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“What the fuck?” he mutters as soon as his big, strong arms wrap around me, and he rests his chin on top of my head. “You could have left at any time?”
“I was in jail, Ford,” I remind him, closing my eyes and resting my cheek against his warm, hard chest, gripping the back of his shirt in my hands. “You do the crime, you do the time. Just because someone broke the lock off a few months ago and it hasn’t gotten repaired yet, it doesn’t mean you can just walk out whenever you want. It’s the principle of the thing.”
Ford curses under his breath with his chin still resting on top of my head, while I let the sound of his steady heart beating in my ear take away the last of my panic after being in that room for so long. It only takes a minute for my breathing to get back under control, feeling calmer and safer than I have in eleven months, while the smell of his spicy, woodsy cologne relaxes me in the same way lavender oil in a diffuser does.
“Hey, babe. Did you miss me?”
I smile to myself when he says the same words in greeting he always says to me when he first gets back into town, but I quickly wipe the smile from my face when I tip my head back to look up at him. The sides of his black hair have been closely trimmed with an electric razor from a recent haircut, leaving the top a little longer and pushed back from his face. He’s so damn handsome I don’t know how I’m not always tongue-tied around him.
“You’re late, big guy,” I remind him.
“I brought you an entire suitcase of severed heads.”
“You’re forgiven,” I immediately reply, my earlier panic attack long forgotten now that I’m in Ford’s arms, and he’s back, and I don’t have to feel so alone all the time—at least for a little while. “Missing eyeballs, ratty hair, with tarnished and beat-up faces?”
“Even got a few withnoeyeballs. Creepy as fuck.”
“Perfect. That’s just the way I like my severed heads.”
“You two are so weird,” Kenny mutters with a shake of his head, turning his back on us to answer the phone on his desk when it rings.
Ford lets out a quiet chuckle that makes my insides feel warm and gooey. Since I have no business feeling warm and gooey over anything Ford does, I quickly move out of his arms and away from the heat and comfort of his body.
Not happy with the distance I’ve put between us, Ford immediately grabs one of my hands and laces his fingers through mine, tugging me closer again. I don’t read anything into it, just like I never read anything into it when Ford holds my hand or hugs me like he never wants to let me go, or always finds an excuse to touch me in some way. That’s just how he operates, and this is just how our friendship goes, year after year. My heart stopped trying to beat its way out of my chest a long time ago when he does things like this. He’s just a protective guy, and having me close is his way of making sure nothing bad happens to me.
Such a good friend, that Ford.
“Where’s your headband?”
Ford jerks his chin upward, and my hand quickly moves to the top of my head, cursing when I realize it must have fallen off during my alleged fleeing from the scene of a crime. I have about a hundred Halloween headbands, but that one with the purple skulls that lights up was one of my favorites.
“I must have lost it earlier.”
I curse Penny and Ginger in my head, but Ford obviously knows they’re the reason I’m not wearing a signature piece of my Harvest Grove October wardrobe right now.
With a grunt and a glare at the top of my head, he smartly decides to let it go instead of giving me shit about my family. I’ve had about enough shit for one night.
“Come on. Let’s go check out the severed heads in my trunk.” Tightening his hold on my hand, he starts pulling me toward the door, and I give a wave goodbye to Kenny over my shoulder while he’s still busy with his phone call.
“It’s a good thing we’re the bestest of friends, or that sentence would have totally made me wet.”
Ford trips over something with a muttered curse, quickly recovering and then dropping my hand to wrap his arm around my shoulders, shoving open the door to the building so we can walk through it together.
Chapter 2
Sidney
“I forgot how funny you are, FordPrescott.”
“Thanks for airingout the place.” Ford grabs another helping of General Tso’s Chicken from the buffet of Chinese food on his coffee table. “The Halloween decorations were unnecessary.”
I realize I’m just staring at him when he nudges me with his elbow, and I quickly look away to take a bite of fried rice.
God, I missed him.
Why does it feel like I missed him more this year than last year? Or the year before that, or the year before that?
“You tell me they’re unnecessary every year.”
