Chapter 12
12
FORD
S he freezes. I pull away, scolding myself for moving too fast. My heart beats in my throat. The only thing clouding that thought is my obsession. Her.
I briefly close my eyes and pull away. Her lips are swollen. The taste of her sweet breath on my lips. My hard cock dying to be inside her and making her mine is at war with the blank look in her eyes.
She was into it, and then something happened. She wants to push me away, but at first, a part of her wanted to pull me close for some more.
I hesitate to want to give in to the side we both want, but I don’t want her to think I’m using her. For her to think it was a mistake.
I want nothing more than to finally have her. To give in and let her see how she really makes me feel.
When I pull away, I rub the pad of my thumb over her bottom lip. “Hey?”
She blinks a couple of times.
“You went off somewhere?”
“I’m sorry,” she says, looking away.
“You look beautiful, Dulce, and I’m not sorry for kissing you,” I tell her and shut the door.
As I pull up, my car roars under the moonlit sky, drawing attention from people coming out of the restaurant.
Mays, leaning on his truck, is absorbed in his phone.
He looks up, and I roll down my window, offering a smile. “Next time you ask a girl out, make sure you've ended things with the one you’re with first. You should know better. News travels fast in this town.”
His gaze slides to the passenger seat. A crease forms on his forehead, a bead of sweat dripping down his temple. “Dulce, get out of the car,” he demands. The words rush out, tumbling over the next, causing my fist to clench on the steering wheel as he continues, “Dulce, listen to me. You can’t trust him. I’m sorry. I’ll take you home. Please?—”
“Stop,” she thunders.
His throat moves as he swallows, and hurt glimmers in his eyes. “Could you…call me when you get home?”
She looks away, dismissing him, but I don’t understand what the fuck is this guy’s problem.
He glares at me. “You do anything to her, and I swear?—”
“Don’t threaten me,” I warn. “She obviously doesn’t want to talk.”
I drive off, leaving him watching me as I pull onto the road. I lick my lips, full of the scent of her sweet breath and the taste of sugar from her lips entangled with mine.
“Thank you,” she says apologetically, biting the corner of her lip.
“For what?” I ask, trying to keep from reaching for her hand.
“For coming to get me. For giving me a ride. I honestly didn’t know how I was going to make it home.”
“Were you going to stay in the bathroom stall all night?” I ask playfully.
“Maybe.”
I glance at her briefly, loving the way she looks tonight, but I don’t want to make her uncomfortable by staring. “Are you okay?”
“I am now,” she says quietly, and all I want is to keep driving and not come back. I want to keep her forever, but I can’t. Not yet.
Instead, I ask, “How long do you have until you’re expected back home?”
I don’t know what her situation is at home, how bad her grandmother is, or how long she has left.
“Umm. ”
“You know what? Call home and ask who is hungry.”
She glances at me. “Why?”
“Because we’re bringing dinner.”
“You don’t have to do that, Ford.”
I smile, putting her at ease. “It’s no trouble.”
I step into the doorway, balancing two bags of take-out barbecue pulled pork and mac-n-cheese and following Dulce into her house. The house smells like a hospital. Sterile and antiseptic mixed with rich wood that has seen better days. The house is clean but needs a facelift.
My eyes soften as she walks cautiously into what I assume is her grandmother’s room. It’s the only room so far that is completely remodeled.
“Is she awake?” Dulce whispers to a woman named Mary sitting in a chair by her grandmother’s side.
Dulce said she is a nurse that works at the local doctor’s clinic and takes care of her grandmother while Dulce works.
“I’m awake,” her grandmother says with a quavering quality to her voice. “You think I don’t have gas in the tank, but I do, and I hear you whispering away like you’re hiding something. Tell me, how was it? Did Danny behave himself?”
Danny was a shady bitch who got caught.
I step forward, the bags drawing her grandmother’s attention. I’m met with the same brown eyes that have haunted me since the first day I fell into them.
“Grandma,” Dulce says.
“You’re not Danny,” her grandmother says, trying to sit up. Mary gets up to assist her.
“No, ma’am, I’m not,” I say quietly.
“You’re Dulce’s Ford.”
“Why yes, ma’am, I am,” I say, liking the way it sounds.
I step farther into the room, but she freezes me on the spot with a stare. Then looks at Dulce. “What happened to Danny?”
Dulce smiles, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. “It didn’t work out.”
“Oh…small town?”
“Yes, it is. Word travels fast,” Dulce says.
“You should know, Ford,” her grandmother says.
I’m not sure if she is talking about the past with Summer or my racing, so I reply, “I do. It goes with the territory.”
“Not my granddaughter’s?—”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” I interrupt.
“Good. When I decide I’m good and ready to kick the bucket, Dulce will go to college. It’s not too late. I told her she should have gone after she graduated, but she didn’t want to leave me.”
“Let me take those, Mr. Keller,” Mary says, taking the bags.
“Please call me Ford,” I reply, helping her with the bags and following her out to the hallway with Dulce behind me.
Like the driveway, the rest of the house is twenty years overdue for repairs. The kitchen is the same, with dated wood paneling and chipped Formica cabinets. Yellow ring marks on the counters from too much use. The appliances also need an update, but I admire Dulce’s strength in taking care of her grandmother’s business and the house while taking care of her grandmother.
“Alright,” Mary says and glances at Dulce. “Will you come and help me get these served?”
“Sure,” Dulce says reluctantly, opening the cabinet and grabbing the plates.
The kitchen is small, so I walk back to her grandmother’s room, wanting to get to know her.
As I walk in, her grandmother pins me with a look, scrutinizing me and giving me a chill down my spine.
When she looks at me, it’s like she is seeing inside my soul—something my own mother couldn’t do.
“What’s your business with my Dulce? Are you passing through, or are you planning to stay?”
“I’m not sure. It depends.”
“On?” she asks with a challenge in her gaze.
My eyes zero in on a picture of Dulce on her nightstand; it doesn’t look like it was taken long ago, but it’s not recent, either. She is still gorgeous, but in this picture, she looks breathtaking. I’ve never seen her smile with such a light in her eyes. She looks so happy.
I point at the picture. “Can I?”
“Oh yes. Of course. I’m sure you remember that night.”
I pick up the photo and look at Dulce’s beautiful smile. Her dress. Vintage but gorgeous on her perfect figure. My eyes cut to the old woman, looking quizzically for a moment.
“I was upset that she didn’t bring me pictures of you both.”
“Pictures?” I ask, confused.
“The prom? She was so happy when you invited her at the last minute.”
A sick feeling crawls up the back of my throat.
“You sent her a message, and she wouldn’t stop looking at it the entire time she was getting ready.”
My stomach self detonates. The walls feel like they are closing in. What is she talking about?
“I want to thank you for putting that smile on her face,” she says with a soft expression, remembering the way she looked that day.
Something is not adding up. I don’t remember seeing her in that dress before.
Dulce and Mary walk into the room with a plate in each hand. I place the photo back, wanting to keep it but knowing I can’t.
“What’s going on, Grandma?” Dulce says, but I see when she notices the picture I just put back. Her eyes widen in fear. Her face looks pale.
She lied to her grandmother, and I’m guessing who she went with when I see the trembling of her expression. I can tell she made it all up to please her grandmother about going with someone to prom. I should be annoyed, but I’m not.
“I was thanking Ford for taking you to prom,” her grandmother says, looking between us.
The plate slips from Dulce’s hand and crashes on the floor.
“Mary—” Her grandmother trails off, her voice weak.
“Dulce?” I rush to her side, but her face is white. She is trying to take large gulps of air like she’s suffocating. Something is wrong.
“It’s a panic attack,” Mary says, putting the food down and rushing to her side. “She gets them sometimes.”
Before Mary can reach her, I pick her up bridal style on instinct to soothe her. “Shh…” I rock her in my arms, placing a strand of her hair behind her ear. Her eyes are snapped shut. I can feel her heart racing like a racehorse. “It’s okay,” I say, trying to soothe her in hushed tones. “I’ve got you…breathe.” Her chest rises when she takes a deep breath and then lets it out. “That’s it, Dulce. You got this, baby.” Her eyes open, looking around in a daze, and I smile. “I’ve got you.”
“Come, lay her down in her room,” Mary says, guiding me out of the room.
I lay her on her bed on the small mattress with pink sheets. I slide in next to her, holding her. I want to know why she has panic attacks.
“I’m sorry,” Dulce mutters.
“There is nothing to be sorry about. Relax and breathe.”
Mary checks her to make sure she’s okay. Then she excuses herself to tend to Mrs. Webster.
I remember seeing someone on the track at a race have a panic attack. The most important thing is to take them to a quiet place and calm them.
“Uh, Ford,” Mary calls.
I look up, then at my chest to see Dulce sleeping, her breaths even. “Yeah?”
“Could you walk me out? Mrs. Webster is already asleep, and I need someone to lock the door behind me,” she says, but when I place Dulce gently on the bed and walk out of her bedroom, I see something in Mary’s eyes. She wants to tell me something. “There’s something you need to know.”
FORD
No one was happy when I left town. I never thought they would go after her or stoop so low. I get that those girls in school hated her, so I was careful not to sneak glances when I was around them. I ignored Dulce as much as I could. I hated to laugh at some of their jokes, so it seemed believable, but fuck if it didn’t eat me up inside. It fucking wrecked me that I couldn’t do anything about it. I had my parents’ money, not mine.
I drive for what seems like hours, the sun heating the road as I push the Aventador to its limit down the backroad where Mary said it happened.
I look left and right like it will give me a clue of who is responsible, but in my eyes, they all are.
I place the car in park, open the door, and scream like a wild animal until my throat is raw, hearing the whoosh of birds flying from the trees in panic. My chest heaves as my lungs burn with rage.
I get back in the car, and there is only one place I can go right now. I check the time on the dash; she should be open at eight o’clock. It’s the last place I thought I would visit since I came back. I have a doctor I see on a regular basis in Italy, but he doesn’t know this part of my past. The part I keep hidden from the world.
I reach the small house turned into an office building three blocks from my old high school. There is a white Toyota Camry parked in the doctor’s space.
I walk inside and write my name down on the walk-in sheet and have a seat until the receptionist slides the glass window open and calls me inside.
The door slides open after ten minutes, and a soft, professional voice calls out my name. “Mr. Keller.”
I stand and meet green eyes I haven’t seen in a while, belonging to Mrs. Forester. “Hello, Ford. It’s been a while.”
“It has. How’s Bob?” I ask pleasantly.
The skin on the corner of her eyes crinkles when she smiles. “Still a pain in the ass,” she says, wasting no time in opening the office door.
She knows I’m here because it’s an emergency. Just like old times. “She will see you now.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Forester,” I say before walking inside the familiar office.
The same old plant and blue couch are against the far wall, but different board games are on the coffee table. The same painting of four irregular black-and-white shapes hangs right above it.
The brown wood desk belonging to Dr. Alice Bregman is on the opposite side of the room. She sits behind her desk, her black hair in an elegant chignon with the same white pearls at her throat. She wears a collared white blouse with blue slacks and a professional smile she reserves for all her patients.
“Long time no see, Ford. I was hoping this was a friendly visit, but I see that it’s for an appointment.”
I take a seat on the right side of the blue couch and stretch out my legs like old times. “It is.”
She takes out my chart, which is about an inch thick. It was where she wrote all her notes from every session we had throughout my high school years. “I see you’re back in town. How is everything?”
“I am,” I say, looking directly at her.
“Is this about her?” she asks, writing something down.
“Yes.”
“Same feelings,” she asks, “like before?”
I snort. “They never went away, Dr. Bregman. I did. Like you recommended.”
She nods like she understands, but she doesn’t. She hasn’t been obsessed with one girl for years.
“And now that you’re back, these feelings for Dulce are magnified.”
I scratch my neck. “You could say that, but I’m not here to cope without her. I’m here to ask you how I can safely channel my thoughts and feelings while I pursue her?”
She places an elbow on her desk and rests her chin on the palm of her hands, listening intently. “And do you think that is a good idea? How does she feel about you?”
“I think it’s a great idea. I always have, despite what my parents think. At this point, I don’t care what anyone thinks; I just care about what Dulce thinks and how it will affect her. I think she is attracted to me, but she doesn’t trust me.”
“Then earn her trust. Form a healthy relationship and work on that. Don’t let obsession bend your positive thoughts. Attraction is healthy. So is sex but not when it’s abused. Anything in excess is not healthy, Ford. It is why I was on board when you told me your plans to pursue your dreams of racing. Why I agreed that the best thing to do about your obsession with Dulce was to find yourself. Build a healthy relationship with yourself. See the world. Meet new people.”
“I did,” I quip.
“And?”
“She is still the one thing missing, Dr. Bregman. I crave her. I want her, and I’m not going to stop until I have Dulce Webster.”