Reminders of Him

After tonight.
But right now, I’m going to be selfish and focus on the one person in
this world who sees me the way I wish everyone could see me. And if that
means I have to lie to him and pretend this story can possibly have a happy
ending, then that’s what I’ll do.
I pull off his shirt, and then my shirt is next, followed by our jeans,
and within seconds, we’re both naked and he’s putting on a condom. I don’t
know why we’re rushing, but we’re doing everything with urgency.
Kissing, touching, gasping as if we’re running out of time.
He kisses his way down my body until his head is between my legs.
He kisses both thighs before slowly separating me with his tongue. The
sensation is so strong I dig my heels into the mattress and slide up it, so he
has to grip my thighs and pull my body back to his mouth. I reach for
something to grab on to, but there’s not even a blanket, so I put my hands in
his hair and keep them there, moving in rhythm with his head.
It doesn’t take me long to finish, and as the sensations roll through me
and my legs tense, Ledger intensifies the motion of his tongue. I tremble
and moan until I can’t take it anymore. I need him back inside me. I pull on
his hair until he crawls up my body, and this time he pushes into me in one
quick movement.
He thrusts so hard, over and over, until we somehow end up on the
floor next to the inflatable mattress, covered in sweat and out of breath by
the time it’s over.
We wind up in the shower together, my back against his chest. The
water is running over us as he holds me quietly.

---

The thought of saying goodbye to him at some point makes me want
to curl up and cry, so I try to convince myself that I’m wrong about the
Landrys. I try to lie to myself by saying things will work out between us.
Maybe not tomorrow, maybe not this month, but hopefully Ledger is right.
Maybe one of these days he can change their minds.
Maybe he’ll say something to them that will plant a seed, and that seed
will grow and grow until they start to feel empathy for me.
Whatever happens, I’ll always be grateful to him for the forgiveness
he gave me, whether I get it from anyone else or not.
I turn around and face him; then I lift my hand and touch his cheek. “I
would have fallen for you even if you didn’t love Diem.”
His expression shifts, and then he kisses the inside of my palm. “I fell
for you because of how much you do.”
Dammit, Ledger.
I kiss him for that.

---

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
LEDGER
It’s funny how life works out. I should be waking up in an oceanfront resort
next to my brand-new wife, celebrating our honeymoon right now.
Instead, I’m waking up on an inflatable mattress in a barren apartment,
next to a woman I’ve spent so many years angry at. If someone would have
showed me this moment in a crystal ball last year, I would have wondered
what could possibly have happened that would cause me to make a string of
horrible decisions.
But now that I’m in this moment, I realize I’m here because I finally
have clarity. I’ve never felt more certain about the choices I’ve made in my
life than I do today.
I don’t want Kenna to wake up yet. She looks peaceful, and I need a
moment to formulate a plan for today. I want to confront this sooner rather
than later.
I’m scared of what the outcome will be, so a huge part of me wants to
wait a couple of weeks so Kenna and I can live in secret bliss, full of hope
that things are going to go her way.
But the longer we wait, the sloppier we’re going to get. The last thing
I want is for Patrick and Grace to find out I’ve been lying to them before I
can calmly confront them with my thoughts.
Kenna moves her arm to cover her eyes and then rolls onto her side.
She tucks herself against me and moans. “It’s so bright in here.” Her voice
is raspy and sexy.
I run my hand down her waist, over her hip, and then grip her thigh,
pulling her leg over me. I kiss her cheek. “Sleep well?”
She laughs against my neck. “Sleep well? We had sex three times and
then had to share a full-size inflatable mattress. I think I slept an hour,

---

tops.”
“It’s after nine. You slept more than an hour.”
Kenna sits up. “What? I thought the sun just came up.” She tosses the
covers aside. “I was supposed to be at work by nine.”
“Oh, shit. I’ll give you a ride.” I search for my clothes. I find my shirt,
but Kenna’s kitten is curled up asleep inside of it. I lift her and set her on
the couch and then start to pull on my jeans. Kenna is in the bathroom
brushing her teeth. The door is open, and she’s completely naked, so I
freeze in the middle of getting dressed because she’s got a perfect ass.
She sees me staring in the mirror and laughs, then kicks the bathroom
door shut with her foot. “Get dressed!”
I finish getting dressed, but then I join her in the bathroom because I
want some of her toothpaste. She scoots aside as she’s rinsing, and I start to
squeeze some toothpaste on my finger, but she opens a drawer and pulls out
a package that has a toothbrush in it.
“I bought a double pack.” She hands me the extra toothbrush and then
leaves the bathroom.
We eventually meet at the front door. “What time do you get off
work?” I pull her to me. She smells like fresh mint.
“Five.” We kiss. “Unless I get fired.” We kiss some more. “Ledger, I
have to go,” she mutters against my mouth. But we kiss again.
We make it to the grocery store by a quarter to ten. She’s forty-five
minutes late, but by the time we stop saying goodbye, she’s fifty minutes
late.
“I’ll be here at five,” I say as she goes to close her door.
She smiles. “Just because I put out now doesn’t mean you have to be
my chauffeur.”
“I was your chauffeur before you put out.”
She closes the door but then comes around to my side of the truck. I
already have my window down, and she leans in and gives me one final
kiss. When she pulls back, she pauses for a moment. It looks like she wants
to say something, but she doesn’t. She just stares silently for a few seconds,
like something is on the tip of her tongue, but then she backs away and runs
into the store.
I’m a mile from my house when I realize I’ve had a ridiculous smile
on my face during the whole drive. I wipe it away, but it’s the kind of smile

---

that reappears with every thought I have about her. And all my thoughts this
morning have been about her.
My parents’ RV is occupying the entire driveway, so I park in front of
the house.
Grace and Patrick are back already. He’s out front watering his yard,
and Diem is sitting in their driveway with a bucket of chalk.
I force the smile off my face. Not that a simple smile would give away
everything that’s happened in the last twenty-four hours, but Patrick knows
me well enough that he might think my behavior is due to a girl. Then he’ll
ask questions. Then I’ll have to lie to him even more than I have been.
Diem turns around when I close my truck door. “Ledger!” she looks
both ways before meeting me in the middle of the street. I scoop her up and
give her a big hug.
“Did you have fun at Grandma NoNo’s house?”
“Yeah, we found a turtle, and NoNo let me keep it. It’s in my room in
a glass thing.”
“I want to see.” I put her back down, and she grabs my hand, but
before we even reach the grass, Patrick and I make eye contact.
My heart immediately sinks.
His face is hard. There’s no hello. It’s the most resigned I’ve ever seen
him.
His eyes fall to Diem, and he says, “You can show him your turtle in a
minute. I need to talk to Ledger.”
Diem can’t feel the tension radiating from him, which is why she skips
into the house while I’m frozen at the edge of the grass Patrick has been
mindlessly watering. When the front door closes, he doesn’t say anything.
He just continues to water the grass, like he’s waiting for me to admit my
fuckup.
I’m worried for more reasons than one. His demeanor is making it
obvious something is wrong, but if I say something first, I could be off the
mark. Anything could be wrong. Maybe his mother is ill, or they received
bad news he doesn’t want Diem to hear.
The way he’s acting could be completely unrelated to Kenna, so I wait
for him to say whatever it is that seems so hard for him to say.
He releases the nozzle and drops the water hose. He walks closer to
me, and each of his deliberate steps is aligned with the pounding of my

---

heartbeat. He stops walking about three feet from me, but my heartbeats
just keep pounding. I don’t like how silent it is between us. I can tell he’s
about to confront me, and Patrick is not a confrontational person. The fact
that he’s not circling around what he wants to say with a Welp has me more
than concerned.
Something is bothering him, and it’s serious. I attempt to alleviate the
tension by casually saying, “When did you guys get back?”
“This morning,” he says. “Where were you?” He asks it like he’s my
father and he’s pissed I snuck out in the middle of the night.
I don’t even know what to say. I’m searching for whatever lie would
fit this moment the best, but none of them seem to fit. I can’t say I was
parked in my garage, because my parents’ RV is in the way. I can’t say I
was home, because obviously my truck hasn’t been here.
Patrick shakes his head. His face is filled with galaxy-size
disappointment.
“He was your best friend, Ledger.”
I try to hide my inhale. I shove my hands in my pockets and look at
my feet. Why is he saying this? I don’t know what to say. I don’t know
what he knows. I don’t know how he knows.
“We saw your truck at her apartment this morning.” His voice is low,
and he’s not looking at me. It’s like he can’t stand the person standing
across from him. “I was certain it was a coincidence. That someone who
has a truck just like yours lived in the building, but when I pulled up next to
it to get a better look, I saw Diem’s car seat.”
“Patrick—”
“Are you sleeping with her?” His voice is monotone and flat in an
unnerving way.
I reach an arm over my chest and squeeze my shoulder. My chest is so
tight it feels like my lungs are in a vise grip. “I think the three of us need to
sit down and talk about this.”
“Are you sleeping with her?” he repeats, much louder this time.
I run a hand down my face, frustrated that this is how it’s coming to a
head. I just needed a few hours and I was going to talk to them about it. It
would have been so much better that way. “We’ve all been wrong about
her.” I say it unconvincingly, because I know nothing I could say right now
is going to be absorbed by him. Not when he’s this angry.

---

He releases a half-hearted laugh, but then his face just falls into the
saddest frown, and his eyebrows draw apart. “Have we? We’ve been
wrong?” He takes a step closer to me, finally looking me in the eyes. His
expression is full of betrayal. “Did she not leave my son to die? Did your
best friend not spend his last hours on this earth alone on a deserted road
barely breathing because of her?” A tear escapes, and he angrily wipes it
away. He’s so angry he has to blow out a steady breath to keep from
screaming at me.
“It was an accident, Patrick.” My voice is almost a whisper. “She
loved Scotty. She panicked and made the wrong choice, but she paid for
that choice. At what point can we stop blaming her?”
He chooses to answer that question with his fist. He punches me hard
in the mouth.
I do nothing, because I feel so guilty that they found out this way I’d
let him punch me a million more times, and I still wouldn’t defend myself.
“Hey!” My father is running out of my house, heading toward us.
Patrick hits me again, right when Grace runs out her front door. My father
pushes himself between us before Patrick can get in a third punch.
“What the hell, Pat?” my dad yells.
Patrick doesn’t look at him. He’s looking at me without even an ounce
of regret. I take a step forward to plead with him because I don’t want this
conversation to end now that it’s finally out there, but Diem runs outside.
Patrick doesn’t see her before he tries to lunge at me again.
“For Christ’s sake!” my dad yells, pushing him back. “Stop it!”
Diem starts crying when she takes in the commotion. Grace reaches
for her and starts to take Diem in the house, but Diem wants me. She’s
reaching for me, and I don’t know what to do.
“I want to go with Ledger,” Diem pleads.
Grace half turns and looks at me. I can tell by the look of betrayal on
her face that she might even be hurting more than Patrick is right now.
“Grace, please. Just hear me out.”
She turns her back to me and disappears with Diem inside her house. I
can hear Diem cry, even after the door closes, and I feel like she just ripped
open my chest.
“Don’t you dare try to put your choices on us,” Patrick says. “You can
choose that woman, or you can choose Diem, but don’t you dare try to

---

make us feel guilty for a choice we came to peace with five years ago. You
did this to yourself, Ledger.” Patrick turns and walks back inside.
My father releases my arm. He moves so that he’s in front of me, and
I’m sure he’s going to try to calm me down, but I don’t give him the
opportunity. I walk to my truck and I leave.
I go to the bar, but instead of going inside, I beat on the door to
Roman’s stairwell. I beat constantly until he opens it. He looks confused,
but then he sees my busted lip, and he says, “Ah, hell.” He steps aside and
then follows me up the stairs to his apartment.
I go to the kitchen and wet some paper towels to wipe the blood from
my mouth.
“What happened?”
“I spent the night with Kenna. The Landrys found out.”
“Patrick did that?”
I nod.
Roman’s eyes narrow. “You didn’t hit him back, did you? He’s like
sixty years old.”
“Of course not, but not because of his age. He’s as strong as I am. I
didn’t hit him back because I deserved this.” I pull the paper towel from my
mouth, and the whole thing is covered with blood. I walk to the bathroom
and inspect my face. My eye looks okay. It’ll probably be a little bruised,
but my lip is sliced up on the inside. I think he hit me so hard my tooth cut
through my lip. “Fuck.” Blood is pouring out of my mouth. “I think I need
stitches.”
Roman looks at my mouth and then winces. “Shit, man.” He grabs a
washcloth and wets it, then hands it to me and says, “Come on, I’ll drive
you to the ER.”

---

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
KENNA
There’s a little more bounce in my step as soon as I walk out of the store
and spot Ledger’s truck across the parking lot.
He sees me exit the store, so he drives across the lot to pick me up. I
climb inside the truck and scoot across the seat to give him a kiss. He
doesn’t turn to face me, so my lips land on his cheek.
I would sit in the middle, but his console is down, and he’s got a drink
in the cup holder, so I sit in the passenger seat and pull on my seat belt.
He’s wearing shades and hasn’t looked at me since I got into the truck.
I begin to grow concerned, but then he reaches across his console to hold
my hand, and it puts me at ease. I was starting to worry that he spent the
day regretting last night, but I can feel in the way he squeezes my hand that
he’s happy to see me. Paranoia is annoying. “Guess what?”
“What?”
“I got a promotion. Cashier. It pays two dollars more an hour.”
“That’s great, Kenna.” He still doesn’t look at me, though. He releases
my hand and leans an elbow on his door, resting his head against his left
hand while he drives with his right. I stare at him for a little bit, wondering
why he seems different. Quieter.
My mouth is starting to run dry, so I say, “Can I have a sip of your
drink?”
Ledger takes it out of the cup holder and hands it to me. “It’s sweet
tea. A couple of hours old.”
I take a drink and stare at him the whole time. I put the cup back in the
holder. “What’s wrong?”
He shakes his head. “Nothing.”
“Did you talk to them? Did something happen?”

---

“It’s nothing,” he says, his voice thick with the lie. I think he
recognizes how unconvincing he sounds, because after a pause, he adds,
“Let’s just get to your place first.”
I sink into my seat when he says that. Anxiety rolls through me like a
wave.
I don’t push him to tell me now because I’m scared to know what has
him so stiff. I stare out my window the whole way to my apartment with a
gut feeling that this will be the last time Ledger Ward gives me a ride home.
He pulls into the parking spot and kills his engine. I unbuckle and exit
the truck, but after I close my door, I realize he’s still sitting there. He taps
his steering wheel with his thumb, looking lost in thought. After several
seconds, he finally opens his door and gets out.
I walk around to meet him and get a better read on him, but I pause as
soon as I’m face to face with him.
“Oh, my God.” His lip is swollen. I rush up to him, just as he slides
the sunglasses on top of his head. That’s when I see the black eye. I’m
scared to ask, so my voice is timid when I say, “What happened?”
He closes the gap between us and wraps an arm around my shoulders,
pulling me against him so that his chin is resting on top of my head. He just
tucks me to him for a beat and then gives me a chaste kiss on the side of my
head. “Let’s go inside.” He slips his hand through mine and leads me up the
stairs.
Once we’re inside my apartment, I barely have the door shut before I
ask him again. “What happened, Ledger?”
He leans against the counter and grabs my hand. He pulls me to him
and smooths my hair back, looking down at me. “They saw my truck here
this morning.”
Any morsel of hope I left with this morning immediately dissipates.
“He hit you?”
Ledger nods, and I have to back away and compose myself because I
feel nauseous. I want to cry, because how mad would Patrick have to be to
hit someone? The way Scotty and Ledger have talked about him, he doesn’t
seem like the type to lose his temper easily. Which means . . . they hate me.
They hate me so much the thought of Ledger and me together made a
generally kind, calm man lose his mind on him.