Chapter 12
CHAPTER TWELVE
BECK
I shouldn’t have worried about hurrying down to the diner after Addison stole Everly away because Ford was having the time of his life. He was made for this job, greeting customers with a smile as he oozed charm, and everyone ate it up. Well, everyone but Quinn Cartwright.
He and the doctor had been oil and water since we were kids, and it hadn’t eased any in our adult years.
Even when she’d moved back after college and her residency, their friction was still very much alive and well.
Though that wasn’t too hard to understand.
Quinn was always serious, was driven and focused on taking over the town clinic—well, if Dr. Clark ever retired, anyway—and Ford didn’t take much of anything seriously, least of all life.
“Well, isn’t this a pleasant surprise.” He shot Quinn a smile that had most of the women in town melting at his feet. Most, but definitely not her. “Don’t usually see you out here.”
“I try to avoid it as much as possible.” She turned to me. “No offense.”
I grabbed a to-go cup and poured her a coffee, the only thing she ever swung in here for. “None taken. I try to avoid him as much as possible, too.”
Ford snorted. “Sure, Doc. Whatever you say. I just think it’s convenient, is all.”
She blew out a long sigh and hung her head. “I’m going to regret this, but what’s convenient?”
He shrugged. “You obviously figured I’d be working in here today after the night Beck had, so you had to swing by. But don’t worry. Your secret’s safe with me.”
She just stared at him blankly, not taking the bait, and sipped her coffee. Then she dismissed him completely without a word and turned to me. “How’s Everly doing?”
I opened my mouth to respond and realized I couldn’t answer the question because…
I didn’t know. Sure, I’d given Everly two orgasms before breakfast, so it wasn’t all bad, but I hadn’t even asked her how she’d been feeling this morning.
Hadn’t asked her if her throat was sore, if she was hungry, if her hands hurt from the scrapes.
The only thing I’d done to even acknowledge the fact that she’d been in a fire last night was shove a water bottle in her face when her voice got scratchy and demand she drink. A+ behavior, asshole.
I cleared my throat. “As good as can be expected.”
Quinn’s eyes softened, nothing like the daggers she’d been shooting Ford’s way. “I can’t imagine how difficult this is for her. But let her know she can call me anytime if she has any questions or concerns or is just feeling off.”
“What?” I snapped my gaze to hers. “Why would she be feeling off? Is there something I should be looking for?”
Quinn huffed out a laugh and shook her head. “No, nothing like that. Just…if she needs someone to talk to, I’m around.”
My brows drew down, but I gave her a short nod, trying to hide how much I hated the thought of Everly seeking comfort from someone other than me. “Right. Sure.”
“Well, I need to head out.” She dropped some cash on the counter and held up her coffee. “Thanks for this.”
“I’ll text you my schedule for the coming week,” Ford called after her retreating form. “So you know where to find me.”
Her gaze was cool and disinterested as she stared back at him, but her middle finger twitched on her cup.
I’d bet all the money in the register that if there weren’t other people in here and she weren’t vying for the town physician role and needed to play a part, she would’ve sent him a one-finger salute as she marched her ass out of the diner.
“Smooth,” I said to Ford as the door closed behind her.
He snorted. “I wasn’t trying to be smooth. Believe me, if I laid on the charm, she’d be putty in my hands. But why should I waste the good stuff on her?”
“Uh-huh.”
“No, seriously, I could—”
“Take care of the tables outside? Just what I was thinking.” With a hard push to his shoulder, I shoved him in that direction.
He laughed and grabbed a pitcher of water before heading outside.
Chuckanut was out there, her leash long enough for her to roam freely.
And actually, maybe it was her I needed to have here greeting people every morning, because the customers ate it up.
How Everly’s sunshine persona had morphed into a dog, too, I’d never know, but there was no denying it.
Chuckanut trotted from table to table with an honest to God smile, soaking in all the attention, and the diners seemed to love it.
Ford topped off her water dish, then made the rounds outside while I took care of the customers in here, thankfully busy enough that I was constantly moving and couldn’t focus on the niggle in the back of my mind that said I’d screwed up with Everly this morning.
That I’d been too demanding, too pushy, too much.
That I’d taken our relationship somewhere she’d never intended it to go. Somewhere we couldn’t come back from.
But she’d been with me, hadn’t she? She’d been moaning my name, coming over my tongue and my cock. She’d sought my embrace before she’d left with Addison, pressing a kiss to the underside of my jaw like everything was business as usual.
Well, business as usual except for the fact that I now knew what her pussy tasted like and that she liked a little pain mixed with her pleasure to get off…
A couple hours later, when the last person finally cleared out of the diner, Ford strolled in, Chuck trotting along at his heels.
He slid onto a stool at the bar and braced his elbows on the counter. “Jesusfuck, I thought they’d never leave.”
“Who?”
He gestured behind him. “The couple visiting from Ohio.”
I stared at him blankly. “You kept them here talking for the past fifteen minutes.”
“Well, what was I supposed to do? We can’t all grunt and throw food at people.”
“I didn’t throw food at anyone today.” Even though there’d been a few who absolutely deserved it.
“Quit distracting me,” he said. “I need to know how it was.”
I glanced at him with a raised brow as I wiped down the counter. “How what was?”
“The sex, obviously.”
I paused for only half a second, arm outstretched, before I kept right on with the rag, hoping he hadn’t noticed. “I never said I had sex.”
He snorted and shot Chuck a look that said can you believe this guy. “You didn’t have to. I can just tell.”
“I’m calling bullshit on that. I can’t tell when you have sex.”
“You can’t tell because this is my baseline,” he said, circling his face. “But you, my friend, have been stagnant for, what? Two years? Believe me, there’s a difference.”
I glared at him for several seconds, hoping he’d back down, but he just stared back, grin on his face, and waited for me to crack.
“Fuck,” I snapped, slapping the rag down on the counter.
“Yes.” He fist-pumped the air. “Fuck is right.”
“You’re a jackass. I mean fuck, as in fuck me. Fuck, as in I fucked up. Fuck, as in I don’t know what the fuck I was thinking.”
“Well, you were probably thinking Everly’s hot and amazing and is open-minded as hell in bed if those books she reads are anything to go by—not to mention the highlighted parts. Jesus.”
“How did you—”
“And her ass looks fantastic in jeans—”
“Hey,” I barked.
“Plus, you’ve been in love with her for two years—”
“I am not in lo—”
“And have basically declared your complete and utter devotion to her anyway since you haven’t been with anyone since she so much as stepped foot into town, so you might as well have sex while you’re at it.”
“We didn’t have sex,” I bit out through clenched teeth. When he just raised a brow, I groaned and pulled off my hat, running a frustrated hand through my hair before replacing it. “Technically, we didn’t, but I still fucked up. I can’t believe I did that.”
“Yeah, I’m pretty shocked too. At this point, I figured it’d take an act of God to get you to cross that boundary. Nice job.”
“Nice job? Are you serious? I’m worried about ruining the best relationship I’ve ever had, and you want to pat me on the back?”
“Um, first of all, hello?” He reached over and flicked me on the forehead. “I’m the best relationship you’ve ever had.”
“You don’t count.”
“And second, you didn’t ruin it.”
“You can’t know that.”
“Well, you can’t know you did, either. Did she say you ruined it?”
“No.”
“Did she act any differently?”
I assumed he probably didn’t mean differently in the way that I now knew what she sounded like when she came and that her blush did, in fact, spread down her chest when she was turned on. “No.”
He shrugged. “Then you didn’t ruin it.”
“It’s not always that simple.”
“Sometimes it is,” Ford said, all notes of teasing gone.
“Aren’t you always the one reminding me I have a one hundred percent fail rate at relationships?”
“Everyone has a one hundred percent fail rate at relationships unless they’re currently in a committed relationship. And nobody involved in this conversation is. That doesn’t mean you just give up entirely. What, are you going to spend the rest of your life alone?”
“Since you’re always up my ass, that’d be impossible.”
“Maybe now, but one of these days, I’m going to lock down a cool-as-fuck woman, have her make an honest man out of me, and enjoy the hell out of making some babies with her. And then where are you going to be?”
“Oh, you think you’re going to be able to make a relationship last? We grew up in the same house with the same parents. And our examples weren’t exactly shining.”
Yes, our mom had been an amazing mother who loved her family beyond all reason.
She strived for perfection, but that had been hard, considering she was basically a single parent raising six kids.
It didn’t matter that she was technically married and that our dad was technically around.
Not when he chose alcohol over her and us time and time again.
She’d tried to keep that hidden from us, but the older we’d gotten, the easier it had been to see.
There’d been fights and makeups and so much tension it was like a constant weight bearing down on us.
If that was what love was—what forever was—I didn’t want any part of it.