Page 24 of Now to Forever

In the too-long silence, the box feels heavy in my arms. I shift it to my other hip, then opt to hold it in front of me with both hands, putting a barrier between us.

“Where are you going?” he finally asks, eyes bouncing between mine.

“I’m thinking somewhere out west.”Far away from you.I swallow, glancing at the lake. It’s revoltingly perfect. A feeling too big for my body starts to grow under my skin. “Somewhere with a better view.”

At this, he laughs softly, attention going over my shoulder where Molly is making a series of growling noises I’ve been trying to ignore. “What’s Molly got?”

I turn to find Molly the Menace on the porch with a bright-pink petaled device in her mouth. I groan, annoyed. “Little bitch is eating my best vibrator.” Ford booms out a laugh and I shrug. “There goes my sure thing. That dog hates me.”

He shakes his head, studying me with an amused tilt to his lips. “That’s your sure thing?”

“You offering to fill the void, Officer?” I tease.

He doesn’t hesitate: “Void need filled?”

“Hardly.” I smirk.“I have backups for times such as these.”

We watch the dog eat my beloved, battery-operated boyfriend. I wonder what Ford’s thinking—if standing so close to me feels like digging up old bones to him as much as it does to me. If watching a dog chew on my sex toy makes him think of us putting hands and lips and the full weight of our bodies on each other.

“I’ve missed you, Scotty.”

Right there in the middle of broad daylight, those four words clothesline me, nearly causing me to drop the box I’m holding.

All I can manage: “Yeah.”

In our stare, an ache consumes me. The kind that hurts the roots of my hair and ends of my teeth and tips of my fingernails. The only man I’ve ever loved looks at me like the last twenty years didn’t happen. “Well, I gotta go kill the dog over future orgasms I’ll never have and keep packing up Archie’s haunted relics.” I gesture with the box I’m holding. “You need anything else?”

He shakes his head, but it’s me that moves first. I put the box I’m carrying down—right in the middle of the yard for no reason—and swipe the birding books from the top. My retreat to the house is with quick steps and my breath held, only stopping to pick up my gnarled vibrator before I slam the front door.

Inside, Molly jumps around like a jack-in-the-box on crack as I press my back against the door. I don’t take a full breath until I hear the crunch of Ford’s tires leaving the driveway. When he’s gone, I throw the vibrator across the house with a yell.

The dog never stops barking.

Seven

“Tellmeaboutwhatyou do, Scotty,” Dean says with an eager expression from the booth across from me.

I force a smile. “I burn bodies.”

He laughs, the light reflecting off the lenses of his rectangular glasses as he swipes his hand across the grey-streaked swoosh of hair across his forehead. And while June’s physical description of Dean wasn’t that far off—he’s attractive enough—he’s also a math teacher. And the team he coaches? Something called Mathletes. He’s wearing a sweater-vest, has a scholarly-looking goatee, and sips sherry out of some little wineglass I didn’t know Ledger had access to. Other than being human, we have absolutely nothing in common. “That’s right. Camp told me. Fascinating. How many bodies you burn in a week? Just an estimate?”

Right.Dean also loves estimates. He asked me to estimate the number of people in Liberty Tap when we arrived and the numberof cups that could fit on a tray. I, on the other hand, would rather eat a rhinoceros testicle than talk about estimates. “Five hundred.”

“Really?” he asks, stilling his sherry midair as his stormy-grey eyes widen behind his glasses. “Five hundred?”

“No.” I take a long sip of my whiskey. “I was trying to be funny. Maybe five. Maybe ten. Sometimes less, sometimes more.” I feel the slightest bit guilty for being so short, so I force myself to fill the dull void. “The retort”—he blinks at the word—“what most people call a cremator—can do around three a day. Some people cremate their loved ones to have a ceremony later, those we do anytime, but a lot of families that come to us like to be there, and we make it a ceremony—kind of like a funeral—that’s what we’re known for. Send-offs, I call them. Anyway, those take longer. It depends, I guess, on who we have that week and what they need from us. That’s my estimate.”

“Variance.” He grins, raising his glass toward me. “Keeps things exciting.”

“Sure.” I take another sip of my drink. “So how did you get into . . . math?”

He swallows his sherry with a loudAh!and sets his glass on the table. “I’ve always been a numbers guy. My parents will tell you my first word was a number—can you believe that? Counted blocks and cars and it just never stopped.” He gives me a look that conveys how amazing he thinks this is.

I press my lips in a tight smile, eyes scanning the crowd of the restaurant. Looking for a magical portal I can jump into to get the hell outof here. “I bet.”

“Let me guess.” He props his elbows on the table, smirk slanting across his face. “You were burning leaves in the backyard as a kid?”

“They didn’t like outdoor fires at the trailer park,” I tell him, watching the door of the restaurant and wondering how long it would take Dean to notice if I went to the restroom and never came back.

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