Chapter 3

Ashley

It's been two weeks since the Great Groundhog Incident. In that time, I've managed to get myself a crappy job and fall completely in love. Mostly with Felicity but her hot, single dad is a close second. How could anyone resist her? With dark hair and her daddy's ebony eyes, she's too beautiful for words. But those eyes are so damn sad that I can't stand it.

That little girl is breaking my heart. He's doing all he can. He's giving her a loving, stable home. I know that. But if it hadn't been for my Mamaw, I'd have been Felicity. Oh, not with a dad who gave a shit, but struggling to fit in, struggling to feel the kind of confidence that kids need not to wind up as targets in public school.

I know Ford gets that, and God love him, he's trying. But little girls need a woman's influence. They need a daddy's love and a mother's guidance, or it leaves a big hole that they'll fill with all the things that will beat them down in life.

The alarm on my phone dings and I let out a sigh that sounds like I've tapped into a deep well of misery. I have. It's called cashiering at Hell‐Mart. The convenience store has been run by the Carpenter family for years, but the older generation have retired and left the younger generation to run it. That'd be fine, if I didn't loathe the very ground that the younger generation in question walked upon. Gina Carpenter‐Daniels. The former mean girl who made my life a living hell is now my boss. She only hired me so she could tell all the ladies at her church how—despite our past bad blood—she's doing her good Christian duty and keeping me out of the homeless shelter. But it's a job. It's money coming in instead of just going out and right now I can't afford to be picky.

Climbing out of my car, I trudge in past racks of candy and cheap sunglasses, and head straight to the back. I dump my stuff in the office and then go to the time clock. I've got exactly one and a half minutes before my shift starts and I stand there watching it count down. I'm not giving her a minute more of my life than I absolutely have to.

"Petty bitch," I whisper to myself. It's not an insult.

"Ashley, who are you talking to?"

It's all I can do not to let out a groan. I turn around. "Just reminding myself about something I need to do when I go home."

"Well, you can do that on your own time. Clock in and go relieve Janet. She's got kids to get home to."

And there it is. The ultimate dig at every single, childless woman. Your time has no meaning and no value because you haven't squeezed out a kid. "I'm not late, Gina."

She stops and turns back to me, a clipboard in her hand and a pen tucked into her messy bun so she looks just like the secretary in our high school did. The same secretary, I might add, who was doing the principal and the football coach.

"Are we going to have a problem, Ashley? You needed this job a heck of a lot more than we needed you. If you don't want to work, you can go anytime. There are a dozen girls I could call up who are looking for a way to make ends meet."

That's the hell of it. She's right. I do need the job. And I can't afford to let my pride fuck it up for me. "No. You're right. I am grateful for the job, and I'll leave my crappy attitude behind and get to work."

Gina smiles. "Good girl."

Like I'm a fucking cocker spaniel who didn't piddle on the rug.

It's been a hellish day. Every single person who came in was either indecisive, a gambling addict who obsessively bought scratch‐off lottery tickets or just in a foul‐ass mood. But I'm heading into the last hour of my shift, in the home stretch, when the bell over the door sounds. I look up and realize this day truly can't get any shittier. Of all the people to walk in, it has to be my damned dad.

"Ashley, baby girl. I didn't know you'd started working here," he says with a grin that shows off his veneers. They're new. I wonder if the money from selling Mamaw's house helped pay for them.

"Well now you do." If Gina wants to take issue with me providing crappy customer service to my own father she can just fucking fire me. That's a hill I will die on. He doesn't deserve to have politeness from me.

"Don't be like that! You know that thing with Mama's house—well, you just don't get it. A house is a big responsibility, and you're just not ready to take that on."

I'd been doing just fine for the last seven years. I'd been taking care of that house—fixing what was broken, maintaining the lawn, paying the bills—since I was eighteen. That's a cop out and we both know it.

"What do you need, Brian?" I ask. "Cigarettes? Lottery tickets? Condoms so you don't knock up your twenty‐five‐year‐old assistant manager?"

All pretenses of friendliness vanish. His face goes stone cold and his eyes are completely flat. It's easy too familiar. That's what he always looked like just before he blew his top. I'd watched him push my mother through a glass‐topped table with those same dead eyes.

"You've got a real mouth on you these days. You better watch it before it gets you into the kind of trouble you can't get out of," he warns as he tosses a twenty on the counter. "Pump four."

I take the cash and ring up the sale, sliding the bill into the drawer. I hate him. I hate him so much. And it's not even just the house. That's simply the last straw. The minute Uncle Bill had died, and my dad was suddenly the sole heir, he tossed me out on my ass and sold it to the first people who wanted to tear it down and put in a quick‐lube place.

"You can go home," Ashley says, coming up from the back.

Shit. "I'm sorry… I know he's a customer, but my dad just?—"

"Ashley, you're not fired." Gina shakes her head. "Just go home. It's clear that he's ruined your mood and, frankly, he ruins everyone's. So just go. Be back here the day after tomorrow for the early shift."

I'm so stunned that for a minute I just stand there blinking at her in shock. Then it hits me. My dad is so hated by everyone—for damn good reason—that even Gina has sympathy for me. "Thank you, Gina. I'll see you Sunday."

Twenty minutes later, I'm easing my car into the small parking space next to the trailer and shutting off the engine. It's dark, but I can hear little girl giggles coming from next door. It's Friday night, so Felicity is staying up late. I glance at the large pizza on the seat beside me. It had been a splurge, picking it up on the way home. But I'll never eat it all. Correction, I shouldn't eat it all. I also shouldn't eat the entire pack of Oreos in my pantry, but that doesn't mean I won't.

I wonder if Ford has eaten or if he's just made something for Felicity while he stayed busy doing all the countless things he has to do to keep their little home so neat and tidy.

It's not even really a decision. I'm out of my car and standing on his porch, pizza in hand, before I can even think about it. It opens almost instantly. He's wearing jeans and white T‐shirt. His standard uniform minus the flannel shirts he typically tosses on over it.

"Hey, neighbor. Wanna save me from myself and eat part of this pizza? I can't afford to buy all new jeans because I self-medicated with a ‘works' from Vito's." It's lame. I know it's lame. He probably does too, but he grins.

"Works?"

"Extra cheese," I say it as suggestively as I can. Like we're not talking about greasy pizza at all. For just a split second, there's something that flashes across his face, something that makes me think maybe he wishes I were there for something other than pizza. Then a peal of childish giggles pours from the direction of Felicity's bedroom and the spell is broken.

"We've not had dinner yet," he said. "We had a bunch of stuff we had to do after school. Pizza would be great."

When he steps back to let me in, I know this is a big deal. He's never had any guests to my knowledge. Which is significant, since I've been super nosy and asking more questions than I ought to about someone whose just my neighbor. I've yet to see anyone coming and going from their house other than him and the kiddo.

I follow him inside and set the pizza on the counter while he calls for Felicity who immediately comes bounding down the hallway. The pigtails I did for her that morning aren't quite as neat as they once were, but the tiara perched precariously over one of them tells the story of how her hair got mussed. "Hey, munchkin. You hungry? It's the works, but we can pick around anything you don't like."

"I love pizza!!!!!" With that, she dives toward me, wrapping herself around my leg so tightly that I stumble.

Ford is there. He reaches out, steadying me, his arm going around me for just a single and all too brief moment. It's the first real contact between us. We've talked. We've even flirted a little. But he's never touched me. Not even once. Maybe if he had, I would have been prepared for the shock of it, for the current of electricity and heat that runs through me at such simple, innocent contact. If he can make my head spin with just a casual touch, what the hell would happen when he kissed me?

That thought echoed in my mind for one reason. When. Not if. When. Like I already know it's an inevitability. I'm so fucked. Figuratively—and with any luck—literally.