Page 41 of Now to Forever (Life on the Ledge Duet #2)

Twenty-Seven

“I don’t like those frozen cubes of shit you buy.” Glory’s judgmental tone is in full force as I refill her empty freezer with said cubes of shit .

“Buy your own then,” I tell her, closing the freezer door. “If you ate like an actual adult, I would just buy you ingredients and you could cook.”

Glory takes a drag of her cigarette, glaring at me from where she leans against the kitchen counter. “Don’t belittle my diet. I have allergies.”

I snort. “Since when?”

Her eyebrows raise, annoyed I would ask such a ridiculous thing. She taps her ashes into the sink, watching me as I restock her fridge then pull cleaning supplies out of the cabinet.

She’s out of her usual cutoff uniform and wearing a white dress with blue flowers; her normally stringy hair is combed and pulled back into a tidy bun. The dress swallows her slight frame, hanging lower than it should at most places, but she looks nice, especially for her.

“What?” she snaps.

I roll my eyes, squeezing beside her to fill a bucket at her ashtray of a sink with hot water. “You look nice. You going somewhere?”

Suds fill the bucket.

“No thanks to you.”

I would thoroughly enjoy dunking her head into the water and holding it there. Instead, I smile tightly, remind myself I’m all she has, then play the game she loves so much of making me drag information out of her. “Okay,” I drawl. “Where are you going?”

“Not that it’s any of your business.” She cocks her head, exhaling smoke. “But I have a date.”

I lift the bucket from the sink and set it on the floor, poking the mop head into it before dragging it across the linoleum floor. “With who?”

“Dan Glibbs. I met him at the VFW playing Bingo.”

I push the mop back into the bucket, swirling it around with the soap before lifting it out again. “I didn’t know you went to the VFW.”

“I work there.”

My chin jerks back and the mop stills. “Since when?”

“Since forever. If you’d bother to come around, you’d know these things, Scotty Ann.

I can’t just sit here forever. My husband died.

My son didn’t care enough to live. My daughter doesn’t care about me.

” She gives me a hurt look; I do not remind her I just bought her groceries and am mopping her floor.

“Hell, nobody cares if I’m dead or alive.

I bet you wish I was in that truck with your daddy—” Some days .

. . “God rest his black soul. You know, this is just how my life is. I’m like one of those soldiers nobody knows the name of, dead on a battlefield just the same.

Nobody has time for little old Glory Joplin. ”

I roll my eyes; her use of her maiden name is a direct indication of how big of a pain in the ass she plans on being.

“What does that have to do with working at the VFW?”

She stubs her cigarette in the sink and leaves it then bats a hand through the air. “I started last month.”

I resume mopping.

“I can see how a month of working would feel like forever to you.” We exchange glares. “A job is good for you. Get you out of the house, get you around new people. Maybe you’ll like this Dan guy. Maybe he’ll even tolerate your cheery-as-a-rotted-corpse personality.”

“There it is,” she says, tossing her hands in the air and walking out of the kitchen but continuing her tirade from whatever she shuffles around to do in the living room.

“You can’t just let me be happy. Always have to cut me down and tell me about this and that.

You ever think I am the way I am because of you. Hm? Hm?”

I bark out a laugh, which draws her back into the kitchen. I pluck her cigarette butt out of the sink, toss it in the trash, and start to rinse the mop. “That’s like blaming stink for shit, Glory.”

“Stink for shit.” She scoffs. “I’m out there doin’ somethin’—what do you do?

You and your fancy clothes and your business and people sayin’ all this and that about how good you are and givin’ you a house.

While you’re out there trying to be a trailer-park hero, you ever think about how ridiculous that is? ”

Do not engage; three more months. Do not engage; three more months.

I swallow, very slowly, returning the mop to the bucket as she rattles on, something about me being alone because the blazer I’m wearing makes me look like a man. I’m ready to shove the mop right up her ass.

Do not engage. Do not engage. Do not engage.

“Well, Glory,” I say through clenched teeth and a death grip on the mop handle. “I’ll make it easy on you: I’m leaving in three months.”

She stills.

“To go where?”

I shrug, resume mopping, needing something to focus on other than the rage coursing through me. “Don’t know yet. Out west, I think.”

She’s quiet, scowling the entire time I mop the kitchen and then start scrubbing a dirty pan from the stovetop in the sink.

Three more months, I mentally chant . Threemoremonthsthreemoremonthsthreemoremonths.

“You runnin’ from the Callahan boy?”

I drop the pan with a clatter, not bothering to shut the water off. “What the hell does he have to do with anything?”

She chews her lip, hazel eyes narrowing as she looks me over before the angle of her lips curve from sheer amusement. “Shit, Scotty Ann.” She cackles like I’ve told the funniest joke of all time, only stopping to take a deep breath and wipe a line of amused tears from her eyes. “You’re seeing him.”

It’s not a question; she knows. Do not engage.

“You love him?”

Do. Not. Fucking. Engage.

She laughs again; there’s a cruel edge I’d recognize anywhere. Her verbal call to arms.

“He tell you he helped buy that car for me and got me the job at the VFW?”

He what?

I glare at the sink, gripping the edge of the counter until my knuckles go white. A fresh shot of rage pumps through me. He couldn’t have. He wouldn’t . . .

She makes an amused sound. “Figures. You two and your secrets.” Her smile is sharp enough to cut stone.

“Told me he’s carried all kinds of guilt with him.

Making amends. Felt bad he tore out of here after Zeb couldn’t keep his nose clean.

Now—” She shrugs; it turns the cheap floor beneath my feet to quicksand.

She’s not lying; he’s told me as much. Making amends .

The boys at the boxing gym. Helping me. I want to vomit.

She shakes her head, mouth in a mock pout.

“He helped me out. Now he’s helping you out.

He’s not seeing you , dummy, he’s using you to make himself feel better about Zeb and your daddy dying.

Sees you all alone trying to be someone else .

. .” Her voice trails off with her implied he feels sorry for you .

All I can say is a weak, “No.”

Even though I’m leaving, even though deep down I knew this thing with Ford would end poorly, I can barely breathe. Can barely see straight.

She keeps talking, but it’s all the same bullshit. She calls me a fool. Tells me I’ll get what I deserve for turning my back on her. Laughs because I’m living in a hand-me-down lake house.

My ears start to ring; the small house gets smaller. I need to get the hell out of here.

I slam the faucet of the sink off and push past her to grab my purse. My chest squeezes. Is this a heart attack ? I press a hand to my sternum, heart pounding . I refuse to die standing in this shitty trailer trying to help a woman who never bothered to help me.

“Guessing Ford don’t know about your dirty little secret either?

” she asks, thin eyebrows high on her forehead as the wind gets knocked right out of me.

I fumble for my keys; she’s either oblivious or fueled by the come apart I’m having right in front of her.

“I thought of telling him but”—another casual shrug—“no need for me to go poking around in other people’s business.

He’ll figure it out soon enough, I’m sure.

” I brave a look at her; she gives me a pout.

“I ain’t perfect, but at least I didn’t throw you away. ”

Tears fill my eyes and fall down my face.

I don’t bother to wipe them. This is what I get for showing up for a woman who has never once shown up for me.

I let Glory Armstrong see my weakness, and she did what she does: stabbed me with it until I bled.

I don’t fight her, there’s no use. She’ll win.

She always wins. Heart shattered and in a furious haze, I leave without a word.

In the Bronco, I can barely get the key in the ignition through the tremble in my hands .

“Hey!” Glory hollers from the porch. “You left the bucket of dirty mop water. What the hell am I supposed to do with that?”

I don’t respond; I drive. Fast. If what she says is true, as mad as I am at her, I’m furious with Ford. The only thing keeping me upright: In three more months, I’ll never see either of them again.