Chapter 9 Ford
Ford
Something I’ve mastered since becoming a firefighter is the underrated art of being asleep by ten, including on nights when I’m not at the firehouse.
At the risk of sounding sad even to my own ears, I don’t have much of a social life outside of work and my family.
Add in how demanding my job is, and I try to never stay up past midnight anymore. My body isn’t used to late nights.
Which is why I find myself aggressively fighting yawns as I pull into my driveway on one of my days off. I made it four hours into Ian’s birthday party and couldn’t take it any longer. Bars, alcohol, loud music…. That’s no longer my scene. And if that makes me a boring fucker, so be it.
This boring fucker can’t wait to take a shower and go straight to bed.
Only that’s not exactly what happens. Because as soon as I park in my driveway, I notice Ivy sitting on her porch steps.
“Ivy?” I ask, confused, once I’m outside.
She waves at me, her smile looking as tired as I feel.
I take a step closer to the fence separating our houses. “You guys okay?”
“Yeah, we’re fine. I just didn’t feel like going to sleep yet.”
I was daydreaming about my bed up until a minute ago, so I don’t know why I ask, “Want company?”
I’m expecting her to say no. We might have gotten closer during the past few weeks, but I’m an older, boring guy, and I wouldn’t blame her if she’d rather be alone.
But she takes me by surprise when she answers, “Sure, if you have nothing better to do. These steps could use two very tired-looking people sitting on them.”
I find myself chuckling, my shoulders sagging in relief at the fact that her humor is still very much intact despite the exhaustion on her face. I cross over to her front lawn, noticing that Joe must have replaced the hinges because the gate closes right this time.
“So,” she starts as I stop at the bottom of the stairs with my hands in my pockets. “You haven’t put the house up for sale and changed your name, so I’m assuming they’re not bringing back the hot firefighter calendars.”
“My bags are packed just in case.”
She puts a hand over her heart. “I hereby swear to boycott it if it ever comes out.”
“I’ll hold you to that.” My eyes drop to the sketchbook resting on her lap. “You’re a writer?”
She follows my gaze. “Oh, no. I’m just, um, trying to draw.”
“Trying?”
“The part of my brain that’s supposed to help me is still on strike.”
“Ah. You have artist’s block.”
I take a few steps forward until I’m leaning against the post at the bottom of the stairs.
“Understatement of the century,” she mutters, and I can tell she’s not looking for pity by the genuine resignation on her face.
“So, there’s nothing in there?”
She shrugs one shoulder. “I have some things, but they aren’t great.”
“I highly doubt that.”
She sends me a look. “You want me to show you, don’t you?”
I smirk. “That obvious?”
“Fine. Come sit here. Just… don’t make fun of them. I’m not feeling my strongest these days; critical feedback might just kill me.”
The wood groans under my weight as I sit next to her, my arm brushing the soft blanket she’s wrapped in.
“You don’t have to show me if you don’t want to,” I tell her. I’m itching to see her drawings, sure, but not at the expense of her comfort.
Instead of answering with words, she releases a heavy breath and flips her sketchbook open to the first page. Silently, she passes it to me.
Turning page after page, I find myself having to pick up my jaw from the damn ground. Pencil sketches, some in color, most not, yet every detail and shadow is so vivid, they almost look like photographs. Portraits of people, buildings, and nature—each drawing is more impressive than the last.
“You made these?” I know it’s a dumb question, but fuck. How can someone this talented not work as an illustrator somewhere?
“Yeah,” she replies softly, cozying up further in her blanket.
“Ivy, these are insanely good.”
“They’re all right.”
“They’re miles away from all right,” I insist, turning another page to find a close-up of a spookily realistic rose. I show it to her as if she’s never seen it before. “You can’t tell me this is just all right.”
“I could’ve done a better job,” she says, pointing to some of the leaves. “These could’ve used a bit more refining.”
“I get that you’re a perfectionist, but you can’t possibly think these are bad.”
She lets out a deep breath, her blanket falling off her shoulder closest to me.
“I’m not fishing for compliments, okay? But I notice what other people don’t.
All the little and not-so-little details that need improving.
You can’t tell because you don’t know these people, but the portraits of my old coworkers in here?
I could never get their noses right, and it drove me crazy.
But that’s not… that’s not even the point. ”
I close the sketchbook. “What is?”
She presses the heels of her palms to her eyes. “I just… can’t draw anymore. Haven’t done it in weeks, and every time I’m about to start, I freeze. I’ve been blocked before, but this feels different. I don’t know.”
“I have no clue what I’m talking about because I’m not an artist, but wouldn’t it help to just draw something? Even if it sucks and you never show it to anyone. Just to get the hang of it again.”
She starts playing nervously with a loose thread of the blanket. “I’ve tried, but I… I can’t. It’s okay—it’ll pass.”
Maybe I should drop it, let her be. But then I steal another look at that defeated face. At the woman who always has a smile on her lips and a witty comeback at the ready. Something that feels a lot like misplaced protectiveness claws at my chest.
I’m gentle as I peel the pencil out of her fingers and rest my back against a porch beam behind me. I shift my eyes between her and the paper once, twice, and then I start drawing.
“What are you doing?” I can hear the frown in her voice.
“Shh. Prodigy at work here.”
Her chuckle sends a not entirely uncomfortable something to my stomach.
A minute or so later, she pokes my knee with her finger. “Are you done?”
“Just a second.” I hold up one finger. “Okay. Are you ready for the big reveal?”
“I’m scared, that’s what I am.”
But she’s smiling again, and that’s exactly what I wanted to see.
“Fair enough. Ready?”
“Always.”
As soon as I turn the sketchbook in her direction, she throws her head back with a loud hoot.
“Jesus, Ford,” she wheezes, tears collecting in her eyes. “Is that supposed to be me?”
“Don’t tell me you don’t like it,” I say, pretending to be offended.
She reaches for the sketchbook, our fingertips brushing as she does. My breath hitches for an infinite second. The fuck was that?
“I love it. I already know which wall I’m hanging it on,” she says as she scans my poor attempt at a portrait of her.
“I wasn’t even trying to be bad on purpose. I’m just that shitty of an artist,” I tell her. “But there you go, a Ford Hayes original. Wait a few decades, and it’ll be worth its weight in gold.”
“So, like, half a cent?”
I press my tongue to the inside of my cheek, trying not to laugh at her insolence.
“Thank you for this. I needed the laugh,” she says in a lighter voice. “And for sitting with me.”
I nod slowly. “If you don’t mind me asking, how come you’re not working as an illustrator or something like that?”
“Art isn’t easy to live off of,” she explains, her gaze lost somewhere on her front lawn. “It’s a harsh industry. I used to work in the marketing department of an IT company in Manhattan, and I would doodle here and there for campaigns, but I don’t think that counts.”
Joe mentioned New York City the day she passed out. I didn’t want to pry then, but now she’s giving me an in.
“You used to live there?”
“For three years.”
“Did you like it?”
“It was fine. I’d always dreamed of living there as a teenager, but the reality of it…. Don’t get me wrong, the city is incredible, but I never felt like I belonged. Like it was my place.”
“Hey, nothing wrong with that. Big cities aren’t for everyone. I know they aren’t for me. Did you move back because you didn’t like it there?”
Her shoulders stiffen almost imperceptibly, but I see it. I notice more things about her than I should.
“I wasn’t super sad to leave,” she starts, cautiously. “But… no. I moved back because my father got into a car accident, and I had to take care of Joe.”
Shit.
“Your dad. Is he…?”
“He’s alive and well,” she clarifies. “He’s just…. He’s in jail.”
Fuck.
“We don’t have to keep talking about this,” I say, sensing her discomfort.
She glances at me, giving me a small nod. “Thank you. Maybe… maybe some other time.”
This must mean she’s now Joe’s legal guardian. It would explain why she’s so stressed about money, like Joe said.
She glances at my drawing again, a faint smile coming back to her lips. “I should get back inside, but this is the best thing I’ve seen in a while. I mean it.”
I chuckle. “I don’t know if that’s good for me or sad for you.”
“Definitely both. Thanks for keeping me company. It was nice.”
“I enjoy your company,” I say before I think the words through.
She arches an amused eyebrow. “What, you don’t think I’m trying to get into your pants anymore?”
My lips twitch. “Don’t be an ass.”
“Can’t. It’s part of my personality.”
I shake my head, amused. It’s an emotion I always tend to feel around her, I notice. “Good night, Ivy.”
“Nighty night, Picasso.”
When I throw her a glare, she laughs, and the sound stays with me until I fall asleep.
That’s how I know I’m in fucking trouble.