Chapter 25

Chapter 25

Ford

My lungs burned, and I couldn’t catch my breath.

I wasn’t even sure where I was. I’d gotten up at the ass crack of dawn with a belligerent hangover. Tylenol and two bottles of water did nothing to ease the pounding in my head. I couldn’t even remember getting home. I remembered sitting at the airport bar, pounding vodka tonics and ordering more on the plane. After that, it was pretty much a blur. Somehow I’d managed to get on the right train and made it into my bed. On any other day, if I’d woken with this kind of killer headache, I’d have turned over and gone back to sleep.

But this morning, I needed to feel more pain. So I’d gone out for a run. And I’d run. And run. And kept on running. I’d run until I ran out of beach, then kept going—weaving my way through side streets and passing houses and blocks as fast as I could.

Finally, my legs gave out on me, and I fell.

So here I was, sitting in the middle of a park I’d never seen before, on some block I’d never been to, panting and bleeding from a scraped-open knee. My head still fucking hurt, but the burn in my lungs felt even better.

I sat with my elbows on my knees and my head dropped between them.

My fucking father is a cheater.

The man whose chair I sat in at work, whose daughter I’d raised for the last five years, whose relationship I’d thought was everything…the man who I’d looked up to since I could remember.

It fucking hurt. And I just couldn’t make sense of it.

Why?

Why?

My parents had seemed so in love. They didn’t fight. They didn’t have financial problems. They finished each other’s sentences, for Christ’s sake. As I sat there, stills of them played in my head like a slideshow on fast forward.

Them dancing on the deck.

Mom reading to Dad on the beach.

Him grabbing her ass, and her giggling when they thought no one was paying attention.

All the I love yous.

The Mason jars.

The two of them wrote things down they loved about each other and exchanged them as gifts.

Who the fuck does that if you aren’t in love?

And that was the part I couldn’t reconcile.

Even though I’d found out he’d had a long-term relationship with another woman, I still had no doubt he loved my mother. So if he loved my mother, why would he do it?

Why?

Why?

Why?

The only answer that made sense was the one his mistress had given me. They’d gotten married so young, neither of them knew a life without the other, and my father hit a certain age and started to have an identity crisis.

A midlife crisis.

It wasn’t fucking right.

That was for sure.

But it’s also what had happened in Valentina’s marriage.

Fuck.

I was pissed as hell at my father, but that wasn’t what had my chest feeling hollow at the moment.

Valentina had been right all along.

I didn’t see it because I didn’t want to see it.

She’d been with her husband since she was sixteen—the same age my parents got together.

I wanted her to choose to be with me, but how could she decide what she wanted when she didn’t even know what was out there.

***

Shit.

This morning I’d read Val’s texts from yesterday, so I knew her son Ryan was in town. But I had no idea what she’d told him. I assumed nothing. Yet I couldn’t be sure, so I played it close to the vest. The two of them were out on the back deck, leaning over the railing looking at the beach when I walked up on the sand—hours after I’d left for my run.

“Hey.” I lifted my chin up at them.

“What’s up, man? Long time no see.” Ryan smiled.

“Hey.” Valentina’s voice was laced with hesitance.

I figured it was a good sign that he didn’t run down the stairs and punch me in the face for banging his mother. But while Ryan seemed chipper and relaxed, Val looked anything but. Seeing the veins pop from her neck as she stressed made me smile for the first time in two days. Why did seeing her freak out about someone finding out about us bring me such joy? Perhaps I was just a dick.

I walked up the stairs to their deck instead of mine and shook Ryan’s hand. The last time I saw him, he was only fourteen. Now he was almost as tall as I was. “All grown up. I take it you’re not going to want me to make sandcastles with you this year?”

Ryan smiled. “I’ve moved on to searching for mermaids. Maybe we can go find some tail together later.”

My eyes flickered to Val and then back, and I coughed. “You’re at University of North Carolina, right? How do you like it?”

“It’s great. My first year was a blast.”

He looked over at his mom and his face fell serious. Shit. Maybe I’d misjudged the situation and she had told him.

“Listen…I just wanted to say I’m really sorry about your parents.”

I nodded. “Thank you.”

The simple reminder of my father swept away any momentary levity that had crept in. My shoulders went back to holding boulders.

“I’m gonna head home to shower.” I glanced at Val and then nodded to Ryan. “Good to see you.”

When I got out of the shower, I wasn’t surprised to find a text from Val.

Valentina: Everything okay? I came by last night but you were out cold.

I hadn’t even known she’d been here. But my phone was charged and there had been water and Tylenol on the end table. That made sense now.

Ford: Sorry about that. Just a long trip. I hadn’t eaten and had a few.

Valentina: No problem. I figured the trip might have been difficult. :-(

You could say that again.

She typed more before I could respond.

Valentina: Ryan surprised me. I know it sort of puts a damper on us spending time together this last weekend…

Yesterday, I would have said her son showing up on the last weekend I had to convince her what we had was more than a fling was the universe conspiring to rip my heart out. But today, without my brain swimming in alcohol, I was starting to think maybe fate had intervened.

Chicago had taught me a lesson. I needed to step back and allow Valentina to move on. She deserved an easy break. It’s what she wanted, and I would have just made it harder on her. Her son’s surprise trip would keep us from spending an entire weekend in bed—it sucked, though it was probably for the best.

Ford: It’s fine. Enjoy your time with him. I have a lot of work to do, anyway. Bella’s flight is Sunday. I’ll probably just drop her off and stay in the city.

Valentina: Ryan’s going to go surfing later. Maybe we could talk then?

Ford: Sure.

A few hours later, the only actual work I’d accomplished was to send an email to the real estate agent in Chicago, thanking her for her time, but letting her know I’d decided against moving forward with the repurchase. All the reasons for wanting that property had vanished the moment I left Marie’s office. She wrote back and didn’t seem surprised.

Bella spent the afternoon starting to pack and then went in to work for her final shift. I was cleaning out the fridge—tossing things we weren’t going to use over the next two days—when Val knocked at the back door.

“Hey.”

I slid the screen door open. She took one look at what I was doing and her smile fell. “I can’t believe the summer is really almost over.”

This afternoon, I’d decided not to mention what I’d found out in Chicago to Val. I wasn’t planning on telling my sister—why ruin her memory of our asshole father, too? So it didn’t seem fair to tell anyone else. That, and what good would it do? Val had lost enough faith in men with her own marriage. There was no reason to completely obliterate whatever hope she clung to that maybe not every guy out there was a total asshole.

But she knew something was off.

“Ryan decided to skip surfing because it was too flat. He went for a run, so I figured I’d stop over.” She looked around me into the living room. “Is Bella home? I thought I saw her car pull out.”

“She went to work. Left a few minutes ago.”

She nodded, and it took me a few seconds to realize why that seemed to make her feel badly. It was probably the first time she’d been in my presence alone that I didn’t try to maul her.

I pulled her to me and wrapped her in my arms. Inhaling deep, I took in the smell that would forever remind me of this summer—faded floral perfume, coconut suntan lotion, and the beach. I wanted to bottle the scent and call it Valentina.

I felt her shoulders relax as she snuggled into me. “What happened in Chicago?”

I swallowed. “Building just needs too much work.”

She looked at me. “I’m sorry. I know the project meant a lot to you.”

“It’s fine. It is what it is.”

“I had this big weekend planned for us. I was going to make your favorite dinner and be your favorite dessert. But with Ryan here…”

“I’m assuming you didn’t tell him about us.”

She shook her head. “I just couldn’t. And it has nothing to do with us. It’s just the first time I’ve seen him in months and…well, he’s barely accepted that his father and I aren’t getting back together. Yesterday, he actually asked me if there was a chance I could forgive his father.”

We’d talked about her ex before, but my interest in how she felt about him had definitely changed after my trip to Chicago.

I looked into her eyes. “You said the infidelity wasn’t the only issue, that it was the catalyst that caused you to step back and re-examine your marriage, and then you realized how broken things were. But what if you’d stepped back and seen a happy marriage?”

“I don’t know. It’s hard to say. But I think I’d be more apt to be able to move past a one-night stand, a drunken mistake he regretted. But not a relationship. Ryan had been seeing the woman he cheated with for months and had feelings for her. They stayed together through our divorce. I guess I just can’t see stepping back from more than a one-night stand and finding a happy marriage, because while mistakes can happen, having a relationship with someone else isn’t a mistake. It’s a choice.”

I nodded. “Ryan’s asking if you might get back together. Did he not see that your marriage wasn’t happy?”

She smiled sadly. “I didn’t even see that my marriage wasn’t happy.”

I guess you really never know what’s going on behind closed doors. This conversation had taken a depressing turn, and I needed to lighten it up. I reached around and slipped my hands into the back of her shorts. “So how light of a sleeper is your son? Are we sneaking to your place tonight or mine?”

She wrapped her hands around my neck. “How about if we sneak out and take a walk down the beach where the dunes get high. We can take along a blanket?”

“Nice. Finally having sand in the crack of my ass this summer will be worth it.” I brushed my lips to hers. “That sounds like a plan.”