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“I don’t care if it’s just a scratch on your knee; I’m carrying you to the goddamn car.”
“I swear to Christ, if you sprained your ankle, I will hurt someone.”
“It doesn’t matter if it’s just a cut on your finger. Stop fussing and let me put a band-aid on it.”
I’m sick of being mad at him, and I’m sick of being confused.
Up until this year, Ford has been a man of few words. He says what he means, and he means what he says. Iknowit wasn’t a slip of the tongue when he said all those things to me. And Iknowthe way he’s been looking at me isn’t my imagination. Especially when Jennifer Robbins and Marcus were both witnesses to Ford suddenly deciding we’re not just friends.
I’m done trying to pretend like he never said what he did. This isn’t us, avoiding issues and not discussing everything. He was the easiest person to talk to the minute I met him. I talk his ear off the entire month of October every year, and he mumbles a few words back. Not exactly a full give-and-take, but still. At the root of all of this, we’re friends. We talk about problems. Mostly mine.
Okay, fine. It’s always 100% about my problems, and this is clearly 100% my problem that I don’t know what the hell to do with. I just want a few more minutes of enjoying my temporary slice of heaven before reality comes crashing back in.
“Shhh, you’re interrupting my church service,” I whisper, holding a finger to my lips and then pointing out to the yard, stalling for time.
Being at the Gore House after everyone has gone home is magical. With the street quiet, dark, and empty, and just the sounds of crickets chirping and leaves skittering across the sidewalk, standing on the porch looking out at the view of two hundred jack-o-lanterns lit up and spread around the front yard and lining the porch railing in front of me feels like a Halloween nirvana I never want to leave. It feels like we’re standing in the middle of a Halloween movie. Like we’re starring inThe Babysitter’s Last Halloween,but, you know, without all the blood and death and stuff.
Every muscle in Ford’s body immediately relaxes, the pinched expression on his face disappears, and his anger is put on pause. He takes a step closer to me on the porch of the Gore House before stopping to shove his hands in the front pockets of his jeans, and I have to quickly look away from him and out at the front yard before the tears swimming in my eyes spill over.
God, I love that he does this. I love that he can put his own feelings aside for a minute because he knows how sacred it is for me being here right now, on the porch of my dream home, experiencing this view without having to be down on the sidewalk with the constant pushing, shoving, and chattering of tourists on the other side of the fence. Being able to stand here right now and enjoy this view all by ourselves “after hours” feels like a gift I’m not ready to let go of yet. I love that he’s giving it to me, considering he has a right to be pissed off. I snuck away from pumpkin carving without saying a word to him and have been missing in action for the last three hours.
I was annoyed he thought he could just say that stuff to me and then casually keep touching me like Friend Ford always has. I was annoyed that setting up the carving party with him all day felt too real and too much like we were a couple hosting a party together at our home. I was annoyed about Jennifer Robbins and her stupid candy corn blondies and how bad I felt after I threw them in the field; she makesreallygood blondies. And I was annoyed Ford argued that we weren’t just friends with a smirk on his face, dropping that bomb when he’d be gone again in a few weeks. I hightailed it out of there without telling him, just to prove a point.
And now that point feels stupid and childish, considering I missed half the fun here tonight, there’s a lump forming on top of my head that hurts like a bitch, and IknewFord would completely lose his mind the minute he found out I disappeared.
“I’m sorry I left. I had to break into the trunk of Ginger’s car to retrieve forty cans of spray paint and twenty bottles of Ortega taco sauce that I don’t even want to know what they were planning to do with,” I explain, fully deserving the stormy look that takes over his face once again when he slowly removes his hands from his pockets while I continue.
“I got a text from April Fleming when she checked the girls out at the general store, and I had to act fast. That led to me needing to search for a place to hide all that stuff where they wouldn’t find it, so I decided to borrow the shed in the backyard of your cottage that you never use. You’ll be happy to know that’s where they’ve been hiding all of their October bonus package files, along with fifty gallons of lighter fluid and five-hundred plastic forks. You should really go out to that shed every once in a while. Anyway, that led to me having to find a new hiding place foreverything, and after that debacle, I needed ice for my head, so I stopped at home really quick. And since I didn’t feel like dealing with my kitchen table drama right at that moment, I left that for another time and came back here.”
Ford curses under his breath and takes another step closer to me, his anger starting to boil again.
“I think that about covers it.” I shrug, knowing damn well that isn’t going to cover it.
“Let’s start with the kitchen table, since everything else in that explanation is making me want to break something.”
Definitely shouldn’t have brought up the need for ice… or the fact that I moved fifty gallons of flammable material by myself.
“It’s fine. The girls decided my kitchen table legs should be six inches shorter than they are. And while it was a shitty table I found on the curb, and I had to stick a folded-up piece of paper under one leg so it wouldn’t wobble, I can’t afford a new one right now, so I guess we’re going to be eating hunched over for a while.”
The storm in Ford’s eyes reaches epic proportions, and I quickly look away from him and back out at the sea of jack-o-lanterns before I close the distance between us and wrap my arms around him. The need to soothe him and reassure him that I’m fine and that I’ll never do anything again without his knowledge or help overwhelms me, until I immediately start talking about the first thing that pops into my head to try to make it go away.
“Did I ever tell you this property used to have an orphanage on it back in like, the mid-1800s?” I don’t wait for his reply as I continue, but every cell in my body stands on end when he moves closer to me, and his chest brushes against the side of my arm. “It was called Gore Orphanage after the man who built it, Johann Gore. My dad used to love telling us the Gore Orphanage ghost story, where the building caught fire five years after it opened, and all of the children died because evil Johann installed locks on the outside of their bedroom doors.”
“I know,” Ford says quietly, his voice suddenly too close on the dark porch, making goose bumps break out on my skin. “But nobody actually died, because the orphanage had already closed when it burned to the ground. Johann’s son built the Gore House on the property when it was left to him after Johann died. You told me that story the night we met, when you made me take a detour down this street, walking you home after I got you out of jail.”
“My hero.” I turn my head and smile up at him.
Something changes in Ford’s face as soon as I say those words, the sight making my smile fall and my lips part with a quick gasp of air. The temporary amusement talking about ghost stories is gone, replaced with a darkening of his eyes and a clench of his jaw that makes me let go of the porch railing and take a step back from him. This isn’t anger. It’s something different. Something more that makes me want to run away, because it’s too much. Looking at him makes it hard to breathe, and there’s suddenly the slow, persistent ticking of a bomb about to go off, ringing in my ears.
“That’s right,” he growls with a jerky nod of his head. “That’s who I am. The man who fixes things for you and helps you when you need it.Iget rid of the incriminating evidence,Iget ice for you when you get hurt, andItake care of your fucking furniture when the legs are lobbed off with a hacksaw.”
“It was a chainsaw,” I mumble like an idiot. “The girls have power tools now.”
“Why in the hell won’t you let me help you this year?” Ford demands.
His hand reaches out for me, and I immediately take another step back from him, deeper into the shadows of the porch, until the pain that flashes across his face almost makes my knees give out.
“And why in thefuckwon’t you let me touch you?”
