CHAPTER 21
Ford
“Christ, I’m getting too old for this,” I mutter as I hobble into the locker room, rubbing my left shoulder with my right hand. I glance at Reeve hobbling beside me. “Remind me why we do this?”
“I do it because my wife thinks it’s hot,” he says in a matter-of-fact tone.
“You did it before you met Leary,” I remind him.
“Well, yeah… because I knew it would help me nail a perfect woman like her,” he says, and I know that’s utter bullshit. Reeve is a lot like me. An adventurer. An opportunist. A man who likes a challenge, the scarier and more dangerous the better.
I sit down on the bench before my locker, groaning with the effort. It’s going to hurt ten times as bad standing back up again, but this is the least painful position to untie my cleats.
I’d give my fucking left nut to go to Viv’s house right now to beg her for a full body massage. For therapeutic purposes only, of course.
Well, not only. But to start out with.
But she’s with her girl Frannie tonight, and I’m doing my dude thing with Reeve and rugby.
We’d both signed up to join a rec league, and we landed on the same team made up mostly of lawyers, judges, and paralegals. We’re called the Legal Eagles, which is sort of lame, but I clotheslined a guy out there today who probably won’t be able to talk for a week so whatever.
Talk about a small world. I played rugby with Reeve on the weekends and worked at Knight & Payne with Leary by weekday, never once imagining those two would end up together and not by my introduction either.
They met the same way as Viv and me but because that case was so intensely personal to Leary, it got really, really ugly between her and Reeve at one point. It makes me more than grateful that Viv and I don’t have that obstacle between us.
I can remember the day Leary told me about her little striptease in front of Reeve in the elevator. She did it as a means to size him up and to rattle him before their hearing. I couldn’t believe she’d done such a thing but a big part of me, as her mentor who advocates for dirty tricks in moderation, was kind of proud of her.
She was brutally candid with me and shared that Reeve had cornered her outside the courtroom, not at all happy with the way she’d been playing him. He’d backed her into a corner. Between a lot of flirting, innuendo, and challenge, he felt her up right there in the hallway.
And Leary liked it.
It wasn’t too long after Leary told me this story that I was out with Reeve chugging a few beers when he’d happened to mention this hot attorney on a case he had that stripped in the elevator in front of him, and it was then I realized my two friends were involved with each other.
It was then I realized Leary and I were done.
For good.
From the start, I knew those two were going to go the distance and just look at them. A few years and a baby later, I couldn’t be happier for the two of them.
There was a time I didn’t think they’d make it. Their situation and mine with Viveka is vastly different. The stakes were so much higher in that case, and there came the inevitable moment that Reeve had to resort to some strong tactics to win the case.
He had found some really bad evidence against Leary’s client, and he blindsided her with it in open court. Just as Viveka and I have promised to never let this case get in between us, so had Leary and Reeve.
But what Reeve did—even though it was aboveboard and ethical—was too much for Leary to forgive and she threw him out of her life. Leary simply couldn’t keep her love for Reeve and her passion for her case separate.
Luckily, I don’t see that as an issue here. Viveka doesn’t have the same emotional investment that Leary did. This is just another case to her, and she’ll have another one like it on the near horizon.
Reeve and Leary obviously overcame their issues, and only because Reeve made a very bold move. He handed her a witness she hadn’t known about who actually turned the tables and gave Leary the win. It was the absolute height of ethical breach for him to have done that. Far more egregious than me donating some money to the organization that hired Viv.
To this day, if anyone ever found out what Reeve did, he could kiss his legal career goodbye.
“What are your plans tonight?” Reeve asks as he sort of falls onto the bench beside me. He also groans in pain.
“Probably get some work done,” I say as I bend over to unlace my cleats.
“Is everything okay between you and Viv?” he asks, turning slightly toward me.
I crane my neck, cut him a sharp look, and go back to my shoes. “Of course it is.”
“Something must be wrong,” Reeve says with assurance in his voice. “It’s a Saturday night, and you’re not going out with her.”
I give a sigh, because fuck if I don’t want to be with her tonight. I try for a neutral tone, but think I fail miserably. “She’s doing a girl’s night with her best friend. Old movies and manicures I think is the theme tonight.”
Reeve doesn’t say anything so after toeing my shoes off, I turn to him. He just stares at me.
“What?” I snap in annoyance.
“You should go over there,” he says. “Drop in. Surprise visit. Bring them both some ice cream. Tell them you’re just bringing it over, so they think you’re all cool and dashing, and trust me… Viv will ask you to stay.”
I sit up straighter. This idea has merit. “You think so? That’s not like stalkerish or anything?”
“Not if you act like you’re really only there to drop ice cream off,” he says, and my mouth curves into a very sly grin.
That’s exactly what I’ll do.
♦
“This is weird,” I mutter as I stare straight ahead at the TV. Their chosen movie of the night is The Goonies, and I’m seeing it but not really seeing it.
“It’s not weird,” Viveka says from my left.
“Stop fidgeting,” Frannie adds from my right.
I’m not quite sure how I ended up on the couch, sitting in between these women, getting a manicure.
I look at Viveka, wondering how in the fuck I got so lucky to meet her. It was a right place, right time type of thing. She’s currently massaging what she said was “cuticle” oil into my fingernails. Feels good, but her hands on me always feel good.
Swinging my head in the opposite direction, I study Frannie. She’s busy filing the nails on my other hand. She grins almost evilly.
It all started an hour ago when I showed up on Viveka’s doorstep with Ben & Jerry’s and two bouquets of flowers. It was a given I’d bring flowers for Viv, but bestowing the same on her bestie would help to ensure I’d get invited in for the night.
I had also brought some dog friendly cookies from a local bakery, not to enhance my charm in any way, but mainly because those mutts are growing on me.
When Viveka opened the door, I would have given anything to have had a video running to capture the look on her face. Surprise to start out and then absolute delight.
And this was before she even understood I came bearing gifts. She may have been all in for her girl’s night with Frannie, but her face told me that she had been missing me.
Truth be told… it was the ice cream that got me the invitation to stay, and that was by Frannie herself. She welcomed me in right away, and never once made me feel like I was impeding on something sacred. If the penance is having a manicure done, then so be it.
“So, Ford,” Frannie says as she moves the file briskly around the edges of my nail. “What’s your story? I mean… Viv tells me you were essentially a manwhore before she met—”
“I never said that,” Viveka practically shrieks from my other side.
“You said he wasn’t about commitment,” Frannie points out.
“Well, that’s a far cry from saying he’s a manwhore,” Viveka sputters.
I get whiplash turning left and right to look at them as they argue over exactly what I was before meeting Viv.
“I guess what I’m getting at,” Frannie says drolly, “is that here you are… showing up on girl’s night because clearly you can’t stand to be away from Viveka, and I’d like to know if that’s typical behavior from you? Is it because she’s different from all the others, or is it because you’re slightly stalkerish? Or maybe you’re just wanting a little nookie tonight and couldn’t stand not having it.”
Viveka groans from my left with clear embarrassment, but I don’t look at her. Instead, I address Frannie. First, I get her attention by pulling my hand away from her. Her head pops up.
“All the above,” I tell her.
“All the above?” Her eyes round in wonderment.
I nod and then shove my hand back at Frannie, so she can finish up. She automatically starts filing again. “Yes, Viv is different from all the others, and yes, I’m being a little bit stalkerish tonight. And why would I deny I want a little nookie from my girl? It’s the best nookie ever.”
Viveka groans again, and Frannie giggles.
“But there was one other reason I came over,” I add, and Frannie’s head pops back up again. “I wanted to get to know Viv’s best friend. She talks about you a lot, and you’re an important part of her life. Viv’s met my best friend and hung out with her, so I thought I needed to do the same.”
And that was the moment I won Frannie’s undying devotion.
I wasn’t bullshitting her either. I’ve been generally curious about the hair salon owner who befriended Viv when she moved in next door to her. The day I found Viv over there, sitting in one of the chairs and spinning in circles as if it was her second home, I knew Frannie was an integral part of her life. Her importance became even more apparent after I had the pleasure of meeting Viv’s mother.
Frannie puts down the nail file and snaps her fingers at Viv. “Cuticle oil, please.”
Viv stretches across me—and damn, she smells good—to hand a small bottle to Frannie. As Frannie dabs little drops of oil on my nails and massages it in, Viv does something that rocks me.
She laces her fingers through mine, and unobtrusively… so very naturally as if it belongs there… places our joined hands on her lap before leaning over to rest her head on my shoulder.
I sort of freeze in place, afraid to move. I don’t want to jostle her or in any way make her think it’s uncomfortable. On the contrary, I want to rip my hand away from Frannie, reach across my chest, and pin Viv in place so she can’t ever move.
Slowly… gently… I kick my feet up on Viv’s coffee table. “Tell me about your kids, Frannie,” I say.
“Both have flown the coop,” she says with an equal measure of pride and tenderness. “Aimee is twenty-five and fiercely independent. She’s a nurse over at Wake Med. And Shawna is a senior at Appalachian. She’s going to be a teacher.”
Viv shifts beside me slightly, and she lifts our hands up from her lap. Higher still, until my entire arm raises. Then she’s ducking under, snuggling into my side and letting my arm come down around her shoulders. I instinctively tighten my hold and pull her closer.
This right here.
Relaxing.
Talking with Viv’s friend.
Cuddling on the couch on her girl’s night out that I interloped upon.
Not a single place I’d rather be right now. In fact, I’d go one step further to say I kind of want this night and what we’re doing right now to go on and on.
This is how I realize I’m pretty sure she’s the one.