CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Ford
Twelve Years Ago
I know he’s standing there. Even if I hadn’t heard the click of the front door or his even breathing, I would know he was there. My dad most definitely has a presence about him that owns any room he walks into.
Even my apartment.
“Who let you in?” I groan as I roll onto my back on the couch and cover my eyes with my arm.
“I own the building. Last thing I need to do is ask for access from anyone.”
The thought has never bugged me until right now. Until this moment when I simply want to wallow in my own sorrow and drink myself into oblivion without him being him.
“Invading my privacy doesn’t come with the landlord duties.”
“Then answer your phone, and I won’t have to show up here.”
I hear the motorized blinds moving open and already hate him for doing that. Besides the extended hangover I’ve been wallowing in, I don’t think I’ve seen sunlight for a few days.
“You can spare me the lecture. I already know what you’re going to say.” Get up. Don’t let a woman steal your worth. Fuck her if she doesn’t see your value.
Blah.
Blah.
Blah.
“I’m not here to give you a lecture, son.”
“Ha. That’s funny. Isn’t lecture your middle name?”
“That’s not exactly fair.” I hear him move about the room. I feel the dip of the couch’s cushion beneath his weight. “I like to think I offer more than that.”
Huh. There is a tinge of something in his voice. Did I just insult the great Maxton Sharpe and it affected him?
His sigh hangs in the stagnant air of my place. “It’s inevitable, you know.”
“What is?”
“Heartbreak.”
“Thanks for the brilliant observation. Can we skip to the good part where you leave?”
“Don’t be disrespectful.”
“Don’t enter a man’s apartment unannounced.”
“Ford.” He reaches his hand out to my shin and squeezes. “I’m sorry about Jennifer.”
“Yeah, well, you just said heartbreak is inevitable so—”
“Son.” He pauses for a beat. “You have this incredible ability to put yourself out there. For being you without holding back and not caring what anyone thinks. That’s admirable.”
What does that have to do with getting my heart broken? Is this another case of him just wanting to hear himself talk?
“It doesn’t feel very admirable,” I say and pull the pillow over my head.
Admirable is the last thing I feel. Hurt is first and foremost. Then disbelief followed by anger before returning right back to hurt again.
He’s silent, but his hand remains.
“She cheated on me. Cheated. After two years together . . .” The images are burned in my brain. Opening the front door to hear the unmistakable sound of moans. Following said sounds to find Jennifer straddling one of my fellow MBA classmates. Fuck.
“So your brothers told me.”
“With a classmate no less.”
“And how does that make you feel?” I cock an eyebrow at him. How does he think it made me feel? I don’t think I’ve ever heard those words come out of his mouth before. Since when is he a therapist? “I asked a question, Ford, and I expect an answer.”
“Pissed. Angry. Wanting to fuck someone random to get back at her.”
But there’s no way in hell I’d do that. Even after that. I’m not that guy. I’m far too loyal to purposely have a revenge fuck. All she had to do was break up with me for fuck’s sake. How hard would that have been?
Then again, she’s a cheater, so she’s probably too chickenshit to end things before moving on.
He purses his lips and nods. “Go ahead, but it’s not going to make you feel any better.”
“Then what will? Because it’s been days and it still fucking hurts as much now as it did when I saw it for my own eyes.”
“She doesn’t deserve you.”
“That’s supposed to help?”
“No. But it’s a fact.”
“More brilliant wisdom from the one and only.” I groan as I sit up, my head pounding and my eyes squinting. “Tell me something oh-knower-of-all-things. How exactly do you know this?”
“First, this will be the one and only time you will ever get away with speaking to me with such utter disrespect. Hurting, heartbroken, I don’t care. I taught you better than this so watch how far you push, Fordham.”
Then leave me to my own fucking peace. I fist my hands and fight back the need to be more of an asshole and take my frustration out on him.
“Two, she wasn’t the one. I could have told you that since day one.”
I snort. “Lay it on me, Dad. How exactly did you know this?”
“Because she was a matter of convenience. She looked at you as a meal ticket, and you looked at her as someone who fit the role.”
“That’s bullshit.” I say the words with more conviction than I feel.
“Is it? Because I never saw her as being the one you’d walk through fire for just to see for a minute.”
I’m about to laugh but when I glance his way, amber eyes that match mine are looking back at me with an unrivaled intensity. “Are you missing Mom?” I ask him, suddenly feeling like an ass for not looking closer sooner.
A soft smile breaks on his lips. “I will always miss your mother. That’s a given. But no, this isn’t about Mom. This is about you.”
“Would you have walked through fire for her?” I ask, my voice barely a whisper.
“Yes.” His voice breaks on that single syllable.
With every passing day, passing year, her memory grows fainter and fainter regardless of how hard I try to hold tighter to it. The sound of her laugh. The scent of her perfume. The way she’d hug us as if her life depended on it. The love she gave. God, she knew how to make you feel loved.
“Yes, I would have.” I wonder if they were just an anomaly—the love they shared and he seemingly still feels.
“I did. I still do. I’d go to hell and back for her.
Some days I feel like I have after living all this time without her.
Seeing you guys grow up, enjoying every minute of it, and knowing she’s missed every part of it. ”
“I’m sorry for what you’ve missed,” I murmur.
“Don’t be. At least I had the chance to have that kind of love.” He clears his throat, making it clear the kumbaya session is now over. “And I want that for you. For your brothers.”
“You actually think Callahan will settle down?” I snort.
“He’ll find someone to tame that fire of his, whereas you need someone to help stoke yours.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
His half-hearted smile doesn’t tell me much. “When you find her, you’ll know.”
“I’ll know what?” Now he’s just making shit up to feel fatherly when he’s currently in over his head. “If you know the answer, please impart your wisdom.”
“Son, when a woman’s temper makes you love her even more, when her defiance makes you want to challenge her, and when her smile makes you want to earn each and every one, then you know she’s worth the goddamn fire.”
His words make me uncomfortable because I sure as hell didn’t feel that way about Jennifer.
“Got it.”
“At some point, you will get it. And when you do, I just hope I’m around to see it.”
“Yeah, yeah.” I wave a hand at him.
Can he just go and leave me in my wallowing?
“Hint taken. I’ll be going now.” Thank God. But as he reaches the door, he turns back to look at me. “Promise me something, Ford.”
“What’s that?”
“Don’t ever stoop to that level. Stealing another man’s woman shows who a man really is . . . or rather isn’t. And any woman willing to do the same isn’t worth the fire anyway.”