Chapter 23
Ford plops a scoop of oatmeal into my bowl. “That one, the one your hand is on,” he says, readers slid down the bridge of his nose. Until I became Ford’s girlfriend, I didn’t know he even needed glasses. I lift my hand from the print and blink down at it.
I’ve spread all my shots of Velvet over his island after he convinced me to develop them all before moving onto the next phase, which is selecting the pieces that will undergo editing for framing.
Right now, we’re selecting images for the spot behind the bar, and there will be one photo in the center, bigger than the rest. We’ve selected the images for the smaller frames–the one I took of a spilled drink catching a reflection of laughter in the hard wood, a shot of tattered labels on old booze bottles, and a whole series of mouths, sipping drinks, telling stories, and laughing.
Peering down at the image that Ford has selected, I try to envision it amidst the others as the main focal point.
“Who is it?” I ask about the photo I took a few weeks back. The photo is of a woman, her back turned to us, soft, twenties pin curls on display, framing the silhouette of her face.
“One of the waitresses,” he explains. “They wear flapper garb for the first few weeks before scaling down to their current uniforms.”
I trace the edge of the photo with a fingertip, wondering how I’ll adjust the color to make it pop as the focal point. “It is a great photo,” I admit, always feeling gluttonous admiring my own work aloud.
Ford drops some blackberries onto my oats, followed by brown sugar, and a thick slab of butter.
“Eat,” he says, pointing at the bowl before joining me, coming to sit at the barstool at my side.
“I sense hesitancy,” he says, mixing my oatmeal, and blowing on the first loaded up bite.
He winks. “Open up for the airplane,” he teases, driving the bite of warm homemade breakfast onto my tongue.
I giggle, working the bite down before I get caught in a momentary haze, watching Ford eat his own oatmeal.
He’s done that airplane bit for real. He’s had that momentous, meaningful moment of feeding his children when they were too young to feed themselves. He’s a father. And I think I want to see him be a father, again, to young children.
“I think it’s a great mix of style and mystery,” he says, still eyeing the photo as he mixes berries into his own warm cereal.
“Do you want to do it all again? I mean, really?” The questions spill out of me, and I think all the lying together with his mouth on my pussy while I tell him everything I want for our lives didn’t help.
But suddenly there’s urgency to know everything Ford, everything he wants and feels, all of it.
I push the bowl of oatmeal aside. “I want to know what you really want for the rest of your life, not what you think I want. I mean, you waited all these years to find a connection, right? I want to be that real connection, but that means we have to be really honest with each other about what we want,” I admit.
Suddenly, I find myself nervous, my heart racing, hand growing clammy against the photo.
Ford pushes his bowl away, too, wiping his mouth with the folded cloth napkins he set out. He faces me, bare chest on display, his ink and abs tempting my focus.
“I want more children, Juliette. That’s something I always wanted, but after I lost Katherine, I told myself I was lucky to have had two already and that I could shelve that desire.
But it’s always been there. Even at my age, I still want children.
There is something so special about having a child with someone you love, then raising them together. ”
He tugs my barstool, turning me so our knees brush. He collects my face in his hands, and kisses me, soft and unsuspecting. “But if you don’t–”
“I do,” I breathe, licking at his lips, growing desperate for him because of the intensity of this conversation.
“I do. And… Kat, Cade, you think they’d be okay with it?
” I think about Kat, my best friend in the whole world, and her plans to be a mother.
She and Zennie are hoping to adopt. “I don’t want to steal Kat and Zennie’s thunder if–”
Ford stops me. “Kat loves you. She loves me. She will love anyone we create, and she will not be upset if we have children together before she and Zennie do. That’s not Kat’s style.”
I stare into his eyes, but my stomach still clenches. “I feel like a bad best friend. She just got married and here I am, stealing her thunder, secretly dating her dad and then talking about changing her family, forever.”
Ford gets up, and I feel the loss of his intimacy immediately. When he returns, he’s got his phone and I know just what he’s up to.
“Don’t,” I protest, but the phone is already ringing, and it’s on speakerphone.
“Morning, Dad,” Kat greets through a yawn, a tired, still-sleeping Zennie in the background groggily yawning, “morning, Ford.”
“Morning,” he greets, his gaze swimming over the photos strewn out. “Hey, I’ll let you guys get back to sleep but really quick–”
“Morning, J,” Kat adds, with Zennie chiming in, “hey Juliette!”
I can’t help but grin, and the relief that I had no idea I needed fills my shoulders, allowing me to relax a little. He nods toward my bowl of oatmeal, and gives me the eye. Delving in, I take another bite, the flavors bursting across my tongue as my best friend’s voice echoes through the house.
“Hey, you guys have given me a two birds one stone situation. If I want to touch base with J, and talk to you, Dad–boom, one call now does the trick where two calls and fourteen text messages did the same job before you guys became raging lovebirds.” In the background, Zennie erupts into snickers, and I nearly choke on a bite of oatmeal, which I previously didn’t know was possible.
“Raging lovebirds is…” Ford starts, smirking, a fist braced on the countertop on either side of the phone. “The most apt assessment of us. Well done, Kat. I guess Cade isn’t the wordsmith of the family after all.”
Kat scoffs. “He teaches English lit. That doesn’t mean he’s a poet like me.”
Zennie picks at the claim from the background. “Read them the poem you wrote me last night,” she teases, her voice still thick with sleep.
“Oh no, no way. Just because Juliette is boning Dad does not mean I’m repeating a single word of that. No way.” Kat’s smile is audible through the line. “Some boundaries have to remain in tact, for all of our sakes.”
Ford scratches the side of his jaw, glancing my way, winking when he sees me working my way through the delicious breakfast he made. “This is an unconventional call,” he says, the line filling up with silence.
Kat sighs. “My uncle is banging my cousin-in-law with my cousin’s blessing. You’re in love with my best friend. Cade’s got a mystery lover and I just married a woman after telling myself I like men for ten years. I don’t think there’s anything you can say that will shake me, Dad.”
“We’ve discussed this, actually. But I wanted to revisit the topic now that Juliette is here, and can hear you.”
Kat clicks her tongue. “J, you don’t believe my dad without hearing it from me?
Aww,” she coos teasingly, but I’m on my feet, leaning over the phone right next to Ford in a matter of seconds.
“Kat, no, of course, I trust Ford, of course I do,” I breathe, feeling red lick at my cheeks from the implication. “I trust him.”
A beat of silence stretches between the four of us. “Eww, you called him Ford,” Kat balks, teasing, breaking the moment of perceived tension instantly.
“Hey, when she calls me Mr. Mercer, it sounds way more naughty,” Ford quips back, making Zennie laugh even harder.
“Oh I bet. Please, whatever you do, J, please, for my sake, you can never let me hear you call him Daddy. I'll literally never let either of you hear the end of it,” she teases, and though she’s poking fun, it’s in an accepting way, and I know from copious amounts of romance novels that it doesn’t always go this way.
She could hate me. She could despise me.
She could want to tear us apart. But she’s been loving and understanding, and the sudden realization that I’m now part of Kat’s family makes my eyes sting. I brush them away before Ford can see.
“Actually, you’ve touched on something close to the reason I’m calling.” Ford cuts a glance my way. “Remember the talk we had, last week, after the Velvet Whisper opening.”
My brows furrow. Kat and Ford talk on the phone every day, but I don’t recall him ever ducking away for private conversations.
Even when we went back to my apartment a few days ago for me to grab some things, Kat called but Ford stayed in the room with me for the whole call. I heard most of the conversation.
Ford smirks. “Yes,” Kat answers, the teasing drained from her tone. “I do.”
He scratches his jaw again, the sound of his short nails grating the early stubble making my insides molten. “Juliette and I were discussing the possibility of having children together, and you came up.”
Kat never misses a beat, and I swear her personality has made me more interesting simply by being around it for so many years. “Hey, I’m no Geo. I’m not sure I’m the third you’re looking for.”
Ford rolls his eyes. “Har har.”