28. Ford
CHAPTER 28
ford
“ I t’s gonna be okay, baby. It will.” I had Peyton by the hand as we ran together. Cash was a football field ahead, sprinting for the horse barn.
“Cash!” She hollered. “Honey, slow down!”
He darted around the corner, and we heard the barn door slamming shut.
“Freaking football practice,” she hissed. “He shouldn’t be this fast. He’s going to lock it,” she said, her petite legs jumping over tall patches of grass.
“He’s about to find out he can’t,” I said. “The slider is broken.”
“Ford,” she gasped. “Just go!” Peyton was yoga fit. Not sprint half a mile through a field fit. “Your legs are twice as long as mine.” Not accurate at all. “You’ll get there faster if you’re not pulling me along.” She shook her hand loose and waved me on. The minute I took off, she stopped and dropped her head between her legs. “I’ll be there in a minute.”
I kicked it into high gear, running faster than I had since high school. I skidded around the corner to find the barn door cracked, just like I knew I would. Once inside, I turned on the lights. Then I jogged down the concrete center aisle, checking every stall.
Cash was in the very last one on the right, curled up in a mound of hay, facing the wall, crying.
My chest heaved, needing more air, reminding me that I wasn’t thirteen and conditioned to sprint the length of a football field. I gave myself one second to catch my breath and then I walked in to introduce myself to my son.
“Hey.” I chuckled stupidly as I settled in beside him. “It’s kind of a shock, right? I just found out a few days ago. That’s why I went to the beach. I needed time to process.”
He glared over his shoulder at me. “Thanks a lot. Just how a kid wants to find out he’s the product of a hook up. Right there in front of his best friends, with everyone watching.”
“I’m so sorry about that. Your mom and I were going to tell you tonight. After everyone left?—”
“Tell me what? That you got it on like dogs in heat?” I cringed at that visual. “Like let’s have this great time tonight, no big deal. It doesn’t mean anything. Like I’m an accident ? A mistake !”
I scrubbed a hand over my face. “I’m not going to act like I haven’t done a lot of really terrible things in my life. One Google search will tell you that’s a lie. And I don’t ever want you to think that having a one-night stand is okay. It brought me years of heartbreak.” I rubbed my hands down my thighs, hoping to say this right. Hoping Peyton didn’t kill me if I botched it. “But you need to know that I’ve loved your mom since the first night we met. That night was one of the best of my entire life. You are not a mistake or an accident. Nothing could be farther from the truth.” He rolled over and stared up at me. “If I had a time machine, there are so many days I’d go back and do differently. But that one? I wouldn’t touch it with a ten-foot pole. I wouldn’t even breathe on it for fear of changing one single thing. It was that perfect.”
“Really?” he whispered, the glare gone.
“Yes. I walked into that bar not knowing how good life could be, and when I walked out with your mom?—”
“You met in a bar ?”
Crap.
He cussed under his breath, something I’d never heard him do before. “Are you kidding me right now? My parents met in a freaking bar,” he muttered and rolled away from me again. “I can’t even look at you right now. So cringe.”
Where was Peyton? Had she passed out in the grass? I could really use her calming influence!
“No. The bar is a tiny part of it. Let me back up.” I told him about the first time I saw her at the parade. Then I quickly glided over the bar and gave him a play-by-play of the night after. Around the time I told him about UNO, he stopped heckling me under his breath. I ended with the kiss. “It wasn’t trashy. It was…amazing. Your mom is the highest quality woman I’ve ever met. Meeting in a bar is just a minor detail.”
He watched me, no expression to tell me what he was thinking.
“What?” I asked.
“I just realized you’re my dad. Like I really thought about it.”
“I am.” I forced myself not to laugh even though I wanted to. I needed to release some of this tension.
“My dad is a celebrity ,” he said flatly. “My dad is a celebrity, with two Grammy’s, eleven platinum albums, and he’s frickin’ kick butt.” His face split into a grin. “And my butthead da—” He gave his head a shake. “Sheesh. Braxton isn’t my dad at all.” The grin disappeared and his face dropped a touch. “Does he know?”
I nodded. “Yes. He’s always known.”
Cash chewed his lips. “That explains…a lot.”
“Yeah. I’m glad you think I’m kick butt though.”
“I do. Even with the one-night stand. But Braxton isn’t my dad.”
“He’s not.” I shook my head, feeling a bit somber.
His eyes were intense, scanning over my face. “Oh snap. I look like you. Don’t I?” His head bobbed and he bit the inside of his cheek. “I’m gonna need to talk to my therapist, I think.”
I did laugh then. “Yeah. I think we’re all gonna need some therapy.”
“Is the whole world gonna know I’m your kid?”
“Uh.” I swallowed. “Yes.”
“So we’re changing my last name to Dupree?”
“Definitely.” That was non-negotiable. He was not keeping Pace. Over my dead body.
His face twisted up and it looked like he was about to cry again.
“This sucks.”
Peyton finally walked in. She wasn’t the least bit out of breath. She’d been eavesdropping, no doubt. Seeing how I handled it. She gave me a double thumbs up but her smile was a little sad. She squatted down in front of our boy. “Hey, Cash, I’m so sorry.”
“What’re you sorry for?” A tear escaped his eye and he wiped it away on the sleeve of his T-shirt. “I just leveled up as far as Dad’s go. Big time.”
I chuckled.
Peyton gripped my knee, holding herself up. “Yes. That’s for sure.” She squeezed his hand. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner, sweetie. I was trying to protect you. But the longer it went on, the more pain I knew it was going to cause, and I just…panicked.”
I curled a hand around her waist.
Cash nodded but there was hurt in his eyes.
“It’s a lot to process,” she said. “We probably have a lot of long talks ahead of us.”
He sat up. “Can we talk about it later? Griff and Liam are going to eat all of Granny’s key lime pie.”
I smiled at him calling my mom Granny, like the rest of the grandkids. He’d always called her that.
“No doubt. Those pie plates will be wiped clean,” I said. “But Blue’s the one you should be worried about. Not Griff and Liam.” That man was a pig when it came to Mom’s key lime pie.
Cash’s head was in his hands. “Never mind. I can’t go back up there. I can’t show my face around here ever again.”
“That’s going to be inconvenient,” I said. “Since you live here now.”
He groaned. “I can’t live here. On this ranch. My last name can’t be Dupree.”
Peyton tilted her head, silently asking if I knew what this was about. “I thought you’d be excited to find out that your best friends are your cousins,” she said.
“I am,” he muttered. “It’s sick. Mostly.”
I understood exactly what was going on. I rubbed Peyton’s knee. “Can I talk to him for a minute, alone?”
“Yeah. Of course.” She ran a hand over his hair, pressed a kiss to his forehead, then stood and walked out of the stall. I gave her a moment to get out of earshot.
“Hey,” I whispered. “You wanna know the great thing about having a Dad who’s not a complete tool?”
“What?”
I bumped his shoulder with mine. “He knows when you have a crush on a girl.”
He leaned away and gaped at me like I was nuts. “I-I don’t have a crush on a girl.”
“You do. And her name is Charlie.”
His cheeks burst into flame and he groaned again. “You can’t tell anyone. Like no one knows. Not even Liam and Griff.”
“I would die first. It’s bro code.” I held my fist out and he bumped it.
But another tear slipped out. “I can’t like her. It’s so gross. I’m actually disgusted at myself.”
“You’re a normal teenage boy. You’re not gross?—”
“I am. Because I wanna do things I shouldn’t, like…” I sucked in air, expecting…I don’t know. But not what he said next. “Touch her cheek and see if it’s as soft as it looks. Or like, lean over and smell her hair. Smell her hair . Who does that? Or beat up all the guys that are always trying to get her number. And I can’t want those things. I feel like there should’ve been a sonar going off in my body screaming, Red Alert, Red Alert. ”
“Charlie’s gorgeous. And smart and hilarious. I’d say you’re normal and have exceptional taste. Not gross at all.”
“You’re just being nice. But let’s be real. It’s like the most disgusting thing I could ever do. I learned that in science. It’s…what’s the word?” He waved a hand and shivered. “Incest.”
I chuckled. “That would be true if she was blood related, but she’s not.”
He scowled. “What are you talking about? Her last name’s Dupree.”
“It is because Ashton adopted her and Theo. But he isn’t her biological father. Didn’t you know that?”
He sank back into the hay. “No one told me that.”
“We don’t talk about it because…well, we just don’t talk about it.” Tally never wanted Theo and Charlie to know their dad was the worst kind of human. “Ashton is her dad in all the important ways. But biologically, no relation whatsoever.” I bumped his shoulder again. “You know what that means?”
His ears went pink. “I’m sure you’re gonna tell me and it’s gonna be super embarrassing.”
“Nothing big.” I grinned. “Just that you could marry her someday. Maybe. You know, once you’re both grown.” I pointed a finger at him. “But no doing the hippity dippity while you’re both underage.”
“Ford!” Peyton called from halfway down the barn. “No hippity dippity at all. Until marriage.”
“Mom!” Cash said, his face even redder. “This is a man-to-man conversation. No moms allowed.”
“Fine.” She huffed. “I’ll head back to the house and hide the pies. But no hippity dippity! Get that out of your head right now!” The barn door slid open and slammed shut.
Cash laughed. “I’m so useless around Charlie.” He twirled a piece of hay between his thumb and forefinger. “She’s always making fun of me and I never have a comeback. It’s like my brain locks up.”
“You know, she wouldn’t bother to tease you if she didn’t like you. At least a little.”
His eyes turned bright. “You think so?”
“I do.” I chewed my lip for a moment. “You know, I’m pretty good with girls. I mean, I got your mom to fall for me.”
He grinned. “Yeah, you did. And my mom is really beautiful. All the boys at school have a crush on her.”
“She is. And you can tell them she’s taken.”
He laughed at that.
I picked up my own piece of hay. “I can teach you some things. We’ll figure out how to wrangle Chuck. Pretty soon she’ll be useless around you .”
“Really?” His eyebrow cocked. “Like what would we do first?”
“Well, for starters…” I scruffed him on the head. “I’m going to teach you how to do your hair.”
He laughed and smacked my hand away. “What’s wrong with my hair?”
“Aside from the fact that it looks like a Brillo pad?”
“It doesn’t look like a Brillo pad.” He huffed. But then he laughed. “Okay. It totally does. But what am I supposed to do with it?”
“Stop brushing it for one. And use some curl cream.”
His nose scrunched. “Am I going to have curls like you?”
“Yes.” I nodded. “Trust me. Girls dig the curls.”
His eyebrow lifted again. “They do?”
“They do.” I winked. “Ask your mom.”
“You think we could talk her into letting me get a faux hawk like you?”
“I think we could convince her.”
He shifted, sitting up straighter. “And you’ll teach me to sing like you?”
“The way I hear it, you don’t need me to teach you. But yeah, we’re going to sing and sing and sing.”
“Mom’ll be so sick of us.” His Adam’s apple bobbed. “Let’s do it.”
My head dipped once. “Sounds like a plan.”
He tore the piece of hay in half. “You think Charlie will mind that she won’t get to change her last name when we get married?”
“My friend Thomas Rhett married a woman who had the same last name as him. It’s not a deal breaker.”
Cash and I sat there for another twenty minutes talking about Charlie and football and singing. And by the time we were done, I knew maybe this wasn’t the best day of my life—that was the day I met his mom.
But it was a very close second.