18 Austin

Austin

I didn’t know how things were supposed to go now, but playing it cool was something I was finding hard to do.

We’d kissed in the barn.

Yep. I’d kissed him and he’d kissed me back. Okay, sure, there had been a lot of me spewing shit I hadn’t intended to talk about— ever— but it had poured out of me after I’d started. And then we kissed some more. But then it stopped, and he walked me back to the house, where I finished making dinner. We sat down in the living room to eat, the fire roaring, making the light of the flames dance around in a way that made the atmosphere feel almost romantic.

So, it was no wonder I was unsure, confused, and super overthinking everything.

There were so many questions. So many ideas. So many…

“You’re shaking,” Ford said, a hint of amusement in his tone as he scooped up a chunk of potato and shoved it in his mouth.

“What?” I said, brow furrowing.

“Your leg,” he said, cutting his eyes down to my leg that was, indeed, shaking. Well, it was more like it was franticly bouncing. I couldn’t stop it. “You alright?”

“Perfect as pie,” I said a little too quickly. I shifted, and nearly dropped my bowl on the coffee table because I wasn’t paying attention, noticing for the first time that I hadn’t touched my stew.

I was not handling this well.

With a groan, I sunk back into the couch, my hands coming up to scrub over my face.

“I don’t know how to do this,” I said, feeling like a clueless teenager, when I was really a grown-ass man who should be able to be around someone he had feelings for. “What do people… do?”

He barked out a sharp laugh. It did not make me feel better.

Ford’s face softened as he abandoned his bowl of stew on the coffee table so he could lean back into the couch. He turned his full attention my way as he tried to school his expression.

“Sorry, I wasn’t laughing at you.” I narrowed my eyes at him after he spoke. “No, really. I laughed because, well, I don’t know either. I haven’t had much experience with… things beyond fucking. And what little I’ve had is not something anyone should ever use as an example.”

“Oh,” I said. I hadn’t expected that. I had nothing to say back to his confession. “Clearly, you have more experience out of the two of us.” I folded my arms over my chest, feeling itchy about this conversation. Still, I knew it had to happen. If I didn’t talk, the missed opportunity would have eventually driven me crazy.

“Given the situation I’m in—”

“We’re in,” I corrected him. I knew from the moment Reed asked me to come after Ford and protect him, that I would do that with everything I had in me. But now, protecting him held more weight to it. Either we’d get out of this together, or I’d go down fighting by his side.

“Austin,” he said softly. I shot him a look that had him giving up the argument waiting on his tongue about me not being beside him in this, at least for now. “Okay. Given the situation we’re in, I don’t know that there’s much we can do. I might not have a future, not that you’re asking for a huge commitment…”

“No, I’m not…” I huffed out a breath as my head flopped back, my gaze on the ceiling. “I don’t know what I want.”

“A date,” Ford said like he was answering for me.

I shouldn’t have liked that, him telling me what I was looking for, what I needed.

But he was right, so I couldn’t open my mouth to deny it.

A laugh bubbled out of me.

“Yeah, a date would be really nice,” I said. “Something low-key. Like a picnic.”

“On the bed of a pickup truck?” I cut my eyes over to him and nearly burst out laughing when I saw his raised brow aimed in my direction.

“Only if we make a night of it and sleep under the stars.” I let my true country boy accent out, thick and embarrassing.

His smile was soft, but there was a distance in his eyes. It was a nice thought, but I couldn’t really see Ford on a date like that. Hell, I wasn’t sure I could picture myself there either.

Not that it was something we could really hope for right now. It kinda made my heart ache.

“Maybe we could start right here,” Ford said, voice soft and sincere. “We could talk. You know, get to know one another. Maybe nothing’s off limits.”

The asshole raised a mocking brow at me.

“Maybe somethings should be left off limits for now,” I teased back. The smile fell from my lips. “But I will try…” I cleared my throat, unsure of how to make promises I might not be able to keep. I’d been locked up tight for years. I didn’t even want to think about it. It felt so heavy because I was sure Ford had many questions.

“I worked on… that case,” he said, his gaze on his hands now as he rubbed them together nervously. I tensed up. Though he hadn’t said what case, there was only one he’d be bringing up now. “I’d been put on it for a short while. Another thing Lipton had a hand in. I wasn’t on it long, and the offer to take the Deputy Director position came before he was caught. That was one case I was upset to leave. I felt like we were so close, but we weren’t quite there yet.”

I clenched my jaw. Anger rose inside of me, but I tried to ignore it.

I had to do this. Had to talk about it.

Needed to do this. For him as much as for myself.

“Do you think he took you off the case because…” My throat was a desert. I couldn’t finish the question because if the answer was yes, then I was going to lose my shit.

“No,” Ford rushed to say. His warm hand was on my arm, grounding me as my vision clouded to the point I couldn’t see anything but white. “No. I don’t think he had anything to do with the case either way, actually. It would have looked good for him if I’d helped to bring the Camp;D Killer down because he’d put me in that seat. That was all. I really don’t think he gave a shit about saving your—”

“Don’t,” I cut in, mouth dry. “Don’t call him…”

“Hey,” he whispered softly. The couch shifted, and then he was right there, his arms pulling me into his warm body. I went willingly. My face fell into the crook of his neck, and he held me while I tried not to fall apart. “We don’t have to talk about it. But I didn’t want to keep it from you. Secrets hurt the people we care about the most, and I don’t want to hurt you.”

I believed him.

Which hurt even more that I’d treated him the way I had. That I’d wanted to lie to him, even if the lies always seemed to get stuck in my throat.

“He’s a monster, and I wish I’d never known him,” I said. Those words had been dying to get out for years. I didn’t regret them, and I sure as hell didn’t wish I could take them back.

My father was a fucking monster.

And I wish I didn’t share blood with him.

He killed twenty-seven women, that they had proof of. Another five he’d confessed to, but he refused to give up the locations of where he’d left the bodies.

“He killed my girlfriend,” I said, a wave of anger following those words. I pulled away from Ford’s embrace but didn’t put distance between us. His knee was pressed against mine and his hand came to rest on my thigh. “He strangled her with her own underwear, carved his mark into her chest, and then…”

I choked on the words. A huge lump was in my throat that I couldn’t move past. I didn’t have to tell Ford any of this, it was likely he knew the details of how my father killed his victims. Each one was the same. Each one suffered the same fate. Each one of them deserved so much better.

“And then he dumped her where he thought no one would find her. Like she was trash. Like she didn’t matter.” That was why they dubbed him the Carve and Dump Killer, or Camp;D Killer for short. The name alone made bile rise up my throat. I exhaled a heavy breath, the weight of saying it out loud for the first time lifted enough that I felt like I could finally breathe. “He pretended to head a search party when we thought she was missing. He stood by me and her parents, pretending to be worried, spilling words of God like that alone would give us strength and absolve him from his sins at the same time.”

He ruined so many lives.

I fucking hated him.

Which meant, that most days I hated myself. Hated my reflection. Hated the choices I’d made in life. Hated the blood running through my veins.

Hated that I could have been able to stop him, but I had been blinded by the false pretty picture that had sucked me in since I was a child. I had been taught that you didn’t ask questions. That God would lead you to the light as long as you had faith in Him, and as long as you walked with others who had faith, you’d never be led astray.

My dad was a man of God. He spoke the word of God to a whole congregation of people. So, therefore, there was no way he could have been evil.

Every week he stood up there preaching those things, hope and love and “do unto others,” and the whole time he’d been harming innocent people… like he had the right to.

People like him made me sick. Made me hate the world. Made me want to rid the earth of all of them.

It probably wasn’t healthy, but it was what kept me going.

My chest expanded with a deep breath, then caved with a sob. The tears were hot as they ran down my face. Ford wrapped his arms around me, holding me while I broke down.

It didn’t last long. Yeah, that mentality of ‘gotta stay strong’ was still woven deep in my bones. I didn’t think less of anyone that gave a good masculine cry, but the rules were completely different when turned on myself. That was something I’d have to work on later.

Ford must have been a damn magician because I couldn’t begin to say how I went from crying into his shoulder to lying on the couch, trapped between him and the back cushions. His arms were around me, and he gave me what I probably needed the most, silent understanding and support.

I breathed him in, holding him back as tightly as he held me.

In and out.

In and out.

Nothing but the scent of burning wood from the fire dancing behind his back and the smell of… Ford. Unique, yet something tickled familiar in my brain. It hit me above everything else.

In and out.

In and out.

I held on to his scent, letting it calm me in a way I couldn’t explain.

Until my lids became too heavy to hold open.