Pretty Broken Promises

Chapter 13

After screamingat Ford in the rain, we went back to my mom”s house, and I fell into a blissfully dreamless sleep. He wrapped his arms around me and his signature leather and spice scent enveloped me. I don”t know if it”s because of our talk, but I go to sleep feeling like no matter what happens he will be there to make it okay.

Things are much lighter when we wake up later in the morning. I find him in the kitchen trying to figure out my mother’s very complicated espresso machine. Being a classic California boy, he doesn”t appreciate good coffee as much as someone who has adopted the Pacific Northwest as their home, like my mom and I have. Here in Washington, coffee is a religion. Maybe not an official one, but it”s pretty close. If the evergreen wasn”t already a symbol for the state, I think the coffee bean could take its place.

I come up behind him and reach my arms around his wide back. This was a lot easier when we were teenagers. I have to duck my head under his arm to see what he’s doing, which is apparently staring at the machine.

“Having trouble there, big guy?” I ask him.

He runs his hand through his dark brown hair, which is a little bit longer on the top than he used to keep it, and flops adorably over his eyes. “Is a normal coffee machine anywhere in this house?”

“Let the professional show you how it”s done.” I slide in front of him, but he barely steps back to give me any room. I know he”s pushing me, trying to get me more comfortable with being physically close to him, and it”s working. The feel of his muscles as I push past him to get to the counter awakens a part of me that I wasn”t sure I would ever get back. I”m still taking it slow, but I have hope that I didn”t have before.

His large hand drops to my hips when he notices I”m not going to pull away from him. “By all means, Vixen.”

His fingers slip just under the edge of my T-shirt, so they”re resting on the skin above my sweatpants. His thumbs stroke up and down my sides, it tickles, but it also sends jolts of electricity to my core. My lips part and a light gasp escapes them. I can feel the heat from his body seeping through the thin fabric of my shirt, it”s clear my body is ready for things that my mind has not quite caught up to yet.

My breathing comes out faster, and my fingers shake as I reach for the coffee grinder. “You…you have to grind the beans,” I stutter.

I feel his breath on my neck. It”s warm as his lips barely touch my skin. He”s not breaking any rules. He’s still giving me space, but he is pushing my boundaries. Just a little, enough for me to explore where those boundaries lie.

His mouth moves up below my ear and his teeth give a slight tug on my earlobe before he whispers, “Is something wrong, Vixen? I thought you were the professional.”

My breath is coming out quickly and shallow. “The customers were usually on the other side of the counter.”

I feel his fingers dig into my sides, not painfully, but with a mark of possession. He always has been a possessive ass. I did love it though, and I still do, but I”m not ready to tell him that.

“They better make it never now,” he growls.

He turns me around and lifts me to sit on top of the counter. I”m not short, I”m not tall either, but at average height, I”m a lot shorter than Ford. He keeps his eyes on mine as he pushes my knees apart and steps between my legs. I know he”s watching me for any sign that I”m going to freak out. This is why I never wanted to tell him. Why I never wanted anyone to know, because once they do, I”m afraid they”ll just see me as broken. I don”t want that, even if that”s how I see myself.

I wait for the panic to rise up, but it doesn’t. I”m not ready to take him into my room and continue on where we left off at eighteen, but I don”t need him to keep a six-foot distance from me either. I drape my arms over his shoulders and wrap them around the back of his neck, so he knows that I don”t want him to pull away.

“I thought you wanted me to make coffee,” I tease, trying to lighten the mood.

The corner of his mouth curves up. “We are in the coffee capital of the world, I”m pretty sure we can step out the front door and find a cup somewhere close by. I want to set some ground rules.”

I narrow my eyes. After last night, I thought we had both had enough of the heavy, but maybe that was only in my head.

He shakes his head slightly. “I can see you wanting to retreat from this, but this is one of the things we always got wrong. We would avoid the hard things, but we need to face them. Most of all we need to talk. We can”t just shove the hard feelings aside and hope that they will magically get better. I meant what I said Tessa, I want us to have a real shot. No, saying that means that there”s a chance that we won”t make it. I’d propose to you right now, if I didn”t think it would freak you out. I’ll lay out my intentions right now though. Remember, this isn”t what I expect to happen tomorrow or next week even, but this is where I see the road we’re on taking us?—”

“Which is what?” I interrupt him. I”m pretty sure I know what he”s going to say. Nobody goes through this much effort for a temporary fling. Nothing about Ford and me has ever been anything less than permanent. Even the damage we inflicted is soul-deep.

“You are it for me. I”ve said it before, and I will keep saying it until you believe me. There will never be anyone else. I know that I have had a reputation, but I want to clear some things up with you. I am so fucking sorry about that weekend at the cabin. I know I drove you into Sin’s arms. He”s also admitted that he used your emotional state to piss off Raven. The whole time we were up there I was giving her all my attention. I just drove that knife in deeper so of course you turned to the first person who was giving you what you needed from me. Yeah, it fucking hurt to watch, but I can see now that it was mostly my fault.”

I pull on the hair at the back of his neck. “I don”t think that”s fair. What I did was cruel, and I did it to make you hurt.”

He shakes his head, and the look of disappointment and pain is like a knife speared right through me. “You would never have done that if I hadn”t used you like a fuck toy and then ignored you for another girl right in front of your face. Of course, you tried to hurt me. We were toxic, but that doesn”t mean we have to continue to be. Believe me, Sin and I have traded some punches over that weekend. He has taunted me with the things that he said how he got you into that position in the first place. As much as I consider him a friend, I”m still pretty pissed at him for that. He”s developed more of a conscience since then, but he manipulated you into doing what he wanted. He was no better than me in the way that he used you for his own purposes. We were both giant dicks to you.”

I shrug. I really don”t want to focus on that weekend or on the feelings that still linger from it. “You said that we needed to clear some things up? I don”t think that rehashing one of the most painful weekends of my life is going to do that. I can”t go back to that place Ford, please just stop.”

I”m shaking and I know he can feel it. I wasn”t lying to him when I talked about that dark time immediately following that trip. The days after are nothing but blackness for me. I was useless. I remember going home, sitting down, and feeling sorry for myself. The scary thing is, I didn”t do anything else. I stopped trying to live. I wasn”t trying to survive. I was just waiting. If Benji hadn”t come to get me, I would”ve died in that spot, because I didn”t have the will to do anything else. That was the first time that the fight went out of me.

Ford leans forward and kisses me gently on the forehead. “Vixen, I”m trying to tell you that you have been punishing yourself for something that you didn”t do wrong. The more I look back, the more I see that this entire shitshow is my fault. I know you want to split the blame with me, and I shouldn”t be trying to talk you into blaming me more. I want you to forgive me, but I need you to forgive yourself. I want you back. Not just in my life, but I want you back to yourself. You aren”t the Tessa that I knew a long time ago. You were right about that. And maybe you will never get her back all the way. I”m not the same guy I was before my dad beat the shit out of me.”

He puts his hand on my chest between my breasts right over my heart. “But this right here, this is the same. You love the same. There’s still the same fire inside of you. It”s just having a hard time getting to the surface now.”

I lift my gaze to his, and I see sorrow swirling in his green and gold eyes. “I can”t let you take all the blame.”

“It”s not about blame, baby. It”s about learning how to do it better this time. We didn”t talk. You want to take some of this on your shoulders? The only thing that you bear the brunt of the burden for is not telling me what your dad was forcing you to do. The rest of this shitshow falls on me. From the moment that you left, I could”ve sought you out. I could”ve done a million other things than what I”ve done. Any of which would have caused you much less pain.”

I”m still uncomfortable with how heavy this has gotten. I want to get back to the lighthearted flirting that we were doing before. We need more of that. More moments that show us who we were and why we are fighting so hard to get back there.

I take a deep breath as a thought occurs to me. “Do you think maybe we”re fighting too hard to get back to something that we can”t have again?”

His muscles harden and his hands hold me tighter. He”s right, we are talking to each other. “Explain,” he demands.

“It”s just that we aren”t eighteen. Maybe we need to give up on the idea of getting back what we had and start building what we could be. Let”s not put constraints on our relationship. It doesn”t have to look like it did when we were in high school. Like you said, we aren”t those people anymore. I am not saying that I don”t want this.” I gesture between the two of us. “I don”t think that the two of us could avoid each other. We are like two objects in space set to collide. Nothing is going to stop us from crashing into each other. It”s just fate.”

He smiles. “I”m glad you”re finally seeing things my way. But this conversation got a little off track. What I really wanted to tell you is that the reputation I had was way overblown. I thought when we were—I guess you would just call it hate fucking, although I never hated you—I thought it was best if you didn”t know that you were the only one I was seeing.

“Until that horrible weekend,” I can”t stop myself from pointing out.

He nods. “Until then. I think like anything on a collision course we were destined for a violent end. I thought I wanted it to be over, and then you were just gone. Anyway, aside from that, other than my relationship with Jen during that year you were gone, I haven”t been with anyone else since you.”

I can”t look at him anymore. My hands slide down from his neck where I put them between us. I don”t even realize that I”m rubbing the scars on my wrist until he grabs my hands and stops the motion. He doesn”t say anything, he just holds them still.

“Since we are opening up about that weekend, do you know what Sin said that convinced me?”

He clears his throat. “I”m not sure I want to know.”

I don”t have a lot of relationship experience. In fact, he is the entirety of it. I don’t think Jace, that loser I dated for a few months during my junior year of high school, counts.

My parents didn”t have the best marriage, not that his did either, but I didn”t even have an example like he did watching Shane”s grandparents interact while he was growing up. I am completely out of my depth.

His eyes flick back and forth over my face, and I know he”s reading me. He”s always doing that. He nods his head like he has come to some kind of conclusion. “Right, I guess we”re not supposed to shy away from the hard things. This is going to take some work on both our parts. What did he say?”

“He seemed to know that you were the only guy I had ever been with,” I admit.

Ford’s mouth drops open. “You mean, during that entire year we were apart, there was nobody?”

I shake my head. “I was still holding out hope that Shane would convince you to come and talk to me.”

His face falls. “I”m going to punch myself in the dick. You may as well continue. How did this observation convince you to fuck him so that I would catch you?” His words are crass, but this conversation is pouring lemon juice on a still open wound no matter what words we use.

“He said something like I would never be able to move on as long as you were the last guy I had been with, and that you would always be able to hurt me as long as that was true. I just really wanted it to end.”

He holds me to him tighter. I loop my arms around his neck again and we just hold each other for a while. This is the second time that I can feel his body shake and know that he is crying. I don”t judge him for it. So much time lost, so much pain and suffering, all because we have a hard time using words.

Ford clears his throat. “You don”t have to tell me, I know you were engaged to the guy, but have you and Bennett?—”

“No,” I answer quickly. I take a deep breath. “You know it hasn”t been just you and Sin. I wish it had, but I didn”t get a say in that.”

I look down at my lap. My therapist had gone over and over about how it was not my fault. Nothing that happened makes me dirty or any of the other negative feelings that I have. You can know something intellectually and still not feel it emotionally.

“Hey,” he says, stealing my attention back. “I know you”re struggling with this. I can see it. I”m going to say that you have only chosen to have sex with me and Sin. That was your choice. Anything that was not your choice, that was rape, not sex. The mechanics might be the same, but you did not choose it, so it doesn”t go in the same category.”

I tip my head to the side. I”ve been so focused on the mechanics as he says, how many men have used my body, I never thought to classify them into two categories of those I chose, and those I didn’t. I can work with this for now.

Ford takes a deep breath and exhales. “Well, I”ve been about as gloomy as the weather. I”m going to go take a shower, get dressed, and then you can show me around your city. Sorry, I mean the place I will be calling home.”

I can”t help it, a wide smile stretches across my face. I wasn”t sure he meant what he said last night and I”ve been afraid to bring it up. “You”re really going to move here?”

He raises one eyebrow. “Are you?”

“I really want to. It”s not just that I love this city, and I do, but aside from you, everything I need is here. My friends are here. The only family that I recognize as family is here, or at least she”ll be back soon. I have a life here where people don”t look at me like I”m a pariah, or someone that they have seen on a video.”

His fingers dig into me once again. “As soon as we get back to Playa, I am going to have Sin help me scour the internet for any evidence of videos of you. I”m good, but he”s a genius. You know how they say what goes on the internet last forever? Well, those people didn”t know Jackson Sinclair. I didn”t protect you then, but I will look after you now.”

“Thank you,” I whisper and kiss the side of his mouth. It is something that worries me daily, that one of those videos that they took will somehow come back to haunt me. It”s part of the reason why I feel like I”ll never escape that place.

“Back to your question,” he redirects the conversation. “If you are serious about moving here. And of course you are, I can see that you are lighter here. I want that for you. I can be happy wherever you are, so if this is where you want to be, this is where we will go. I told you, where you go, I go.”

“God, I love you.” I slap my hand over my mouth. I didn”t mean to say that. I feel it, but I didn”t mean to reveal it right now. I”m ninety-nine percent certain he feels the same way, but my confidence is not exactly rock solid. I live in a constant state of fear that something is going to scare him away.

I know he thinks that I was holding him at arm’s length because I”m mad at him, mad present tense. I think he”s partially right. There is some part of me that is angry, and I need to let that out so I can start to let it go. But I think he also underestimates how big a role my poor self-image plays.

I know he”s not a saint. I put Benji on a pedestal that he probably doesn”t deserve to be on. I know Ford doesn”t belong on one. I see him as a normal man with flaws, one who”s made mistakes, but I still see myself as undeserving. I”m not choosing Ford because I feel like I deserve someone who has mistreated me. If anything, the easier path would be to choose Benji because I feel less for him, but I love him enough to know he deserves more.

Ford peels my hand away from my mouth. His eyes sparkle, and he stares at me with amazement and complete joy. “Say it again,” he urges.

“I love you, you big dummy.”

“I could”ve done without the last part. I love you too, you giant pain in my ass.”

I smile at him and love how he always manages to lighten the mood. “Awe, baby, you say the sweetest things.”