As the evening goes on, the sky deepens into lavender and indigo. Stars begin to blink into view overhead, and the breeze carries the scent of pine and smoke. Then Ford shifts, reaching behind one of the cushions. He pulls out something big wrapped in a soft cloth, and I sit up a little straighter, curiosity blooming in my chest. My breath catches when I see the shape.
A guitar.
He unwraps it carefully, and the wood catches the firelight, warm and worn in all the right places.
“You brought your guitar?” I ask, voice soft.
He shrugs, but there’s a flicker of something shy in his eyes. “Thought maybe I’d teach you another little something. After last time …”
My heart stutters.
Last time.
The moment I realised I felt something more. Something I shouldn’t have let myself want.
I nod, scooting a little closer, the blanket pooling around us and my knee brushing his.
“I’d love that.”
He positions the guitar, then gently places it in my lap, his hands brushing mine as he adjusts my grip. The touch is light, but it sends a shiver through me.
“Okay,” he says, voice low. “Let’s start with something simple.”
And just like that, we’re back in that quiet space with his voice guiding me and his fingers brushing mine. The fire crackles, the lake glows, and the stars beginning to scatter across the sky.
And I think, maybe this is what falling in love really feels like. Not fireworks. Not grand declarations. Just this. A soft and steady unravelling.
It’s safe and real.
I used to think I’d been in love before. With Sam. But that wasn’t love. No, it wasn’t like this. He made me feel small. Unimportant. Like I was something to control, not someone to cherish.
He hurt me, not just in the obvious ways, but in the quiet ones. With words that chipped away at my confidence. With silences that made me question my worth. Never once asking what I needed, what I wanted. And if I did question anything … well. Eventually, I learned not to.
I learned to stay quiet. To shrink. To make myself smaller so I wouldn’t provoke him. So that I wouldn’t be too much.
But Ford …
Ford is nothing like him. He doesn’t ask me to shrink. He makes space for me to be exactly who I am, and he gives me the same in return.
This is what falling in love feels like.
Not losing myself.
But finding something I didn’t know I was missing.
44
Ford
She’s still holding the guitar with her fingers curled loosely around the neck and her brow furrowed in concentration as she tries to remember the chord that I just showed her.
She’s terrible at it. But God, she’s trying. And she’s laughing at herself, which somehow makes it even better. I fucking love her laugh.
I still can’t shake the image of Will’s hands on her and the way her face twisted in fear. That memory clings to me like smoke. It takes everything in me not to drive to his place right now and show him exactly how angry I am. I want to show him how it feels to have unwanted hands on you. To be terrified of what might come next. But, when she laughs, it cuts through the haze. It pulls me back. Stormy’s lived through enough hurt. Enough violence. I won’t be another person in her life who uses rage to get what they want. I refuse to be that for her.
I watch her mouth the notes under her breath, her lips move softly, and her eyes flick between her hands like she’s solving a puzzle. And I feel it again, that ache in my chest. The one that started the first time Isaw her standing on my mom’s porch with her cardigan slipping off her shoulder, golden hair glowing in the sunlight, and big blue eyes too bright for someone trying to act like she wasn’t scared.
She hands the guitar back to me with a sheepish smile.
