Page 30 of Now to Forever (Life on the Ledge Duet #2)

Twenty

“Your dad asked me out on a date,” I say as I roll a line of deep-blue paint onto the wall.

“And?” Wren dips her roller in the pan then drags a diagonal line across the wall.

“And I said yes.” My mouth goes dry. “Because he’s so ugly I figured I’d take one for the team.”

She rolls her eyes. “Right.”

“And,” I continue, recalling my conversation with June and the plan that followed, “first, I wanted to know if that bothers you. Someone like me going on a date with him?”

“You’re asking my opinion?” she asks, dumbfounded. “Why?”

“Duh. You’re his kid. You’re part of this whole weird thing.

And, I’m not a poet, but I want to, I don’t know, make sure you won’t be mad or lash out or something.

I’m not trying to be your mom or anything—not that I should be anyone’s mom, right?

” I laugh; she doesn’t. “I just want to make sure you’re good with it. ”

“I’m not going to cut myself because you go out with my dad,” she says.

I give her a look. “Not funny. But, I don’t know, you’ve had a lot of stuff happen. I just—I don’t want to be another thing, you know?”

Her roller stills on the wall, and she looks at me, unreadable expression on her face making this feel more .

. . more. Nobody around me ever asked how their actions made me feel.

My dad never consulted me before he went apeshit then AWOL; Glory never asked how I felt about her downing a six-pack then disappearing all night; Zeb sure as shit never got my opinion on the pills he dumped down his throat and snorted up his nose.

Everyone always just did whatever they wanted, letting me deal with the leftovers like a picked-over dinner party in hell.

“All I’m saying is that I don’t want you to look back and think about me going out on a date with your dad and it be something bad. Like you-you—I don’t know, you’d rather he-he—” I’m stuttering like June under pressure, and I want to pound my head against the wall.

Wren puts me out of my misery. “Scotty, I don’t mind,” she says with a small smile. “I think you’d be good for him.”

“Yeah?” I ask, relieved.

She smiles fully, resuming the movement of her roller.

“You think I want a dad that’s married to birds?

You’re, like, a full step up.” She flicks her eyes to mine.

“Plus, a kid would maybe be lucky to have you as a mom.” I still, mid-dunk of my roller in the pan, looking at her.

When she notices: “You know, if they were desperate.”

I laugh softly, ignoring the weird flippity-floppity feeling in my belly.

“Aside from you basically calling me mommy-of-the-year material,” I tease, “I know you don’t want your dad to know about what’s going on, but the truth is, even though I don’t have a fu—” Her dark eyelinered eyes narrow.

“—nnel of knowledge of how to deal with a kid, not telling him is even screwing with my less-than-moral compass.”

She nods, resigned look on her face as she sweeps another blue streak across the wall.

“I want you to go to therapy.”

Her head snaps to me, eyes wide. “What? No, Scotty. Please.”

“Yes.” It was June’s idea. Actually, June’s idea was to tell Ford right away, but when I explained why I couldn’t, she said I needed someone more equipped.

“I looked it up. I can take you without being your guardian. I made an appointment for next week at a place over in Rocky Ridge. Nobody should recognize us.”

“Do I have a choice?”

“You do,” I say, dragging my roller across the wall. “We can tell your dad.”

She lets out an ugh-like groan.

“Fine.” She sloshes the paint around the pan too aggressively with her roller, making it splash over the edge and onto the acrostic-poem-covered floor. She looks at me, like she’s daring me to say something; I look right back, daring her to tempt me.

I put my roller down and grab a gift bag, offering it to her .

She sets her roller in the pan and wordlessly takes it, pulling out a bag of rubber bands, a fidget spinner, and a journal. Her eyes lift to mine.

“I read these might help,” I explain. “The rubber bands are for your wrist; you snap it when you get the urge to . . . When you hurt. It helps, I guess. I read. The rest are self-explanatory.” I bat my tongue around my mouth, uncharacteristically uncomfortable as her eyes go from me to the things.

She opens the bag of rubber bands, pulling out two before setting everything else to the side. She offers me one.

My eyes narrow.

“For when you hurt.”

I can’t make the words I don’t hurt come out of my mouth, so I take the rubber band, emotion clogging my throat as we slip them onto our wrists.

She picks up a roller from the pan. “Anything else you want to use my self-destructive behavior to blackmail me into doing?”

I snort a laugh but consider the question.

When we finish the wall we’re painting, the walls will be done.

And, because I’m not a complete sociopath, I’ve hired people for the next steps so I don’t burn the house down or kill myself.

It will be expensive, but at this point, I’ll take the financial hit—I’m mentally spent on doing all this work.

Electrical, plumbing, kitchen cabinet install, flooring, and trim have all been outsourced.

Next comes buying furniture and décor. Other than doing the backsplash for the kitchen—which is weeks away—I need to think of something else for us to do together.

She pushes the roller of paint across the wall, her black-encircled eyes looking at me like she’s waiting for some kind of sentencing. The way her long hair hides her face and awful makeup hides her features, it’s like she can’t even be seen. Like she doesn’t want to be seen.

“Yes,” I tell her as I pull out my phone and fire off a text. “Let’s finish the wall, and then there’s someone I want you to meet.”

“You have skin like porcelain straight from China, honey,” Wanda says with a smack of her gum, ample cleavage inches from Wren’s nose as she leans over her, running her fingers through her hair. “And such a thick mane! Like a prize-winning derby horse!”

Wren looks from me to Wanda’s neon fitted shirt, purple leggings, and cheetah heels, to the stainless-steel details of the room. Her stool sits smack dab in the middle of Wanda’s Workshop next to the corpse of a man Wanda had been working on before I texted.

Wanda steps back, as if sizing her up, before putting her hands on her curvy hips. “Who’s your inspo?” she asks.

“Inspo . . . ?” Wren asks.

Wanda pops a shoulder along with a bubble. “You know, who do you look at and think, ‘That girl’s got it goin’ on!’?” She pats her hair sprayed mass of hair. “Mine is Dolly Parton. That woman wears a wig and a set of tits like nobody’s business.” She shimmies, making her own tits jiggle .

Wren shifts uncomfortably on her stool, eyes down, sleeves of her shirt pinched in her fingers. Despite Wanda’s Wandaness, my heart crumbles.

My childhood was fucked. I hid from a lot and pretended a lot—hell, I still do—but the lengths she’s gone to . . . it’s like every slash I found on her arm was branded into my own skin the second I found them. The visceral way I felt her pain was almost as unexpected as seeing the cuts themselves.

“She likes Lindsey Stirling,” I say.

“Lindsey Stirling . . . ?” Wanda’s eyes squint and she taps her chin, as if trying to imagine such a woman.

Wren shakes her head. “Scotty.”

“You don’t have to be embarrassed,” I tell her gently. “Look at her—Wanda, of all people, is a judgment-free zone. We can look up a pic—”

“No,” Wren says, more sure this time, looking at Wanda. “When I look at Scotty, that’s what I think.”

My mouth opens slightly, and Wanda claps her hands, face lit up like a Christmas tree. Like this is the best news of her day. “Well of course you do, honey. She’s a knockout.”

When Wren’s eyes meet mine, she shrugs, slight smile tugging at her lips. Wanda wraps a cape around Wren’s shoulders then pulls a pair of scissors out of an apron tied around her hips.

In my forty-one years on this earth, it’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me. And while my knee-jerk reaction is to laugh and tell her she’s set her standards too low, I stay quiet, tucking the moment into a secret pocket inside me .

Wanda says something to make Wren laugh at the same time she takes the first snip with her scissors.

An hour later, Wren’s hair is cut, her beautiful face visible.

Gone is the dark makeup, and in its place a subtle line of brown eyeliner, peach blush, and clear lip gloss.

Before I take her home, we stop by the boutique in town.

She doesn’t want to part with the combat boots, but she does let me buy her five new sweaters, none of them black.

At her house, she looks at me through the rolled-down passenger window, bags of clothes looped around her arms.

“I have to ask you something.” She takes a sharp inhale, as if she’s about to jump into a frigid pool. “Did Wanda use the same makeup on me as she does on the dead bodies?”

I laugh—loud.

“Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answers to.”

She smiles, barely recognizable as her blue eyes sparkle just like her dad’s. “Thanks, Scotty.”

It hangs between us until I shift the gear into drive.

“I didn’t do anything.”

It earns an eye roll. “Either way, I’m really glad you said yes to my dad.”

Then she’s off toward her house, bounce in her step as she climbs the porch. The front door opens and there’s Ford—still in his uniform, shocked and doing a double take as she walks by. She pauses to give him a hug before disappearing down a hall.

I wave but don’t wait, not sure I’ll be able to keep my emotions in check if he tries talking to me .

When I get home, there’s a text from him. If you were standing in front of me, I’d be looking at you like you’re worth it.

Even I can’t ignore the way butterflies flutter in my stomach with one thousand tiny wings.

I respond the only way I know how: Then I guess you’d also be in the lake.