Page 28 of Renegade Rift
FORD: Shit, I’m sorry if I push too hard. I just needed to know you’re alright. I don’t want to fight with you about this, but I can’t let you deal with whatever this is on your own.
FORD: I’m not going to let them take advantage of you.
FORD: It’s been an hour. Are you ignoring me?
FORD: Damn it, just let me know you’re okay.
JULIET: Ford.
JULIET: What the fuck did you do?
CHAPTER TEN
JULIET
I’m free.
No more visits from Earl, or Joe, or Derek.
No more looking over my shoulder to make sure no one is following me.
No more living paycheck to paycheck, hoping I have enough to feed myself.
No more praying I can afford my doctor visits, labs, and meds.
I should be relieved. Ecstatic. Jumping for joy and planning the next fifty years of my life, debt free.
But I’m not.
I’m livid.
Because I’m not debt free. Not really. I just traded a seedy bookie for an overconfident golden retriever with an impulse problem.
Overhead, the elevator dings and the doors open, delivering me to the seventeenth floor. Unlike the last time I visited the Row, there are no nervous butterflies taking flight. They’ve been replaced by lightning in my veins, ready to strike Ford McCoy where he stands.
After three pounds on his door, Ford answers. The first thing I notice is the soft cast wrapped around his injured wrist. Guilt floods me, but it’s fleeting because my brain short circuits when it realizes he’s shirtless, wearing only a pair of sweatpants slung low on his hips—gray, because any other color would be a sin. His damp hair clings to his forehead above tired eyes. Of course, he looks like a freaking model despite the fact it’s after midnight, and I’ve clearly woken him up.
“Put a shirt on,” I snap and slide past him into his apartment, careful not to touch any part of him.
The room is a mess. Shocker, I know. Somehow, it’s worse than when I was here earlier this week, yet at the same time it’s more…him.
Ford was always the messy brother. I remember Tyler complaining about it when we were younger. He’d always keep his space tidy, but Ford was always leaving a trail of clutter in his wake. And Tyler always took the fall for it with his dad, since Ford could do no wrong. He was the star of the baseball team. The captain of the surfing club. Everyone wanted to be his friend, and Tyler’s dad wished Ford was really his son.
But while it’s definitely a mess, I can see that everything has a home, just not where a normal person would place it.
“Juliet—” I turn to face him, and catch as his eyes drift down my body, lingering a moment too long on my cropped uniform shirt and skirt. “Did you come straight from work?”
“You’re as observant as ever.”
“Juliet.” This time my name comes out more of a growl than an actual word. “You shouldn’t be traveling across the city alone at this hour.”
“Etta,” I grit out of habit, though it doesn’t matter now. The name was to keep me safe, but now that he’s found me and I’m no longer being hunted down for money, he can call me whatever he wants.
Maybe.
Then again, maybe not.
I’m not sure I know who Julietta is anymore.
