Fourth Down (11 page)

Bravery was never one of my
strengths.

I moved my head slightly so his hand
slipped out of my hair and onto his chest. Now I had to get my ass
out of his firm grasp. When I tried to move, he mumbled something
and gripped me tighter. Looking around I found a throw pillow on
the back of the couch. As nimbly as I could I slipped out of his
arms and replaced my body with the throw pillow. Ford hugged the
pillow to his chest and rolled to his side. He looked so peaceful
when he slept. I couldn’t see the turmoil in his eyes or the
tension around his mouth that always seemed to be there.

With a sigh I slipped on my boots and
my coat. I really needed to be careful around him. When I was
dating Aiden I thought I was in love, but now I knew I was nowhere
close. I wasn’t saying I was in love with Ford, but I could be. If
he showed even the slightest hint that he reciprocated my feelings,
I could see myself falling hard.

Quietly shutting the front door behind
me, I walked home quickly in the cold November night. A few
snowflakes landed in my hair. Just as I reached my apartment and
went inside, my phone beeped. It was well after midnight. Who was
texting me now?

Ford: Where are
you?

Me: Home

That was it - no follow up. He could
be so weird and moody sometimes - most of the time. I got ready for
bed, but it was a while before I fell back asleep. I missed the
warm body I had been curled up against earlier. For the life of me
I couldn’t remember how we got in that position, but it really
didn’t matter.

*****

I slept late and got some homework
done in the afternoon. Brooke came over when I was getting ready to
go out with her. This was the night we planned to go to The Last
Call to listen to the band whose guitar player she was lusting
after. Because I was going to see Ford, I let Brooke help me with
my outfit. She had to choose something from my closet, not hers, so
I wasn’t too worried about looking like a hooker.

After trying on several different
combinations, I ended up in dark fitted jeans, a silky green see
through blouse with a black cami underneath, and black heels.
Brooke blew my hair dry and straightened it until it hung down my
back smooth and glossy. I did my own makeup, but put on a little
more than usual at Brooke’s direction.

“You look smokin’ tonight!” Brooke
exclaimed when she made me do a twirl for her final
inspection.

This was the first time I had let her
dress me up and take me out without complaining. I actually felt
pretty tonight, and I told myself that my rare excitement for a
night out didn’t have anything to do with Ford. But that was a
complete and total lie. It had everything to do with him. I just
didn’t have any idea if he would even notice.

Brooke loaned me a black leather
jacket that looked great with my outfit and we headed out. It was
freezing cold and flurrying, so Brooke drove us since I hadn’t
fixed my car yet. The pub was already crowded when we arrived, but
thankfully nothing like the last time I was here on Halloween.
Stepping inside the door I brushed the snow off my hair and glanced
toward the bar. I had mentioned to Ford that I would be here
tonight. He would be working, but I hoped to be able to at least
say hello to him.

Ford was in the middle of mixing a
drink, but his eyes were already on me when I looked over, like he
was watching the door. It was slightly disconcerting, especially
since his expression was less than friendly. Not that that was
unusual for him, but over the last week he hadn’t turned his frowny
face on me. Brooke directed me over to an open table close to where
the band was setting up. I took a seat while she waltzed right up
to the guitarist and turned on the charm. I had to admire her
confidence.

I risked another glance toward the bar
and saw Ford say something to one of the servers. He looked back at
me and nodded his head in the direction of the back hallway. Did he
want me to follow him? My eyebrows pulled together in confusion. He
sighed with a look of annoyance and stalked over to me, grabbed my
wrist and pulled me with him down the hallway and into a back room.
If he wanted to talk to me, he could have asked me like a civilized
person. He didn’t have to drag me away like I was an errant child
on my way to a time out.

Shutting the door behind him he paced
the floor in front of me. What was wrong with him?

“Did you walk home last night?” He
asked me with his back to me.

“Yes,” I replied, still not
understanding what this was about.

Ford ran his hands through his hair,
the action making his shirt stretch across his chest and shoulders.
“Why didn’t you ask me to drive you home?” He demanded.

“I…I didn’t want to wake you. You
looked…so peaceful,” I stammered. His unexplained anger was
throwing me off, and I didn’t like it. I thought after our talk in
the coffee shop last week, we had come to an understanding and were
past the point where he constantly yelled at me.

“So, you just walked home in the
middle of the night. By yourself. Do you know how unsafe that is?”
His voice was slightly raised now, and I was finally beginning to
understand why he was mad. He was worried about me. I almost had to
giggle at his description of our small town as unsafe.

“Ford, I was perfectly fine. It wasn’t
that far, and…”

He cut me off. “It doesn’t matter how
far it was. You’re young and…beautiful. Do you have any idea what
could have happened to you? You’re a really smart girl, but that
was a fucking stupid thing to do.”

At first his concern was endearing,
especially when he said I was beautiful, but now he was just
pissing me off by implying I couldn’t possibly take care of myself.
Like I hadn’t managed to live twenty years without his
protection.

“Okay,
Dad
,” I snapped.

Ford whirled around to face me, anger
and something else flashing in his blue eyes. He walked toward me,
the tension rolling off his body causing me to back up until I ran
into the counter. He stopped right in front of me, so close his
body was mere inches from mine. Even with my heels on, he was still
quite a bit taller. He placed his hands on the counter on either
side of my body, caging me in.

Leaning down so we were eye to eye,
his gaze intense, he growled, “My feelings for you, Poppy, are
definitely not fatherly.”

My breath caught in my throat as the
meaning of his words sunk in. He moved his mouth closer to my ear,
and my eyes fluttered shut at the feeling of his warm breath on my
neck. His cheek touched mine, and I felt him inhale
deeply.

Then he was gone. Gone from in front
of me. Gone from the room. The door slammed shut behind him, and I
opened my eyes to an empty room. What the hell just happened here?
I could have sworn he was going to kiss me, and when he didn’t I
was left with a sinking feeling of disappointment.

On shaky legs I returned to my table
and Brook’s questions about where I had been. Normally I wouldn’t
divulge such personal details, but I needed her perspective on the
situation.

“He totally wants you,” she declared
after I described our encounter in the back room.

“It seemed like maybe that’s what he
was saying, but I don’t know. I mean, look at him,” I said,
although I didn’t dare to actually look over in his
direction.

Brooke rolled her eyes and said,
“Seriously, Poppy? Yes, he’s hotter than hell, but so are you. Do
you know how many guys in here you could go home with if you wanted
to? The drummer already asked me about you while you were
gone.”

The band started playing then, and
Brooke turned her attention to Seth, the guitarist. I was left to
stew over my non-relationship with Ford for the next two hours. He
was so moody and intense, but he had shown me glimpses of his
softer side. Both were equally appealing to me, which was
surprising.

When the band had played its last song
and started packing up to go, Brooke informed me she was going home
with Seth. No surprise there.

“Do you want us to drop you off on our
way?” She asked me. From the way they were already groping each
other, there was no way I wanted to be trapped in a confined area
with them, even for a few minutes.

“No, thanks. I’ll just
walk.”

Brooke winked at me. “You should ask
Ford to take you home. You know he doesn’t want you walking
alone.”

Yeah, right. I was definitely not
asking him for anything. All the progress we had made over the last
week had been wiped away by his outburst earlier, and he was once
again the unattainably hot, moody guy who made me
nervous.

As Brooke and Seth walked out I risked
a glance towards the bar. Uh oh. Ford was watching me intently with
a frown on his face. I should have walked out with them, so he
didn’t know I was going home alone. Instead I was stuck here with
no escape unless I wanted him to chase me down. So like the coward
I was, I scurried to the bathroom.

I stayed in the stall for a
ridiculously long time, hoping he would be involved with a customer
when I snuck out. Finally I walked out of the bathroom - right into
Ford’s rock hard chest. He held my upper arms to steady
me.

I batted his hands away. “Jesus, Ford.
It’s kind of creepy to loiter outside the ladies room.”

He leaned back against the wall and
folded his arms across his chest. “I’m not loitering, Poppy. I’m
waiting to talk to you.”

I leaned against the opposite wall of
the hallway and mirrored his position, crossing my arms over my
chest. Maybe he would give me some clue into his
behavior.

He exhaled, “I’m sorry if I scared you
earlier. I was just pissed off that you didn’t ask me for a ride. I
thought we were friends...and I was worried about you.”

“You didn’t scare me, Ford. You’re
just so moody and…confusing.”

He ran one hand through his hair,
leaving it messy and sticking up. “I saw Brooke leave with Seth.
Did you drive here?” Clearly he was not going to explain his
earlier behavior.

“No, my battery is dead,
remember?”

“I stopped by and fixed it this
morning. It should be fine now,” he said. He fixed my car? Before I
could process that he continued.

“I think we both know I’m not going to
let you walk home. Go sit at the bar and wait for me. I have about
twenty minutes of clean up, and then I can drive you
home.”

I could have argued, but I knew it was
futile. “Fine,” I huffed and stormed off to sit at the far end of
the bar. His low chuckle followed me as I went.

With my elbows on the bar and my chin
propped up in my hands, I spent the next twenty minutes sipping the
water Ford had set in front of me and watching him clean up the bar
and close out tabs. The band had cleared out, and there were just a
few stragglers left.

Ford was at the other end of the bar
with his back to me when a rather large man sat down on the bar
stool next to me. He was probably in his forties, although his
greasy thinning hair and lack of teeth might have made him look
older than he really was.

He waved his empty beer bottle in the
air and yelled, “Walsh! I need another one.”

Eww. Judging by the alcohol wafting
from his pores, I would say he’d already had a few too many. Ford
turned around and the corner of his mouth twitched up when he saw
me wrinkling my nose and leaning away as much as I could without
falling off my stool.

Ford slung the towel he had been using
to dry glasses over his shoulder and ambled over to this end of the
bar.

“Last call was fifteen minutes ago,
Bill. You’re out of luck,” Ford said, resting his hands on his side
of the bar.

Bill’s face turned an unusual shade of
red and he spit as he cursed at Ford, “You get me my goddamned beer
right now. That’s your job now, Walsh. You’re not a hotshot ball
player anymore. You’re just a washed up has been who needs to get
me a beer when I ask for one.”

Ford narrowed his eyes, but didn’t
respond. I got the feeling that this was a fairly routine exchange
between him and Bill. He turned away and started ringing up
something on the cash register, but I could see the tension in his
shoulders.

There were very few times in my life
that I had not been “too nice”. I had trouble sticking up for
myself, let alone someone else, but watching Ford get bullied by
some oversized, toothless drunk pushed me over the edge. This was
apparently going to be one of those times when I spoke
up.

“Hey!” I said harshly to Bill, who
didn’t even seem to hear me. Frowning, I poked his meaty arm with
my finger until he looked at me. “You cannot talk to people like
that,” I said waving my finger in his face. “What has he ever done
to you? You’re just jealous that he is a great person, and you can
barely hoist yourself onto the bar stool without being out of
breath. You should apologize to Ford.”

I crossed my arms over my chest and
stared Bill down. His glassy eyes looked at me in astonishment
before he turned back to Ford, who was watching me with surprised
amusement.