Page 20 of Now to Forever

“Well, I can see why,” Wanda replies with a wink to Ford before looking at me.

“I’ll be right in,” I tell her as I rub my wrists.

She disappears back inside, keeping the door slightly ajar.

Ford and I regard each other, a tension in the air.

“Friends?” Ford asks, hopeful lilt to his voice.

“With benefits?” I ask with a smirk, taking the few steps toward the door, turning to face him as I wrap one hand around the knob.

He shrugs. “Depends on the benefits.”

My eyebrows raise, unable to get a read on him. What he wants or why he’s here. “Fine,” I relent. “Friends.” Then a caveat: “In public.”

“And in private?” he says it smooth and with a smile. Like he’s teasing. Maybe even flirting.

I open the door fully and turn to look at him one last time. Ford Callahan in a police uniform. His dark hair is a little longer on top, familiar face somewhere between clean shaven and scruffy, and bright blue eyes are so very appealing yet wasted on the man I once lovedwho once left.

“I have no intention of ever seeing you in private again,” I say. “And I have a feeling you wouldn’t know how to handle me anymore if you did.”

I step inside and the door slams behind me, shutting him out of my life—where he belongs.

Six

“What’sthis?”Wrenasks,nose scrunched and eyeliner-attacked eyes narrowed as she holds up a book. With a fish-man. And a half-naked woman. CalledHookered.

“A book,” I say, snatching it out of her hands and picking up the box she got it from—even I know she doesn’t need to be exposed to my nightstand box of tricks—and set it at the base of the spiral staircase. “Are you not familiar with the concept?”

“What is it?”

“Monster romance, what does it look like?”

“You read books about monsters?” Her eyes narrow. “Why?”

“They’re funny.”

Her face maintains a skeptical expression as she eyes the box. “Are they supposed to be?”

“I don’t care if they’resupposed to be.” I take several of Archie’s fish knickknacks off the shelf in the living room and put them into the box I’m packing. “Plus, it’s always a fun surprise to see wheretheir dic—” She stares at me, hanging on every word. “—tionaries are.”

“My mom says you should feel something when you read,” she says, shifting her focus to pulling dishes out of the cabinets in the kitchen. Despite how hot it is today, she’s wearing a grey sweatshirt. “That’s why she writes poetry.”

“Yeah, well, that’s why she’s a mom,” I explain, picking up a decorative plate showcasing a painted little boy fishing with a cane pole and putting it in the donation box. Molly sniffs around the room, stopping when she gets to my box of tricks. “Your aptitude for parenting can be determined by what you read. Monster romance? No parenting skills. Poetry? Supermom.”

When I smile, she doesn’t, staring blankly at the mugs on the tiled kitchen counter.

The only sound between us is the Weezer record playing as I empty the bookshelf. When the last song ends and the musicless clicking starts grating on my last nerve, I ask, “So what kind of poetry does your mom write?”

“Acrostic.”

The laugh that bursts out of me dies when I realize she’s serious. “I thought acrostic poems were for, I don’t know, second graders.”

“Some people write more complex ones,” she explains, fidgeting with one of the mugs. “My mom writes the kind that tell a whole story. Some poets write them so the first and last letters of the lines spell something.”

“Impressive.” I don’t know if I mean it, nor do I know if it sounds more or less interesting than the sex authors can manageto think up in my monster books, but I let her traveling poet mom have her moment. I put two birding books into a box then turn my attention to the furniture. The coffee table—made of wood with an etched glass inlay—seems like a good place to start. I slip a pair of work gloves on.

“Are you ever going to get married?”

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