The only regret I managed to pick up tonight is walking away. Again.
CHAPTER 4: Ford Bradley
She’d Be Perfect For You
I’m wearing a hat pulled down low when I spot her across the space separating us. I’m waiting by baggage claim, trying my best to be incognito, when I see her stepping onto the escalator, and I’m transported back twelve years to when I had already turned seventeen and she was about to turn fifteen.
I was a junior—about to be a senior. She was a freshman. It was the last day of school, and my parents were out at some soiree as they always were, so Dex threw a party at the house. He was twenty-one, old enough to purchase liquor for all of us underage kids, already home for the summer from college.
I had a couple drinks, but I was far from drunk when I saw her. She was there because Archer invited her—or maybe because she tagged along. She was always over at our house, and the more I saw her, the more I flirted with her. The more I flirted with her, the more I wanted to kiss her.
She was too young for me, and she was always there with Archer, not there for me. None of that stopped me from being attracted to her anyway.
I was filling up my cup at the keg in the kitchen when she marched up to me and asked me for a beer.
“Liquor before beer, you’re in the clear. Beer before liquor will make you sicker,” I told her.
She laughed, clearly having no clue what I meant.
“I saw you take that shot of rum before. If you drink beer now and then go back to rum, you won’t make it through the night without puking,” I said.
She wrinkled her nose, and it wasn’t the first time that I noticed the smattering of freckles dusting her nose and cheeks.
Her eyes were mesmerizing as they met mine. “I’ll risk it.”
It felt like she was challenging me to something, but I wasn’t exactly sure what.
“You don’t strike me as a risk-taker,” I said.
She glanced around, saw that we were alone for the moment, and we sort of leaned forward at the same time. Our mouths collided, and fucking fireworks exploded overhead.
I hooked my palm around her neck to pull her a little closer to me as I opened my mouth to hers.
She tasted like raspberries and honey.
It was pure heaven. It was a feeling I have yet to recreate.
I sank into her, wanting this to last forever even though I knew deep down it had to be fleeting. I was reaching to set my cup down on the counter so I could wrap my other arm around her waist to pull her flush against me when I heard my sister’s voice calling me.
“Ford?”
My sister wasn’t in the kitchen…yet. She was in the next room. She didn’t catch us kissing.
I didn’t want to let her go, but I knew Everleigh was on her way. I added up the situation. Archer had decided to play baseball, much to my father’s dismay, and it seemed like he was drifting from the rest of us. I couldn’t be caught kissing his girl here in the kitchen even if they weren’t officially together.
I forced myself to pull away. I had to.
“There you are!” Everleigh said as she pushed through the swinging door into the kitchen. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”
She was completely oblivious to the fact that she’d just interrupted my kiss with Tatum.
A kiss I’ve never told a soul about.
We never talked about it. I chalked it up to her being drunk and forgetting about it.
But it was always there for me, always simmering in the background, a memory I will never let go of even thoughI have to. She was with my brother for years. It’s not like she can just hop into a life with me now.
I pull myself from that memory and try to push it back to the past where it belongs as I watch her ride the escalator.
