Page 11 of Now to Forever

“Oh, really?” I say, raising my glass toward Ben who grabs the bottle and pours a refill, eyes pinging between me and Ford. “Spin me a tale, Golden Boy. Tell me how it all went down.”

Our gazes clash and hold like lightning to an electric rod in a storm.

All he says: “Not that.” After a weighted pause he mutters, “And I hate when you call me that.”

It’s true, he always had. Once theLedger Timeswrote an article about him after a high school football game and called him Ledger’s Golden Boy, I never let him live it down.

“Well,” I say, holding my glass toward him in a mock toast, “I hate that your dad found the need to inseminate your mom, so I guess we’re even.”

He shakes his head, lips twitching just slightly as we study each other, the silence broken up by Ben sliding my food in front of me and refilling Ford’s club soda.

“You on the clock or something?” I ask between bites, eyeing his drink.

He crunches another piece of ice. “On the wagon.” My chin jerks back and he chuckles. “Nothing like whatever you’reimagining. Between the job and . . . some other things . . .” He shrugs. “Just seemed like it wasn’t helping matters.”

I nod and chew slowly, studying him as he takes another sip. He has the nerve to look comfortable. His arms in a T-shirt have the nerve to be muscular. He just . . . has the nerve.

“Heard Archie left you his place on the lake. He a little sweet on you?” he asks with a tease.

There are no secrets in this damn town.

“He didn’t care that I was born to rot, if that’s what you mean.”

“That what you think?” His eyebrows raise. “That you were born to rot?”

“I think everyone I love is either dead, didn’t show up, or doesn’t belong to me.” I let those words sink in. “Not so different than a rot.”

He stares at me for what feels like the same twenty years he’s been gone with an intensity too big for any one moment.

“You moving into it?”

A pressure starts to build in me with the question. Not just the question, at Ford asking it. At the shade of blue of his eyes and the foreign yet familiar look of hope swimming in them. At him being in this town after so long of not. I think of what Lydia said. June. Even Mel.Chase something that excites you.And like clouds parting in the middle of a Cat 5 hurricane, my path forward becomes crystal clear: “I’m selling it,” I hear myself say. “And leaving Ledger.”

He slowly lowers his glass, a line forming between his eyebrows. “Leaving?”

“Yes.” My body tingles with the promise of freedom. I’m excited—it feels good, right even. Like it’s what I’ve needed to do all along. “Leaving.”

“Why?”

Before I can answer, a woman—blonde, mid-thirties, and wearing a navy-blue dress—sits on the stool on the opposite side of him. I don’t recognize her, but it’s not too surprising since I prefer the company of my lifeless clients over those with an actual pulse.

“Hey,” she says to Ford, breathless quality to her voice as she rubs a palm across the spot between his shoulder blades and pecks him on the cheek.

“Anna,” he says in a velvety smooth voice that makes her smile a swoony shape that nearly makes me vomit on the bar.

When she notices me, I raise my glass and her smile falters slightly. She gives a curt, “Hey.”

I blink to Ford. “A bossanda bitch, how fitting.” My eyes flick toAnna. “And I see you’ve moved on to blondes. Aren’t you full of surprises, Golden Boy.”

Ford pins me with a look as Anna’s chin pulls back slightly.

“Don’t mind her,” he says, licking his lips, looking at me sideways before giving her all his attention. “Bark’s worse than the bite.”

I resist the urge to snap my teeth.

“How do you know each other?” Anna presses, leaning into him territorially.

“We—”

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