Page 131 of Now to Forever

“We’re over,” I bark. “How’s that for real?”

He chuckles, gets out of the Bronco and into his truck—like I didn’t just tell him he had a son he never knew about—and drives away.

I must still be drunk.

At my window, a tap makes me jump.

“Jesus, Mel.” I gasp, bringing a hand to my chest as I roll the window down. “You almost scared me to death.”

“Failed again,” she says with a slight lift of her lips as she taps a cigarette out of the box and sticks it in her mouth without lighting it. “What are you still doing here?”

“Well, I was just showing Ford his bastard child and telling him to pound sand, but that asshole is too stupid for his own good.”

She looks at me, unlit cigarette still hanging out of her mouth.

“That’s a lot to unpack.”

I frown.

“Now what are you going to do?”

“About what?”

“Life!” she cries, making the cigarette bobble on her lips. “Love! All of it!”

“Why would I do anything?”

“Scotty.” She plucks the cigarette from her mouth. “Your skull must be the thickest matter on earth. Didn’t you hear yourself today?”

My eyes narrow.

“You just told a whole room that you wished people would have showed up for you.”

“So . . . ?”

She barks out a laugh and looks at Ford’s truck pulling out of the lot. “So let them show up for you for God’s sake. Just because your parents never did doesn’t mean people can’t do it now. You’d be a special kind of stupid not to be with Ford because you’re on some mission to be miserable. He knows what you are. You’re so damn loud, we all do.”

Her point knocks me sideways. I think of June throwing my own advice back in my face. Be me with them.

“I don’t think—”

“What you think,” she says over me, “and what is are two entirely different things.” She puts the cigarette back into the box. “I’m trying to quit,” she mutters when she catches me watching. “Read an article just putting the damn things in your mouth helps.”

“Does it?”

“I don’t know.” She shrugs, slight smile pulling at her lips. “Does you telling Ford you don’t want to be with him make you love him any less?”

Bitch.

Forty-Seven

“Heardyouhadquitea weekend, honey,” Wanda says with a wide smile, falling into step behind me as I head toward my office. “Heard you almost castrated Cal right in front of everyone at Liberty Tap.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I mutter, tossing my purse on the floor then sliding into the chair behind my desk. Wanda’s wearing fifty shades and patterns of brown, looking like some kind of sexy safari guide. “Don’t think I’ve ever seen so much brown.”

She pops a shoulder. “Thanksgiving’s next week. I’m channeling my inner Pilgrim.”

Her inner Pilgrim would make a real Pilgrim stroke out.

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