Chapter 21 #3
My hand rests on his forearm, stopping him mid-sentence. “This is perfect.”
He takes me in carefully. “It’s not. I don’t think I could ever come up with the perfect way to show you how much I think about you.”
I twist his wrist and press my thumb against the little star in the bend of his thumb and pointer finger. “You did.”
Tossing my sandwich beside me, I crawl across the blanket and curl up in his lap. He locks his hands around my waist and nuzzles his face in the crook of my neck.
“So, I was talking to Barrett last night,” Ford says. “I think he really might run in the next election cycle.”
“Really?”
“Maybe. He and Graham and I had a long discussion about it. He has reservations, naturally, and is afraid he’s being thrown into a lion’s den.”
“That’s what D.C. politics is, isn’t it? A giant lion’s den.”
“Yeah, that’s what I said,” he chuckles. “But politics is Barrett’s thing. He’s been testing some ideas out, tossing around platforms that he could run on. One of them,” he says carefully, strumming his fingers against my arm, “is the idea of bringing back the family dynamic in this country.”
“Like sit-down dinners and things?”
“Yes. Kind of. I understand it like he wants to make the country think more about doing things as a community, helping one another. Being involved in their neighborhoods. That kind of thing.”
“That’s sensible,” I agree. “I like it. I think it would resonate well with a lot of people.”
He takes a deep, calculated breath. “A part of the reason he was asking Graham and I for our thoughts is because, to pull this off, he’d need his family to have his back.”
“Of course you’d support him, right? I’m not following you.”
Turning in his arms, I see the hesitation in his eyes, the lines forming around his mouth. Forcing a swallow, I wait for some kind of bomb to drop because I know it’s coming. It’s written all over his face.
“The thing is,” he pauses, “he’d want to incorporate us into his campaign. Really walk the talk, so to speak.”
He gauges my reaction, his features falling as I sit up. My stomach flip-flops, my mind scrambling to get to the point and to get there fast.
“So you’d be going to D.C.?” I ask flat-out.
“If he won. He proposed me being on the security panel of his campaign. I could do a lot of that from a home base—Savannah or Atlanta, for now. But once the actual campaign would start …” He blows out a breath. “God knows what it would entail, to be honest.”
“Wow.”
“I know this is a lot to take in, but I wanted you to know it was being discussed.”
I nod, forcing back a lump that’s forming rapidly in my throat. “Thanks for telling me.”
“I’m not sure he’s even going to do it, Ellie. And if he does, I have no idea what my role will be.”
Sitting criss-cross applesauce on the blanket facing him, I consider what that life would be like. Or if there would even be one for me included in that plan.
There’s no interest on my part in spending weeks and weeks alone while he travels the country with his brother. I have no desire to relocate anywhere, much less to the shark tank of Washington.
I see the resolution in his eyes. I know the loyalty he has to his family. And, sadly, I know where I rank.
“You’re overthinking this,” Ford says. “Don’t. Don’t start playing out a million scenarios, Ellie.”
With a half-laugh, I shrug. “How can I not? At least this time, I have a little warning.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means I can prepare for you to move on this time and not be blindsided like before.”
His sigh is sarcastic, frustration laced all through his tone.
“Look,” I say, “I get you want to support your brother. You’d be a dick if you didn’t. But that’s a huge commitment you’re making—”
“I might make.”
“You might make,” I correct.
Before I can say anything else, his gaze catches mine.
The brightness of the blues is gone, and in their place, is a reluctance I’ve feared seeing in them since the day he walked into Halcyon.
It’s a shadow of the look I saw when he broke the news he was enlisting. It’s enough to make my stomach curl.
I have a hard time pulling a lungful of air in as I look away.
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Ford says. “Nothing has been decided.”
Maybe not for him. But there has for me.
It takes all the courage I have to turn my head to face him again. I paint a smile on my face and even manage a laugh. “Let’s eat these sandwiches before they get soggy.”
He wants to press the issue, but smartly decides to let it go. We go about unwrapping our picnic in silence.
“Listen to what happened at work today …”
Ford begins a story about how a contract almost fell through, but he managed to save it in the end. I stop listening after the first couple of sentences and just nod and smile every now and then.
His cologne fills the air and weaves with the pine scent from the trees around us. My gaze drifts to the dock to my right and I think back to the little girl I was so many summers ago, the little girl that was broken by a boy that moved along to something better.
I’m not her anymore.