Page 49 of Now to Forever (Life on the Ledge Duet #2)

Thirty-Four

“Hi. I’m Blair, and I’m addicted to exercise.

” Blair laughs softly, looking around the room like she’d rather be doing anything but.

She’s beautiful—in perfect shape and wearing jeans and a sweater that complement her athletic physique.

“And I feel stupid talking about it. Like, who can’t stop running?

” She makes a face, almost making fun of herself.

A few people chuckle. “Anyway, I’ve sat here, month after month and just thought, what the heck, Blair, why not share. So, here we are.

“I don’t have a big success story. I’m not clean .

Every day I struggle to stop running. To get off the Peloton.

To not do another set with the weights. But I have been stopping more.

Most of the time. Just one day at a time, that’s what’s worked for me.

I just say, Blair, you run two miles today, and then maybe tomorrow you can run three. Or whatever it is.

“I wasn’t healthy as a kid, and my parents weren’t healthy.

I got made fun of a lot for being fat . .

. In my twenties, that changed. I got healthy and lost the weight.

And I married a man that’s—” A breath whooshes out of her and her eyes go glassy, voice cracking with her next words.

“He’s dang perfect. And I don’t just mean handsome, I mean, the man just worships me.

And we had babies. Three. Perfect babies just like him.

And gosh, the number they did on my body.

” She shakes her head with a slight laugh and wipes under her eyes.

“I started working out to get the baby weight off, and I just forgot to stop, I guess. And now, I think, I don’t want him to see me in case I don’t live up to his standards.

I’ve lost the weight but still have the stretch marks.

Look good in jeans but not a bathing suit.

All the stories we tell ourselves. And I think of my parents—so stinking unhealthy—and it just makes me go and go and go.

Like, what if one day, he looks at me and sees the fat girl and her parents then decides to get the heck out of town. Like he got conned.”

She sniffs and toys with the hem of her sweater. “So that’s my sob story.” She laughs, but it’s empty. “One day at a time.”

Mel gives her a sincere smile.

“What do you do when your husband looks at you?” I ask, not missing the shocked look on Mel’s face at my gentle tone. “Or compliments you?” Everyone turns toward me, blinking. “Or when that voice you mentioned gets too loud?”

“I used to deflect. Convince myself he’s lying.

Just being nice. Heck, I’d try to convince him he didn’t know what he was looking at by pointing out all my flaws.

Like I was trying to scare him off before he figured it all out on his own.

” Even I can’t ignore how familiar this sounds.

“I’d hide myself all the time. But one night we were watching that movie Shrek —the one about the ogre.

My kids were laughing about how Fiona looked—that’s the lady ogre—and he said, ‘I’d love your mother if she was an ogre.

I’d love her without hair and without legs .

And if she had hairy warts, I’d kiss them.

’ And I looked at him, and he meant it. And that night I let him see me naked—” She looks at Mel.

“Sorry if that’s too much information.” Mel smiles and mouths, it’s fine .

“Anyway, I just let him look at me. And it was hard that first time—it had been a while. And I cried like a baby. But then I just kept letting him. Even when it was hard. Even when I’m scared he’s going to see something he doesn’t like and take off like a jackrabbit.

And that voice?” She shrugs. “I’ve just learned I can’t control it.

We all know a loudmouth, right?” Mel looks at me with raised eyebrows.

“But, I keep telling myself, just because it’s loud, don’t mean it’s right.

” She laughs like she doesn’t believe it, but a smile also lingers like she wants to.

“Thank you, Blair,” Mel says from the podium. “Who wants to go next?”

“That was very un-rabid of you today,” Mel says with a drag of her cigarette. “You sick?”

I laugh softly, shrugging my shoulders as I look out at the mountainous horizon line and watch Gary trudge across the parking lot .

Ford rolls by in his truck, waving at Mel who waves back. He lifts his chin at me, and it sets a hive of bees loose in my belly as I force a smile.

Mel lets out a smoky exhale. “The world is smaller than we give it credit. You know Ford helped me get in touch with the right people to start these meetings?”

“I didn’t know that.” Out of the corner of my eye, I notice June, waving with two cups of coffee by her minivan. “Doesn’t surprise me though. He’s that kind.”

Mel's brows lift. “That kind?”

“The kind that makes everything better by simply existing.”

She regards me a bit.

“You love him.” Just like when Glory said it, it’s not a question. “Makes sense. He’s about the only person I know who could tolerate you.”

I chuckle softly.

“I’m not sure I know how to love.”

She blows out a final smoky breath and stubs out her cigarette.

“Of course you do, Scotty. One day at a time, just like Blair said. We don’t talk about it enough.

We look at big victories, always comparing our beginnings to someone else’s end.

Hell, every book on the shelf started with a single word, but we don’t think of it that way.

We see the collective. You want to love that man?

” She points the stubbed-out nub of a cigarette at me.

“You start from there and do it like Blair did. Slow, scared, but without looking back.”

I let the words replay themselves. “Maybe. ”

She picks up the LL sign with a huff. “You’re annoying when you’re nice.”

“You’re annoying when you’re a sober savant, I guess we’re even.”

We exchange a look of teasing contempt before I jog across the parking lot to June and take the coffee she offers with greedy hands and a gimme.

“You were good in there today,” she says, taking a nonchalant sip from her cup.

I snap my eyes to her. “You listen?”

She scoffs. “You’re going to LL meetings, of course I listen.”

“That’s fucking rude, Joo!”

She barks out a laugh. “Says the woman who eavesdropped on my therapy sessions with dead bodies for years.”

“Where do you listen from?” I ask, incredulous. Feeling violated as I look at the church.

“The hall.” She shrugs. “The door is cracked, so I just stand out there and can hear. Your loud mouth makes it easy.”

We settle on the bumper of her minivan.

“Wanna tell me what happened with Ford last night?” she asks.

“Hmm.” She frowns at the word, and I grin before taking a sip of my coffee. “He said he was in love with me and asked me to stay the night.”

She drops her head onto my shoulder as we look at the mountains. “You tell him?”

I shake my head, taking another sip.

“You need to, Scott. All of it. ”

The idea opens a deep abyss inside of me.

“I don’t know how.”

“Just . . . I don’t know . . . start with something. Anything. It’s Ford, you know? For a cop, he’s, like, the least scary person there is.”

We both laugh at this then fall quiet, drinking our coffee as we watch cars drive by, and the sun paints the burnt orange and yellow slopes of the mountains around us.

June fidgets next to me, opening and closing her mouth several times without saying anything.

“Alright,” I say, knowing damn well she’s dying inside. “Let’s hear it. Which vice are we starting with?”

“Thank God!” The words gush out so fast and loud it’s like they’ve been trapped in her mouth for months. “I’d like to start with the nude maids, please and thank you.”

I laugh, hard, and then we do what we do: We drink our coffee and talk until we run out of words. As confused as I am about Ford, the house, my whole life in general, I’ve forgotten how my best friend always feels like home. How without her friendship, I might not have survived all my hardest days.

“You know,” June says, opening her driver’s door as we pack up to leave. “You move to the desert, we don’t get this.”

I lean a hip against my Bronco. “You’re using me for my connection with the addicts?”

She grins. “It’s your only redeeming quality.”

Outside the two-story house in the cookie-cutter neighborhood, I cut the engine and park along the street. The familiar woman walks to the mailbox and sees me, smiling as she crosses the street to where I’m parked.

She has long dark hair, a curvy build, and the same friendly face she had twenty years ago when I met her. She was young; I was younger.

“Scotty.” She swats me lightly with a stack of mail, smile webbing lines out from around her eyes. “Will you just knock on the door one of these days already? How many times do I have to invite you?”

“Hey, Merritt. I don’t want to intrude.” I look around the neighborhood. “Just creep the neighbors out.”

“Yeah, well.” She chuckles and pushes her bangs out of her eyes. “HOA president lives across the street; it would be good for him to be creeped out.”

“Everyone good?”

She nods. “Everyone’s good. He’s not here right now—basketball or something—but school is going good. Good grades and not partying too much.”

“The gene must have skipped a generation,” I joke.

She grins, looking at the house. “I got supper on, so I have to get back inside, but I mean it, Scotty, anytime. Too many Sundays of you coming by not to say hello. For him not to know you. ”

A knot forms in my throat, and I start the engine. “Maybe.”

Merritt taps the door with her mail. “Hopefully.”