by Chloe Cox
“Ford.” Derrick put his hand on Adra’s shoulder. “C’mon, it’s obvious there’s something going on there. But you haven’t told him about this.”
Red fucking alert.
Adra stood up suddenly and stepped away from the bench she’d been sitting on.
“I should get back to work,” she said.
“Are you sure you’re ok?” Derrick asked. What had sounded sweet before now felt…
Ugh. Manipulative.
Goddammit. She should have seen it. Derrick was exactly narcissistic enough that he could be sympathetic and manipulative all at once.
“I’m fine,” Adra said. She was already reaching for the door. She just needed to get away, be alone. Think about why she was almost ready to talk about the things that hurt her with someone who actually had hurt her, rather than the man that she…
Fuck. She’d almost let herself think it.
“You sure?”
Adra ignored Derrick and stepped out into the hall, eager to put as much distance between herself and everything as she possibly could.
But Derrick grabbed her hand and pulled her short.
“Adra,” he said. “You know I’m always here if you ever need me.”
It was a lie.
She knew at once, in that way she knew him so well, that it was a lie. But it was a lie he might actually believe, right up until it was no longer convenient.
She had been sad and stupid, to give this man credit. She knew him too well for that. She saw the goddamn look in his eyes at that very moment. Derrick Duvall was about the chase, the hunt, just as he had been all those years ago. If she sobbed on his shoulder, it would mean Derrick had won whatever little fantasy competition he had going on with Ford in his own head. And then, after that, Derrick would go back to being Derrick.
Adra pulled her hand away. “I’m fine,” she said.
And she turned around to see Ford watching from the other end of the hall.
“Oh, come on,” she whispered.
That, at least, would have made the Hollywood version of her life.
chapter 17
Adra made a beeline for Ford.
It was a weird reaction, technically. But she felt gross, having almost allowed herself to be manipulated by Derrick because she was feeling…whatever she was feeling about Ford, and, even weirder still, she felt somehow disloyal for having done so, even though that made zero sense. And now she was presented with a situation in which she was literally in the middle of a hallway with Derrick on one end and Ford on the other.
Nothing else in her life made much sense, but this, at least, was pretty simple. Even if no one else got the metaphor.
She walked toward Ford as quickly as she could.
Ford was staring past her in Derrick’s general direction, a truly frightening look on his face, right up until she got close. And then she had all of his attention.
And, like it always did, the full strength of Ford’s focus nearly bowled her over. Only this time, she couldn’t read everything she saw there.
He looked worried. Concerned. But there was…
It almost stopped her. Somehow not knowing what was going on in Ford’s head as he saw her have a supposed “moment” with Derrick was worse than if she’d seen something disappointing. Which was when she realized she had hopes that could be disappointed.
And she was hoping for jealousy. She was actually hoping to see jealousy in his face, since she’d just had a big fat heaping taste of that herself. And that, of course, was horrible and petty and juvenile, especially considering that Adra had been the one to set the limits on their relationship in the first place.
On the other hand, everything else about her behavior was starting to seem pretty nuts—really, crying alone in a storage room?—so what was one more thing to add to the list?
Besides, she might have been the one to initially set limits on their relationship, but everything since then indicated that Ford was now perfectly happy with those limits. He may have wanted her—all of her—at one point in time, but then he saw how flaky she could be, how terrible she was with relationships, and…well, he didn’t seem to want the same things anymore. He seemed content with their current arrangement. Which was a good thing, because it would protect them both, but it still kind of made her feel like…
“Crap,” she muttered.
“What’s wrong?” Ford said.
Adra looked up, got hit with those blue eyes, and was momentarily stunned.
There were so many things she wanted to say to him.
But how would she figure out how to say them? There weren’t words for them all, for all those conflicting feelings, for all the context, and so instead they just swirled around inside her head, overwhelming her, drowning her. Until she couldn’t think of a single thing to say at all, because not one thing was the truth, and not one thing told the whole story, and they were all hopelessly inadequate to tell Ford what he meant to her and why she couldn’t be what he deserved.
So instead she said, “Hi.”
She really hated feeling like a teenager all over again. Seriously, one ride on that hormonal hell train should have been enough. Adra ran a successful business in a cutthroat industry, she managed a high-profile club, she took care of everyone in her life, but Ford just made her ridiculous. All he had to do was look at her, or…
“Adra, are you ok?”
Or say something like that, like that was his only concern in life at that particular moment.
God. Dammit.
“I’m fine,” she lied.
Ford stepped closer, close enough that she could smell his cologne, close enough that she could see the stubble coming in, close enough to…
“Are you sure?” he said. Then he looked up, past her, where Derrick had been, and his eyes went hard. “What did he do?”
“What?” Adra said. He thought Derrick had hurt her? “Oh, of course I’m ok. I can handle him, Ford.”
In fact, she could handle pretty much everything, except apparently Ford. It kind of irked her that he thought otherwise. Or maybe she was just looking for an excuse to be mad at him so she wouldn’t have to feel…all these other things.
Ford looked down at her again, his eyes searching. “Of course you can,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean you always have to, you know. Sometimes I might like to do it for you.”
Then he smiled.
Adra forced a laugh, and hoped that covered up how that had taken her breath away. She was constantly having to remind herself not to take Ford’s protectiveness too personally. He’d always been like that, with everyone he cared about. It was just who he was.
He was also apparently pretty unaffected by seeing her with Derrick. Which was the way it should be. Even if she’d felt like she’d gotten punched in the stomach when she’d seen him with Claudia.
But what weighed on her at that moment, standing so close and yet so far away from Ford Colson, was that what bothered her the most was how much she wanted to share everything with him—and how much she knew she couldn’t, and still keep things as they were: safe. Well, safe-ish.
So close, and yet so far.
But mostly so, so far.
And what once felt safe now felt like that great, yawning gulf, opening up inside her. Before it could overwhelm her, Adra smiled back up at him, gave him a peck on the cheek, and went back downstairs.
~ * ~ * ~
Ford ran hard.
He hadn’t taken his truck up to the canyons for a cross-country run in what felt like a long time. He’d gotten everything he’d needed lately from playing with Adra, but today required more, at least if he was going to be able to help the woman he cared about the most.
The sweat poured off him in waves, sucked up greedily by the dry ground as he ran harder and harder.
It was the only way to clear his head after Roman had told him that he was giving Adra an early ride back to Ford’s place. Hell, just running into Adra earlier had put him on high alert, but getting conf
irmation that there was something upsetting her, something she wouldn’t tell him about—again—just made it worse.
Every time he looked at Derrick Duvall, for example, he wanted to punch that pretty boy through a wall. Ford was self-aware enough to know that wasn’t even about Derrick. Adra was right when she said she could handle him, even though it pissed Ford off that she ever had to.
No, he was pissed off because Derrick knew what was going on. Derrick was still close to her in a way that Ford wasn’t.
It was straight up jealousy. Which was beneath him, and it was beneath Adra, and more importantly: it was fucking dangerous. Ford had kept it under lockdown, not even letting himself think it. The last thing he wanted was to spook Adra further.
She was already so frightened. So torn up. And so clearly anxious about their arrangement, with those questions about his ex-wife. He could see it—he could fucking feel it, like he had nerves tied to hers, and he couldn’t do a damn thing about it.
He ran harder.
He ran until his lungs burned and his legs ached and thought he might, just might, have worked the worst of it off. And by the time he drove home the sun was already setting and he was thinking clearly. His priority was Adra. Which meant he couldn’t take his own baggage into any conversation with her; he couldn’t think about it his own past with a woman who didn’t know what she wanted and eventually left him for another man. He couldn’t push Adra into something because it was what he wanted.
He had to be strong enough to wait for her.
Which actually felt easier than it should. Easier than he would have expected it to feel. He thought about that, as he drove through the winding canyon roads, knowing he was getting closer and closer: this kind of situation should be setting off all kinds of alarm bells, reminding him of what happened with Claudia and Jesse, looking like the exact kind of thing he’d always said he’d avoid. It was the reason he’d avoided Adra for a while after she’d told him she couldn’t really be with him. It should have had the same effect now.
Only it didn’t.
He could kind of feel that in the background, weak and irrelevant. But it was like a shadow compared to what he felt when he thought about Adra now.
So much so that he knew he wouldn’t feel good until she did too. Fact. All he wanted to do was help her be happy, and it killed him when she wasn’t.
Yeah, he was one hundred percent, absolutely screwed in love.
And he was happy about it.
So happy that when he got home and found Adra already sleeping, her body curled up into a tiny little ball and her expression anything but relaxed, he knew enough to leave her alone. But he gently, slowly, draped a blanket over her first.
chapter 18
The next day, Adra felt…off.
No, it was the entire world that felt off. Just wrong, somehow, like there was a major imbalance somewhere, something that would explain why she kept bumping into things, or dropping things onto other things, or just generally screwing up. Or why she had actually snapped at one of the production assistants.
She never did that.
She’d brought the poor kid a cup of coffee later because she felt so badly about it—really, if anyone knew how terribly people were treated at the bottom of the entertainment industry ladder, it was Adra, and she’d always promised herself that she would never treat anyone that way—but she’d still done it.
The kid was maybe twenty, and had just looked confused and suspicious when she’d apologized.
It was really not her day.
She tried not to think about why.
So, of course, she pretty much only thought about why. She’d realized around two in the afternoon that the previous night was the first night since they’d started having sex that she and Ford…hadn’t. Not even plain old vanilla sex. That was clearly her fault for running away in the middle of the day and falling into one of those deep sleeps she only managed when she was emotionally exhausted, but she still felt the absence.
She’d woken up with a blanket tucked around her and she’d wished it had been him instead.
And then, right on schedule, she’d had a mini freak-out about wishing it was him.
She was actually incredibly tired of freaking out. Really, how long could she keep it up? She was only human. It felt very much like she was on some kind of treadmill with an ever increasing speed, and she was reaching the end of her limit.
“Hey, crazy lady,” Lola said. “Whatcha being crazy about?”
Adra turned around to find Lola standing there with a giant, heaping plate of baked goodies stolen from the film catering table.
“That obvious?” Adra asked.
“Mmmhmm,” Lola said. “That’s why I bring you treats. Well, treat, singular. As in one. The rest are for me.”
Adra actually studied her options for a second, trying to make a considered treat-related decision, before Lola burst out laughing.
“Oh my God, I’m kidding,” Lola said. “I can’t make a pregnancy joke?”
“You ordered an entire page of appetizers. Remember that?”
“That was just indecision,” Lola said, waving her hand. “You helped.”
Adra laughed. “You are really milking this pregnancy thing, aren’t you?”
“Hell yes,” Lola said. “Wouldn’t you?”
Adra didn’t mean to give anything away, but she must have. Maybe her emotions were just running too close to the surface. She watched Lola’s expression fall, and felt terrible.
Man, I should come with a warning label today.
“Oh, honey,” Lola said. “I didn’t mean…”
“Of course you didn’t,” Adra said. “And I shouldn’t… I mean, I’m just weirdly sensitive today, it’s not anything you said. I’m just a big ball of feelings lately and I’m starting to feel…”
“Worn out?”
“Yeah.”
They sat down in one of Adra’s favorite little hidden areas, a little nook where you could see over the second floor balcony onto the chaos below and still have some privacy. Plus, the couch was super comfortable.
“So you want a family,” Lola said.
She said it gently, but it was still a statement.
Adra took a deep breath. “It’s more complicated than that.”
“Not really,” Lola said. “I mean, yes, the getting one part is pretty complicated, and so is the having one part, but wanting it…that’s often pretty black or white.”
Adra tried to stare her friend down. She should have known that never would have worked.
“Fine,” she said finally. “Yes, in an ideal world, which this one is not, I would want a family.”
“Of course you do,” Lola said, tearing into a cinnamon roll.
“What do you mean?”
It was strangely alarming to think Adra’s most secret desires, the things she desperately wanted but knew couldn’t have, the things she almost never let herself think about, were totally, completely obvious. Like finding out your favorite dress was transparent in the wrong kind of light.
“You’re the most maternal person I know,” Lola said. She put down the now deconstructed cinnamon roll to give Adra her full attention. “And it’s not just maternal instinct, or whatever. You don’t treat people like children, but you take care of everyone, Adra. All the time. Like it’s your job. Like they’re your family.”
“You guys are my family,” Adra said quietly.
“But you don’t let us take care of you,” Lola said. “So, kind of. But it’s not the same, and you know it.”
“Lola, please don’t make me cry,” Adra said.
“At some point you have to let it out, Adra,” Lola said. “Whatever is eating at you, whatever this thing is with Ford—”
“Shit,” Adra said.
“Oh please, you know I know,” Lola said, and shoved a piece of sugared, cinnamoned, doughy heaven at Adra’s face. “Eat before you cry.”
“Don’t have to tell me twice,” Adra said. “St
icky fingers and cinnamon tears. You ready for that mess?”
“Always. It’ll give me practice for the baby.”
Adra laughed until she nearly choked, which, as it turned out, was also a pretty effective way to keep her from crying.
“I hate to tell you this, but I’m pretty sure they don’t smell like cinnamon,” Adra said.
Lola was not deterred.
“You going to tell me, Adra?” she said, serious now. “I worry about you. I worry about you keeping this inside. I worry—”
“I can’t fall in love with him,” Adra blurted out.
There was a silence.
Lola carefully picked out a chocolate cupcake and handed it to Adra.
“And why not?” she said.
“Because…” Shit. This was one of those things, where, when she tried to explain it, she just sounded like an idiot. She’d never been able to put together the words to convey the feelings that came over her when she thought about allowing herself to rely on anyone, or have them rely on her, even though it was probably the single biggest guiding principle of her life. If she could even call it that.
Oh, who was she kidding? It wasn’t a principle; it was a fear. She should at least own up to it.
“Oh damn,” she said, and put down her cupcake. Her appetite was suddenly gone. “Because I’m not really built for it. Other people…I don’t know, they seem to manage it. But I never have. I get left, over and over again, and people in my family, they leave, and they hurt people. And I’m not strong enough for it anymore. I know that’s a pathetic reason, but it’s true, and I just…I would break, Lola. That’s the truth. I’d break, and I’d break him, and it would be awful.”
“That’s…”
“What?”
“I mean, I want to say that’s totally crazy and you’ve just had terrible luck,” Lola said. “But somehow I don’t think that will help.”
“Maybe it’s just bad luck, but it’s made me like this,” Adra said. “I mean, I’ve gotten used to the idea that I’m not able to have committed relationships. Fine. But if I tried it with Ford and it went to hell the way it always does…oh God, it would just destroy me. And I don’t want to lose him entirely. Selfish, I guess, but, well, there it is. So I don’t know how to manage the whole thing.”
