“You okay?” a familiar voice asks.
I grunt, not ready to evaluate if I am, indeed, okay. “Big thing, seeing her again.”
“Yeah,” I finally admit.
Turning my head, I look up to Wyatt. He’s broken away from the group and is now standing at my side. I can’t really read the expression he wears because his beard is so fucking burly, you can’t see anything but his eyes, but I’ve known him my whole life and I know he’s concerned.
“I don’t even know in what kind of fucked up law of karma this is happening, or why,” I mutter.
Wyatt snorts. “No shit, right?”
Neither of us says anything else right away. Inhaling a deep breath, I let it out with a long sigh as I flick my eyes between my bobber and Reese’s. The silence draws on longer than it should, but I don’t mind it, I’m used to the quiet.
“She was as shocked to see you as you were her,” he finally says.
“And? I haven’t laid eyes on her in ten years, but she hasn’t seen me in almost twenty.”
Wyatt doesn’t say anything for another long moment. “She’s scared we all hate her for what happened. Worried you hate her.”
“Hate is not what I feel for Stephanie, couldn’t if I tried.”
“Maybe you should tell her that.”
“Maybe,” I whisper. “But I won’t.”
“Why?”
Keeping my gaze ahead on the water, on the bobbers, I shrug a shoulder. “Why should I? Why should I make her feel better for walking away from me? For never telling me why she left me. For refusing to talk to me, not giving me closure? Why?”
“Because, Ford. You ain’t a bitter asshole. You’re pissed, but don’t be ugly. She did what she did. You were both eighteen, you ain’t the same people anymore.”
“Yeah? You and Sammie, all those years, you pissed off at her and her feeling guilty every minute of every fucking day. You have the right to lecture me?”
I expect Wyatt to lash out, to argue with me, but he doesn’t. “Yeah, I don’t really have the right to lecture you, but at the end of the day, I truly forgave Sammie. We were young and made decisions that impacted our entire lives, Stevie did the same.”
Pressing my lips together, I nod my head. “Yeah,” I mutter. “She did. Now, instead of living the life I always dreamed of and having a family, I have my dream career with a nightmare of a personal life. Every fucking day I’m in hell, Wyatt.”
Holding my breath, I wait for him to walk away and I’m surprised when he doesn’t. “Lived that life too, Ford. For a long fucking time. That was my life, a living fucking hell.”
Only then, does he turn and walk away from me. Reese asks me to help him reel in a big one, and that’s what I do the rest of the evening, effectively ignoring Stephanie’s presence. When it’s time for dinner, I leave without a word to anyone.
I know that my friends will understand, but I can’t be around her. I can’t be anywhere near her, not like this. I didn’t think it was possible. Didn’t think that after this long I would feel anything when I looked at her.
I’ve seen her in pictures, watched her movies, hell, I’ve fucked other women with her movies playing in the background. For a while, that’s the only way I could actually get off with another woman. Then, just yesterday, I saw the nude picture of her being fucked by her fiancé, her tits on full display and pierced.
Fuck.
I can’t be around her.
I still want her.
Every part of her.
Chapter Five
STEPHANIE
Ford just walked away from his friends, because of me. I tried to leave, but they wouldn’t let me. They were all so nice, even Channing. Later in the evening, I found out why she didn’t despise me, because she’s married to Rylan, not Ford. When I told her what I’d thought, that I thought she was Ford’s wife, everyone laughed.
Now, I’m lying in my hotel room bed, staring at the ceiling and wondering how I can make amends with Ford. He’s obviously still hurt by what I did and I can’t blame him, hell, I think about the way I walked away from him at least once a day, every day. I just don’t know how to make it right. I do want to at least try though.
Maybe I need to tell him why I left, why I ran the way that I did. Maybe he wouldn’t fucking care. I let out a heavy sigh, turning to my side and reaching for my phone.
It’s two hours earlier in California, I could call Grace to see how the rest of the day of pierced boob pictures went over, but I don’t want to talk about that or the PR nightmare that it’s most likely become.
Instead, I decide to call Damion. He knows everything, and since I pay for him to be my friend, he has no choice but to listen to me talk about my pathetic life.
“Hey girl, hey,” he says softly.
“You’re busy,” I mutter.
I hear him clear his throat. “I’m not actually. Are you okay, after all that media nightmare?”
“I actually haven’t paid any attention. I don’t know what’s going on with that. I called about something else,” I groan.
There’s a moment of silence and then I hear him squeal on the other end of the phone. “You ran into Cowboy?”
I moan, pinching my eyes closed, wishing that I had never told him that I called Ford, Cowboy. “I did, and I thought that he was married with a family, but he isn’t. He’s single and he is still pissed off at me. He hates me,” I blurt out.
“I highly doubt he hates you and even if he thinks that he does, I think that he still loves you, but doesn’t want to admit it.”
I snort. “Doubtful. I do want to have peace between us though, I feel like we can’t move on until there’s that.”
Damion lets out a chuckle. “Girlie, you have tried to move on. With douchebag after douchebag. You aren’t going to find anyone who is as good as your cowboy, at least that’s how you feel. Not a single man can measure up to him, because…”
“Stop,” I moan.
“Because you still love him.”
Sitting up, I shake my head a few times as though he can see me. “I don’t, it’s been seventeen years.”
Damion snorts. “Sterling, it could be a hundred years and you still won’t be over him. He won’t be over you either, apparently. Maybe you should go and visit him, talk to him?”
“Do you think he’d slam the door in my face? He wouldn’t even look at me tonight. He actually ditched all of his friends, didn’t even say goodbye.”
“What’d they say?”
Pressing my lips together, I roll them around as I think about what they said. Nothing. “They said absolutely nothing. They continued to just socialize as if nothing had happened, and they were really nice to me.”
“Some of them you’ve known from back then too, right?”
“Two of them were groomsmen,” I whisper.
“If Ford hated you, they’d feel the same way, girl. He doesn’t hate you. I’m telling you. Get in your car, drive out to his ranch, and mount that cowboy.”
“Oh my God.” I giggle.