging at his lips and making a dimple dent in the scruff of his jaw.

“I’m well aware. And fluent.” His chin dips—slowly.

Like he’s looking me over. The notion makes my blood boil so hot with rage I’m surprised it doesn’t singe my cutoff jean shorts and loose-fitting shirt right off my skin.

I fold my arms across my chest; he shifts his attention back to her. “Just wanted to check in. You good? ”

She smiles genuinely, slight laugh in her voice when she speaks. “I’m good, Ford. Stop worrying about me. Six months sober today.”

He grins, like he’s proud. “Probably won’t stop me, but I’m happy for you.” Then to me, “Scotty, good to see you.”

Motherfucker.

I look at him and force a smile with all my teeth. “Pleasant as a bowl of shit soup, Officer Callahan.”

He chuckles with an exhale, looking me over one last time before lifting his fingers from the wheel in a slight wave and cruising out of the lot.

“I’m not even going to ask,” Mel mutters.

“Wouldn’t answer if you did.”

Mel and I have only known each other from our six months of talking after the meetings, but these exchanges have become who we are.

I don’t say much; she lectures me like a Snapple lid while sprinkling in small pieces of her personal life I don’t ask for.

I know she was born and raised in western North Carolina and, following her divorce, moved to Ledger about ten years ago with her two kids.

She works at a plant nursery and lost her daughter to a drunk driver roughly two years ago, which led her to becoming a drunk herself.

According to her, if there was something at the bottom of the bottle that was worth killing her daughter over, she was going to find what it was. She never found it; now she’s sober.

And, unfortunately, I now know that she knows Ford. Judging by the hokey look on her face when she spoke to him, she even likes him. Another soul lost .

We’re quiet, watching cars come and go.

“You aren’t going to find what you’re looking for,” she says. “Not here. Not like this.”

Gary walks by, lifting his chin in a silent goodbye as he trudges to his truck.

“And what is it that you think I’m looking for?”

“Here’s what I see—” She taps another cigarette out of the box with a muttered, “One vice for another,” lights it, and takes a deep inhale before continuing.

“You’ve been shoveling shit your whole life, and I can’t imagine what that’s like, but you continuing to show up here shows you are addicted to one thing, Scotty.

” She points her lit cigarette at me. “Being unhappy.”

I make a psh! sound, waving my hand dismissively. “In your professional opinion?” I snark.

“What do you do when you aren’t here grilling everyone?”

I run my tongue across the back of my teeth, silent.

“You need a purpose, Scotty. More than chasing ghosts. More than this. You never share—the only person you talk to is me after meetings. You told me once about a hobby, the next month you’d moved on to something else.”

My eyebrows pinch in offense. “I dabble.”

The truth is, I haven’t dabbled in a while. Where I used to experiment with hobbies, my no-strings-attached free trials lost their luster when I walked into the boxing gym four months ago only to find Ford taking up all the space in it. So I’ve been staying home. Working. Fine .

“You need to do something for you.” She flicks her fingers, making ashes drop from the end of her cigarette. “Chase something that excites you. Let yourself love something. Someone .”

Some one is the last thing I need.

“And your purpose?” I shoot back. “You drank yourself stupid for—what—nearly two years? What changed? Your daughter’s still dead.”

At my directness, she doesn’t waver, simply drops her cigarette and stamps it out with her shoe.

“You never run out of bitch, do you?”

I don’t know if she’s trying to be funny, but I laugh anyway. Her lips quirk into an almost smile.

“Someone pointed out if I would have died and my daughter lived, I would be devastated if she wasted her life the way I was. I was drunk for her the same way I’m sober for her. And my son who is still very much alive. Would you be doing this if your brother and dad were still here?”

The shout of a child interrupts the unwanted feelings her question provokes and makes us both look.

In the nearly vacant lot, next to my Bronco, a minivan parks.

Little arms flail from the back windows and a frazzled redheaded driver in the front seat smiles, slightly confused as she looks through her windshield at me, Mel, and the church.

The hell is Joo doing here?

I smile toward the circus in the parking lot with a wave before giving Mel a smug look. “I’m fine. See? My best friend is here.” I do not tell her she’s also my only friend. “I’m a social butterfly. ”

“Scotty,” Mel calls as I walk toward the screams. I pause to look over my shoulder. “Fine isn’t the same as living.”

I debate telling her I would be fine if everyone left me the hell alone, but she breaks our gaze by turning to a woman exiting the church and I revert mine to the familiar minivan.

“Aunt Scotty! Look at this!” Twin five-year-old voices shout from the back seat before I fully make it to June’s driver’s side window.

When both boys flip me off, I bark out a laugh and return the gesture.

“Scotty!” June snaps, glaring at me from the driver’s seat before she blows out an exasperated breath and turns to the boys in their booster seats. “Hank. Ty. Don’t do that. We talked about that finger.”

They start to whine, she rolls her eyes, looking up at me then glancing around the empty lot, lingering on the LL sign before Mel picks it up and carries it inside the church.

“What are you doing here?”

“What are you doing here?” I retort, lifting my chin.

“I was driving by and saw the Bronco—at a church—and thought the world must be ending or you must be dead, so I pulled over.”

I shift my weight between my feet and cross my arms over my chest.

“Praying.”

She squints at me, her curly red hair framing her not-convinced face .

“Lost cause. What else?”

I say nothing. The truth is, I don’t know how to answer.

I don’t know why I’m here. Six months ago, I was on my usual Sunday drive, saw the sign as I went by, and decided to go in.

Like maybe a basement full of people like my entire family might give me some insight, direction, or answers.

I’ve gotten none, yet I keep showing up.

“You’re a pain in the ass.” One of her kids shouts about her use of ass. “How long?”

I shrug, annoyed. “Not as long as you harassed my clientele with your problems.”

She glares at me, no doubt reliving the time that lasted until just months ago when her marriage was crumbling, and she could only find solace by sharing everything she felt with those who couldn’t respond . . . because they were dead.

“Was that Ford?”

I scuff the toe of my sandal against the ground, stretching the silence between us.

“I’m worried about you, Scott.”

I sigh. “It’s nothing, Joo.” She opens her mouth to argue but I raise a hand, silencing her. “I’m serious, it’s nothing. I’m fine. I’m just . . . I don’t know. Restless or something. In a rut. Maybe this is my midlife crisis.”

“What else have you been doing? I hardly saw you all summer.”

“Pilates,” I lie.

She rolls her eyes. “We didn’t even hang out for your birthday.”

“Forty-one isn’t a big deal. ”

She puts her hands together like she’s praying, pressing her fingertips to her forehead and blowing out a slow breath before looking at me again. I’ve seen her like this before—usually when she’s trying not to go apeshit on her kids. “You’re always working or in that sad apartment.”

My jaw drops. “That’s fucking rude, it’s not sad.” June winces, and the boys start shouting about swear words again. “We went boxing. That’s something.”

She scoffs. “That was four months ago, and we both turned into psychos.”

I chuckle; she’s not wrong. She unloaded on her husband, Camp, and I attacked Ford. Not that he didn’t deserve it.

“Talk to me, Scott. You live alone, above a crematorium in an apartment with one window and—”

“Two,” I correct, holding up two fingers. “The bathroom has that round one.”

“Fine.” She closes her eyes, as if trying to keep herself from snapping. “You know what I mean. Just—” She looks at the church. “Are you dating?”

Why is she pushing this?

A car drives through the lot around us, loud music vibrating the windows with a rattle. “I like being alone.”

Her look says she doesn’t believe me. “There’s a new teacher at the school. He’s a coach—Camp said he’s single. Has two kids—” I frown. “And he’s nice. And cute.”

“He’s cute?”

She nods too many times. “Like, so cute, Scotty.”

I squint at her.

“Seriously. So cute.” Her tone is eager. Too eager. “Hot, really. And-and-and funny. Think about it. And promise me you’ll tell me if something is going on. Let me help?”

I soften toward her, my best friend that’s been by my side through every dark age on the timeline of my life. “Fine.” I squeeze her arm through the down window. “But my apartment is cheery as unicorn shit.”

She snorts and the boys scream.

The engine of the minivan hums when she turns the key, and her eyes search me like she’s looking for a gunshot wound before shifting the gear. “You’re a pain.”

I grin. “I know I’m not.”

As she drives away, I know in a million years she’ll never understand what it’s like to be me.

She ended up with the family, the house, the photography career that sets her on fire.

Once upon a time, I thought that would be me: a woman who would smile easy surrounded by people who loved her.

But it didn’t work out that way and I’ve made peace with it.

When you live a life filled with ghosts and defined by loss, alone is easier.

People alone don’t come home from a hike only to find out everyone they love is gone, forced to spend the rest of their lives with a hole in their chest. They don’t go to college thinking one day they might become a lawyer only to drop out and spend their days cremating bodies.

June and Mel don’t get it. They can’t. Nobody can.

When I start down the road, it’s the same out-of-the-way drive I’ve been making every Sunday for nearly twenty years: past the run-down trailer park on the edge of town, over the river by the wooden cross nearly smothered by the tree line, and to a two-story house in a cookie-cutter neighborhood where a family of three washes a car, pickup truck, and SUV in the driveway.

The mom sees me, pausing mid-scrub with a sponge to wave when I slow down. I smile slightly, only giving myself a few seconds of watching—the husband and son oblivious of my presence.

When I get home, I start a record by The Black Crowes, pour whiskey in a rocks glass, and turn on all the lights.

Dark shadows from the lampshade reach across the ceiling as lyrics about talking to angels play like an anthem.

When the last sip burns my belly, I convince myself my apartment is as bright as the damn sun.