The woman rolled her eyes and took her hand away. “I’m Clara. It’s nice to meet you, Ian. We need to get going, but I hope to see you around.”
She was gone before I could figure out a way to beg her not to say anything when she saw my brother again. My heart was sitting in the soles of my feet when Ifinally turned around to face Ford. He was staring at me strangely, and I felt itchy all over.
“Come on,” he said before I could attempt to explain the situation. “You’re on the clock, right?”
“Shit.” I was. I hadn’t gotten the chance to clock out before I noticed Regan. “Sorry. God, I don’t know if this is going to work,” I said as I matched his pace. He led the way back to the store, and I followed him into the little office behind the customer service desk.
The door shut with a heavy thud, and then he sighed and looked me up and down. “How many things did you fuck up today?”
My eyes widened. “What? None! Well, okay, the clocking-out thing. I was going on break, but then the little girl appeared out of freaking nowhere and?—”
“Chill,” Ford said. He dropped his cane against the wall, then sank into the chair and leaned back, groaning in a way that made me hot around the ears. “She does that. She was a frequent source of Tucker’s work frustration.”
I attempted to swallow, but it got caught in my throat. “Yeah, about that. Clara is most definitely going to tell your brother about the doppelgänger she met today.”
“Tucker doesn’t work with her anymore. She was on the skate team, and he’s only seeing a couple of his private students now that he’s got the coaching job.”
Right. The coaching job. There was a tiny part of me that was resentful that he was moving up in the world while I was moving down. Yes, it was karma kicking me in the ass, but I wasn’t going to pretend like it didn’t hurt.
“Still, I should probably, I don’t know, stay in hiding. I mean, how many people around here know who I am?”
“None,” Ford said with a tiny snort. “My friends don’t shop here. Hell, I rarely shop here, and I have a sweet-as-fuck discount. You can unclench, alright?”
That was so much easier to say than do. When I met Ford with more tense silence, he sighed and leaned forward, firing up his computer. His fingers flew over the keyboard, and a second later, he leaned back again and propped his arms behind his head.
“There.”
“Um?”
“You’re off the clock. Go steal one of those croissant sandwiches and a sparkling water and sit in the breakroom for half an hour.” I continued to stare, and eventually, he waved his hand at me. “Go. You didn’t do anything wrong today, alright? And I wouldn’t have suggested this job if I thought for one second someone was going to sell you out to your brother. My ass is on the line about this too, you know.”
That was true. Ford had a lot more to lose than I did. Bowing my head, I nodded. “Thank you.”
He waved me off again, and while the dismissal hurt, I was glad for it. I felt like I’d lost my ability to do anything besides follow orders, which was new for me. I had no idea who this whole experience was going to turn me into, but I wasn’t really curious to find out.
There were more and more moments I found myself not really wanting to wake up in the mornings. I had to fix it. I had to find myself again.
I just didn’t know how.
CHAPTER
THIRTEEN
FORD
“Hey, baby.”
I smiled at the sound of Alessia’s voice. It was warm, and a little rough, and so comforting. She was the only person in my life not being fucking weird, which probably had everything to do with the fact that she was the second newest person in my life.
“What are you doing right now? Are you coming to see me?”
She laughed. “No, babe. I wish I could, but I have a mountain of shit to take care of for Deo.”
She’d been tying up all his loose ends now that we’d flown across the country to punch Amedeo’s dick-bag ex in the mouth. It had been a lovely trip, if not a little short. We got a single day at the beach before we had to sit our asses back on a plane to Boston, and the thought made me cry because goddamn I needed a vacation.
And there wasn’t one in sight. Sort of.
I had reluctantly agreed to go with Bodie to this Montreal PPHL event thing because there wasn’t achance in hell I was going to let him deal with his dad on his own, but it wasn’t going to be fun and games.
