Chapter 14

Chapter 14

Valentina

I hadn’t seen Ford since Sunday evening on the beach. He’d left early the next morning for his office in the city, and we’d only exchanged a few quick texts in the days since. But when I pulled up from getting groceries an hour ago, his car had been parked in the driveway. I hated that I went right upstairs and fixed my hair, before even unpacking the bags.

And let’s not even talk about how excited I got when my phone buzzed. My head had been in the refrigerator, trying to decide what to make for dinner, and I jumped and banged it on the freezer door. My damn pulse took off like a runaway train as I nabbed the phone from the counter, and that was before I’d even confirmed who sent a text.

Ford: What are you doing?

Valentina: Trying to figure out what to make for dinner. You?

Ford: Thinking about going to that tasting at the new restaurant that opened in town.

I’d seen the grand opening signs a few weeks ago. The place had a seven-course tasting menu, which was right up my alley. I acted coy, trying to pull off that I hadn’t been constantly watching the window the last few days to see if he was back.

Valentina: Oh. Are you back in Montauk?

Ford: Got in about an hour ago.

More like an hour and fifteen minutes ago, but who’s counting?

Before I could respond, another text arrived.

Ford: What do you say? Wanna go?

I nibbled on my bottom lip.

Valentina: Is Bella going?

Ford: Nope. Just us.

God, I wanted to. I soooo wanted to.

Valentina: Ford...

I laughed at his response.

Ford: Valentina…

Another text came in.

Ford: Can’t two people enjoy each other’s company and share a meal together?

Valentina: So it’s not a date?

The tiny dots jumped around. Then stopped. Then started again.

Ford: We can call it whatever makes you happy. Just come enjoy a meal with me.

Maybe I was being ridiculous. Friends can eat together.

Valentina: Okay. Just two friends going out to eat together. I guess it’s no different than Eva and me.

Ford: If you say so. I didn’t know you sucked face with your best friend at the end of the night. But that’s cool. ;) See you in twenty minutes.

***

Ford stood on my front porch with an enormous bouquet of flowers, similar to the ones he’d left on my doorstep not too long ago. I opened the screen door.

“Ummm. I thought this wasn’t a date.”

He stepped inside, stopping to lean in and kiss my cheek. Damn. He smelled good, too.

“Dating would imply a relationship, and we’ve already established that’s out. That doesn’t mean I can’t buy you flowers and a nice meal before we have sex.”

I arched a brow. “I didn’t agree to have sex with you. I agreed to dinner.”

He smirked. “Not yet. But wait until you see how charming I am on our date tonight.”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “I need to get my purse from upstairs. Give me a minute.”

***

Our dinner of seven, small tasting portions was delicious, and our conversation never had a moment’s lull. We talked about Ford’s work, how he’d decided to go forward with converting more of the self-storage business to office space, and how I’d started to look for teaching positions so I’d be ready when I got my results. We’d been sitting at a table for more than two hours, and I could have sat there for two more.

“What do you say we go over to the pub across the street and have a drink?”

I nodded. “I’d like that. Why don’t we get the check? I’m sure the waiter wants to put other people in our seats by now anyway.”

Ford stood and held out his hand to help me up. “Already done. I paid the bill when I went to the men’s room a little while ago.”

“What? Why?”

“Because otherwise you’d argue with me that we should split it so you could continue to pretend we’re not on a date.”

I squinted at him. “We’re not on a date.”

He gave my hand a tug, pulling me to my feet. “Right. Not a date.”

“It’s not.”

He winked as he laced his fingers through mine. “Absolutely. And I’m not going to stare at your ass in those tight jeans when I open the restaurant door for you to walk through first, either.”

I squinted. “You’re an ass.”

He brought our joined hands up to his lips for a kiss. “Maybe. But I’m an ass with the hottest date in the room.”

***

My not-a-date date got carded.

I think that might’ve been a first.

Worse, the flirty bartender took one look at me and asked what I wanted to drink. At least pretend we might look like we were born in the same decade if you’re going to question whether my date is over twenty-one.Humor me.

Uh. Wait.I’m not on a date.

Whatever.

The bar was packed. I’d only ever come here for lunch, so I had no idea it got this way on a Thursday night. I looked around, pretty certain I was one of the oldest, if not the oldest, person in the room.

“Stop overthinking shit,” Ford whispered in my ear.

While we waited for our drinks, I finished scanning the bar full of twenty-somethings and turned back to Ford. “The bartender thinks I’m your mother.”

Apparently, he found my anxiety amusing.

He grinned. “You think so?”

I scowled at him. “It’s not funny.”

“No. But if that’s what they think…then this sure as hell is.”

He hooked one of his hands around my neck and tugged me toward him. His still-grinning mouth slammed down on mine, and he kissed me until I forgot about everyone else around us. My fingers curled into his shirt as he broke our connection.

He pulled back only enough to look into my eyes. “Might as well give ’em something to talk about if they’re gonna talk.”

People were jockeying for standing-room-only spots at the bar to order. Ford took my hand, and we snaked through the crowd, trying to find somewhere to sit. Two people in a quieter corner were getting up, so we stood nearby to snag the table.

Just as we got seated, a burst of laughter erupted throughout the bar. It was the third time it had happened since we walked in—it sounded like everyone had just listened to the same joke, but we weren’t in on it. Our table had an iPad mounted on it, and we soon realized what everyone was snickering over. There was a bar-wide game of trivia going on—sex trivia, to be specific.

A waitress walked over and put down two coasters and napkins. “Just drinks or would you like to see a bar menu?”

“Just drinks.” Ford held up his full beer. “But we’re all set for now.”

“If you want in on the next game, there’s a twenty-dollar entry fee. The last game just finished up, so the new one should start in a few minutes. Winner splits the kitty fifty-fifty with the bar. We do it every summer as a breast cancer fundraiser—a hundred percent of the bar’s cut is donated.”

Ford dug a wad of cash out of his pocket and handed her a twenty. “We’re in.”

When the waitress walked away, he looked at me. “Think you’re better at sex trivia than me?”

Who would claim not to be better at such a game? “Of course.”

He grinned. “How about a small side bet, then?”

“What are we betting?”

He rubbed his chin. “If I win, you go out on a real date with me—one where I take you to a nice restaurant and you don’t pretend it’s not a date.”

“And if I win?”

“That’s a hard one. A date with me could work as your prize, too.”

I shook my head. “So full of yourself.”

He stood to put his cash back into his front pocket. “Alright. How about this? If I win, you go out on a date with me. If you win, I’ll fix your squeaky back sliding doors.”

“They are squeaky, aren’t they?”

“Your hardware is rusted. You need to change it out every few years. Mine needs to be done, too.”

I stuck out my hand. How could I lose? “You have a deal. That squeak drives me nuts.”

***

What is the average length of an erect penis?

I felt my cheeks flush as I read the answers. The choices were:

A. 4.9 to 5.5 inches long

B. 5.5 to 6.2 inches long

C. 6.2 to 7.0 inches long

D. 8.7 to 9.5 inches long

Without thinking, I had spread my thumb and pointer out for a visual of what six inches looked like. When I looked up, Ford arched his brow.

“I’d offer you a measuring stick. But I’m not average.”

His grin was so wicked, and he looked like he wanted to eat me alive.

I squirmed in my seat. “Ummm. I’m going to go with A.”

“For manhood’s sake, I’d like to say the answer is D. But I read this somewhere once, and I think it’s actually B.”

We’d decided to put my answers into the iPad so the computer could track one of our scores, but we kept his tally separate. So far, we were five questions in and he’d gotten three right, I’d gotten one right, and we’d both gotten one wrong.

The giant screens flashed the answer, and another point went to Ford. He flashed a smug smile.

“I got it wrong,” I said. “But I’m not disappointed to find out the average male is larger than I’d guessed.”

Ford winked. “You won’t be disappointed when you see mine either, beautiful.”

Jesus.I definitely needed another glass of wine.

A few minutes later, the next question appeared on the screen:

How many nerve endings does the clitoris have?

Oh Lord. It felt like about a gazillion at the moment.

The choices were:

A. 22

B. 310

C. 1,000

D. 8,000

We were both surprised to find out the answer was D. Well, no wonder.

Ford caught our waitress to order me another wine and declined a refill of his half-empty beer since he was driving.

I read the next question on the screen and shook my head. “Is this a setup? Are you friends with the owner and had him put up these questions when we got here or something?”

Ford looked down to read the question.

At what age does a woman reach her sexual peak?

He looked up. “I fucking love this game.”

I laughed and read the answers aloud:

A. 18

B. 25

C. 38

D. 45

Without consulting with me, Ford reached over and pressed C for our answer.

“I thought we were putting in my guesses?”

“Were you actually planning on picking something else?”

Ford’s phone buzzed on the table. We looked down and found Bella’s name flashing on the screen.

“I’d love to ignore it. But I can’t.” He groaned.

“No, of course. Get it.” His relationship with his sister was one of the things I liked most about him. She drove him nuts, but he was there for her a hundred-and-ten percent.

He swiped to answer, and the simple raise of his arm caused a muscle in his bicep to flex. I lifted my wine to my lips. That’s up there pretty high on my list, too.

“What happened?” Ford immediately stood. He dragged a hand through his hair as he listened. “I’ll be right there.”

One hand dug into his pocket, and he tossed a few bills on the table. “I need to go. Bella was just arrested.”

***

Saying the tension in the air was thick on the ride home was an understatement. Ford cursed at the car in front of him for making a right without a blinker and banged his hand on the steering wheel.

“Ford?” Annabella’s weak voice came from the backseat. She’d been lying down since we’d picked her up at the precinct. “I think I’m going to throw up.”

Ford mumbled a string of curses and pulled down a side street. Bella struggled to work the door handle and stumbled out of the car. She took a few steps and bent her knees, leaning forward in a position ready to vomit. I reached for my door handle, but Ford stopped me.

“Don’t.”

“But…she could choke. She’ll get her hair in it.”

“She’ll be fine. I’ll keep an eye on her from here. I’m not babying her, and I’m not letting you do it either.”

“Ford…”

He turned to face me. I’d never seen him truly angry before. His jaw was hard, his lips flattened to a grim line, and his voice had all the sternness of one very pissed-off father.

“She’s old enough to go to bars with a fake ID, buy weed, and get herself high and arrested, then she’s old enough to hold her own hair back. I’m not an asshole. I’ve sat in the bathroom and held her hair plenty when she was actually sick. But she’s on her own with this shit.”

While I struggled with watching a teenager get sick alone on the side of the road, it also wasn’t my place to decide how to parent her. I was a mom; I coddled people when they were sick or down—tough love wasn’t in my genetic makeup. Though I knew my ex-husband would probably be the same way if it were our son.

Watching Ford at the police station while he’d advocated on her behalf, and now seeing him angry and disappointed in his sister, I think I realized for the first time that he truly wasn’t a typical twenty-five-year-old. The life circumstances he’d been dealt had forced him to mature faster than most people his age.

He’d earned his adult card the hard way. And my treating him like he was still a boy had been insulting to him on so many levels. It was one thing to not want to date him because I wasn’t ready, but another altogether to hide behind an excuse that slighted him.

I looked out the window and checked on Bella, who was still dry heaving, then reached over and put my hand on Ford’s. His face softened infinitesimally, and he took a deep breath and laced his fingers with mine.

The half-hour drive home from the Hamptons took twice as long as it should’ve. We had to pull over three times for Bella to get sick—or at least because she thought she might get sick. As much as it pained me, I stayed in the car for all three stops. But when we got back to the house, I had to at least help her into bed. She babbled to me as I took off her shoes.

“Sometimes when I’d play at the beach all day, I’d be so tired after my bath that I’d fall asleep before Mom came in to brush my hair.”

I sat down on the bed beside her and pulled up the covers. “The beach knocks us out.”

“But when I woke up in the morning, my hair wasn’t a mess. Mom used to brush it while I slept.”

That made my heart hurt, whether she was wrong for what she did tonight or not. I smiled sadly and stroked her hair. “Moms have superpowers like that.”

“I miss her. She loved it out here so much.”

“It’s beautiful in Montauk, but I think what your mom probably liked best was being out here with her family without the everyday distractions.”

Annabella curled into the fetal position. I tucked the blanket all around her so she was wrapped like a sausage and stayed, rubbing her hair until she fell asleep.

I found Ford downstairs in the living room drinking an amber liquid from a tumbler.

“She’s asleep.”

He nodded and tilted the glass back to swallow the remnants in one gulp. “You want a drink?”

“Sure. But I don’t think I can drink whatever it is you’re having.”

Ford stood and walked to a wine rack in the kitchen. “I have the cab you like.”

I watched from the doorway while he pulled it out and proceeded to uncork it before filling a glass for me and refilling his own with liquor.

Returning to the living room together, he handed me the wine glass.

“You just happen to have the wine I like?” I bumped shoulders with him playfully.

“I also bought more of the cologne you said you liked last week.” Ford sat down and leaned his head against the back of the couch, looking up at the ceiling. “I’m sure my eagerness is a sign of immaturity to you. But I just want to please you.”

I shook my head. God, I’ve been such a jerk.

“Actually, I find attentiveness in a man to be incredibly attractive.”

Ford lifted the glass to his mouth and drank like he was taking medicine. “Let me guess, you find attentiveness attractive, but in your mind I’m just a boy, not a man, so it doesn’t apply to me.”

I sighed and set my wine glass down. “I’m sorry I’ve been treating you the way I have.”

He sat up and nodded, though his eyes were hesitant to accept my apology.

“Watching how you handled your sister tonight made me realize that you’re right—age isn’t what’s important.” I shook my head. “I know plenty of forty-year-old men who act like they’re teenagers.”

He still didn’t look convinced that my outlook had changed. I’d never asked a man on a date in my life. Hell, I hadn’t been on a date in more than twenty years, so who was I to judge how things should happen? I sat up taller and chugged back the rest of my wine before shifting to look directly at Ford.

“Would you…go out to dinner with me tomorrow night?”

“Can’t. Have a meeting in the city in the afternoon.”

“The night after?”

Ford’s thumb rubbed his bottom lip as he assessed me. “Do you feel bad for me because my parents were killed and I raised my little sister?”

I was honest. “Yes, I do. But that has nothing to do with why I’m asking you out.”

Usually his face was pretty easy to read, but this time I couldn’t see what was going on inside his head.

He stared at me some more before speaking again. “Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why do you want to go out with me?”

“You mean why today, when I’ve said no before?”

He shook his head. “No. I mean, tell me the reasons you want to go out with me.”

I squinted, unsure if he was screwing around. When I realized he was waiting for an actual answer, it didn’t take long to think of one. “You’re smart, funny, handsome, and mature.”

“So you aren’t just going out with me for a pity date?”

I smiled. “No. Definitely not.”

Ford knocked back the rest of his second drink and slammed the empty glass down on the table. He curled a hand around my neck and pulled me toward him. His lip twitched at the corner. “Just so you know, I would have taken a pity date. I don’t give a shit how I get it. But it was nice to hear you say those things.”

I play-shoved at his chest, though he didn’t budge.

“As long as you’re asking me out, how about you come here and kiss me for a change?”

I smiled and leaned in to brush my lips against his. When I went to pull back, Ford wound his fingers tightly into my hair and kept me there, deepening the kiss. It was hard and needy, and before it broke, he nipped at my bottom lip, causing a sting of pain.

I found myself thinking this kiss marked the official start of my summer fling—it was hard, needy, and had the sting of pain—a lot like how things would end come Labor Day.

“It’s about damn time,” he growled. “We already wasted almost half the summer.”