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Someone please shoot me, I thought, and judging from the snort-laugh Kim let out, she was thinking the same thing.
“But that’s okay.” Krista reached across the table, fake smile plastered into place as she took my hand and held it awkwardly in some weird, we’re-in-this-together, rah, rah sisterhood type thing. “We all make mistakes, right? I’m sure you’ll do better next time.”
“Annnndthere it is,” Kim muttered under her breath as the Triad moved to the next table to shame a mother with a blunt brown bob and a look of pure fright on her face. She looked at me and winked. “Think you’ll survive?”
I shrugged, a laugh working its way past my lips as I finished organizing my snacks of processed foods, high-fructose corn syrup, refined sugar, and fruit juicenotmade out of real fruit. “That was mild in comparison to some of their other shame attacks. I think I’ll be okay.”
Kim pretended to gaze off in thought as she tore the plastic wrap off a stack of paper plates. “Ah, yes. I’ll never forget Valentine’s Day, when we were ridiculed within an inch of our lives.”
“For daringnotto wear the super special sweetheart sweaters they’d made for all the volunteers.” I pried open a box of plastic forks and dumped them into a plastic cup as a holder. “I still think she made my shirt two sizes too big on purpose.”
“Wouldn’t surprise me,” Kim agreed. “At least yours was too big. Mine was barely big enough to fit a tween.”
We chatted and laughed for a bit longer, waiting for the kids to start funneling into the gymnasium. When I’d initially signed up to volunteer, I hadn’t really been paying much attention to what I was volunteeringfor. As it turned out, today was the big safety seminar for Hazel’s grade. There would be groups from the police and fire departments coming in to give their safety presentations, then all the second graders got a lunchtime party with the officers and firefighters, curtesy of the PTA.
I knew the safety presentations were a regularly scheduled event, because I could remember sitting through them when I was in school. But I was convinced the whole idea of a party afterward was the work of the Triad. Krista and Christy with a CH were both divorced, and if last year’s safety seminar was any indication, they’d set this whole thing up simply to flirt with the men in uniform.
The doors to the gym opened, and in walked a big group of first responders, all in uniform. Firefighters, police, and paramedics. Even I had to admit, it was a pleasant sight, one that had the Triad reacting like tittering little schoolgirls.
“Hot damn,” Kim murmured under her breath while lifting a hand to fan herself. “Those are some fine lookin’ men right there.”
I shook my head on a chuckle. “There are women too, you know,” I chided. Lydia was there with the rest of the firefights, as was Carol, a paramedic.
“Yes, I am aware,” Kim said with a roll of her eyes. “And hell, I have to admit that I’m even drawn to them. It’s the uniform, I tell you. It does something to the brain.”
I let out a snort as my eyes landed on a familiar figure. My heartrate kicked up when Ford sauntered into the gym. He was partially decked out in bunker gear, and there was something about those damn pants and suspenders worn with only the department’s standard issue navy tee that made my mouth go dry. I knew they were all dressed like that for the kids’ benefit, but I most certainly wasn’t immune.
However, something seemed off. He wasn’t as loose and relaxed as he usually looked, and even from a distance, I could see the tightness around his eyes and mouth. He seemed tense for some reason. We locked eyes, those crisp, crystal blues reminding me of a glacier lake. He’d busted me staring, and I could have sworn the shoulders that had been creeping up toward his ears loosened a bit once he spotted me, but I didn’t look long enough to be sure.
I ripped my gaze away and shifted my focus back to the table, reorganizing the snacks I’d already organized into perfectly straight, uniformed rows. It had been six days since my brother’s housewarming party, and I hadn’t spoken a word to Ford in that time. He’d come into Junior’s a few times, like he always did, but instead of hanging at the counter, I made an excuse to hole myself up in my office in the back, payroll or scheduling or something, and leave one of my waitresses to deal with him.
I was normally able to shake off the sting he somehow always managed to cause relatively easily, but it was harder this time around. I could only assume that was because he’d given me a glimpse of the Ford I’d met back when he first rolled into town. He hadn’t flirted with me in years, hadn’t given me those long looks that made me squirm, like he was seeing past the surface to something deeper inside of me.
I wasn’t sure I could handle flirty Ford again after how quickly he’d flipped the switch the last time, so I’d decided distance was the best way to handle the situation. Also, dating. As sad as it was to admit, I hadn’t been on a date in years, so when Asher’s friend Silas had asked for my number after the housewarming party, I’d been hesitantly optimistic. It was time for me to get back out there. I’d let Ford going cold derail me, but it was high time I started doing things for myself, and one of the things I was eager to check off my list was to put an end to the embarrassingly long dry spell I’d been living through. Hell, “dry spell” wasn’t even an apt description. It was more of a drought. My fields hadn’t seen rain in so long, cracks were starting to form.
Silas and I had texted throughout the week, and while the attraction I felt for him was more of a smolder than a churning fire, he had proven himself to be clever and funny. He made me laugh and smile, so when he asked if I’d go to dinner with him, I hadn’t hesitated to say yes.
I braved a glance in Ford’s general direction, letting out a muffled curse when our gazes collided because he was watching me. What I felt when I looked at Ford Grimes was more on par with an all-out forest fire. I had to keep reminding myself there was nowhere for it to go.
Unfortunately, my volunteer table buddy wasn’t helping one damn bit. “If you had to pick one to ride like a bucking horse, who would you choose?”
I choked on the drink I’d just taken from my pilfered juice box, and began to cough uncontrollably.
Kim patted my back to help get air back into my lungs. “Jeez, woman. Have you forgotten where we are?Andthe fact that you’re happily married?”
She rolled her eyes like I was being dramatic. “The kids aren’t in here yet, and I’m married, not dead.” She lifted a single shoulder casually. “Besides, José doesn’t care. We’ve already discussed our Hall Passes with each other. We’re very secure in our relationship. He knows if Chris Evans were to declare his undying love for me, I’d climb that man like a tree and bang him blind, but I’d still come home to José once it was all said and done.”
I quirked a brow. “How... romantic?”
“I thought so. Especially after he declared he’d leave a naked, spent Ana de Armas in bed after a night of acrobatic sex to sleep beside me.”
It was almost as though I could feel Ford’s eyes on me the whole time I was talking to Kim, trying desperately to avoid him. Luckily, the doors swung open once more, and the kids rushed in just in the nick of time, because I wasn’t sure how much longer I could keep pretending the only man in the whole building I wanted to look at didn’t exist.
11
FORD
I’d been strung tight all fucking morning, knowing what today was. I’d done these safety seminars so many times, they’d become second nature, but for the past five years, the thought of them was a special brand of torture.
