Roddy is at my side, and I don’t even know how he got there. He pries my fingers off the phone. “Breathe, Sinclair. Breathe.”
“My phone. I need my phone,” I croak.
“In your back pocket. Right there.” He points, and I yank it out.
The screen is a mess of texts. From my Garland. From Ledger. Messages I never paid attention to because I had muted my phone.
I stare at them until my eyes blur, fear of what they might tell me preventing me from unlocking my phone and reading what they say.
A glance up tells me everyone is watching me. Everyone is holding their breath just as I am, and the concern etched in their faces is devastating.
“Everybody out,” Roddy directs, swooping his arms in a shooing motion. I don’t look up. I don’t meet their eyes, but in my periphery, I can see them slowly shuffle out of the room. “Do you want me to stay or go?” He squats in front of me, hand on my knee, and waits for an answer.
“I need . . . alone, please.”
He nods and squeezes before standing and walking out.
I’m the one who pushed him to go. I’m the reason he was on that flight. I’m the reason . . .
No.
He has to be alive.
He’s Ford. Larger-than-life, stubborn-as-hell, Ford.
When the door shuts, my exhale is shaky as I swipe open my phone and prepare for what I read.
But before I can, my cell rings. It’s an unknown number, and I answer it as fast as I can, hoping it’s Ford.
“Hello?” I gasp into the phone.
“Ellery? It’s Ledger.” The solemnity in his voice cuts me to the core. The grief wavering in it is indescribable. Fear and panic are woven into every fiber.
“Please . . .” It’s one long, drawn-out syllable. Please let him be okay. Please tell me he’s alive. Please tell me he’s standing in front of you.
“Search and rescue.” He chokes the words out. “They have him.”
My heart breaks.
Not they have him and he’s okay. Not they have him and he’s alive. Just they have him.
“Ledger,” I croak, the salt of my tears hitting my lips when I didn’t even know I was crying. “Please.”
Seconds feel like hours as they tick by and all the air is suctioned from the room, leaving the pulse pounding in my ears the only sound that I hear.
“He’s okay.” It’s his voice that breaks this time. It’s his hiccupped sob that shudders through the connection. His words allow me to breathe for the first time in however long it’s been—minutes that feel like hours.
My sob follows right behind it. “Have you talked to him?”
“No. Not yet.” His voice is hoarse but relieved. “It went down. Our pilot was able to set it down. The blades. The water. I don’t understand how they made it, but they’re okay.”
“I need to get there, to see him . . . to . . . I can’t get in . . . I can’t fly there.” I choke the words out.
“I know. I know. We’re . . . Callahan and I are in the car. On the way to see him.”
“Please,” I plead. “Please have him call me.”
Please. I can’t lose someone else.
Not again.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
Ford
“I can’t breathe.” I push against my brothers, but their arms stay locked around me in the type of hug I haven’t had from them in years. Since Dad’s funeral.
“Fuck you,” Callahan mutters.
“Double fuck you for scaring us like that,” Ledger adds in.
And when they step back and I meet their gazes, we’re all looking at each other with tears in our eyes. “Relax. It’s too much fun being a pain in your asses to leave you fuckers just yet.”
Their laughs aren’t believable. They hold no amusement, only relief.
I close my eyes and stagger to a seat. I know they want more details than I gave them on the phone. A play-by-play to explain everything, but all I can focus on are the thoughts that ran through my head in those fleeting moments between our pilot telling me there was a technical failure and his words “brace for impact.”
My mom. Her soft smile. Her warm hugs. Her lasting wisdom.
My dad. His unyielding ways. His affection you knew you’d earned when you were on the other end of it. His legacy I feared I wasn’t going to have the chance to carry on.
My brothers. The other pieces of me. The ones who make me whole. My rocks when I can’t be one.
And Ellery. I love her, and I never got the chance to tell her.
I love her.
I won’t make that mistake again.
“I need your phone,” I say to either of them.
Ledger holds his out. “It’s already ringing.”
I take the phone and just as it hits my ear, I hear her voice and it brings me to my knees. “Ledger?”
“Ellery.” My voice breaks saying her name.
“Ford? Ford!”
I don’t know who breaks first. Her or me or both of us, but a tear slips down my cheek at the same time a sob escapes her.
“I’m okay.”
“Ford.”
“I’ll be home soon.”
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
Ellery
The world still feels like it has stopped. It doesn’t matter that I’ve talked to Ford. It was brief and he was quiet, surrounded by his brothers, but it was the best sound I’ve ever heard in my life.
I’ll be home soon.
Leave it to Ford to act like surviving a helicopter crash is nothing.
Leave it to him to be fearless in hopping back on another one to get to me as fast as he can.
When his car pulls into the lot, I’m running out the front door and jumping into his arms—legs wrapped around his waist, lips planted firmly on his. He staggers backward under the force of my weight, and his chuckle fades with the kiss I give him without thought or care to who can see us. To who knows.
The kiss says so many things. I miss you. I was so scared. Never again. Words I’m still so goddamn fearful of even thinking.
And when the kiss ends, when my feet are lowered, I beat my hands against his chest. “Don’t you ever, ever, ever do that to me again.”
His laugh rings out. “Just another day at home with you beating me up one way or another.”
“Shut up.” I push him and then press my lips to his again. Another taste to affirm he’s alive. That he’s okay. That this is really him, here, in my arms.
His hands are on my face. His eyes are locked with mine. His half-cocked smile owns my heart.
“I love you, Ellery Sinclair. I love you, and I’m sick of not saying it. I love you, and all I could think about as the chopper went down was that I hadn’t told you. So I’m telling you now. I’m telling you so that you can do what you want with it, but nothing is changing my feelings now. You got that? Because I’d rather make a mistake in telling you than it be a travesty that you didn’t know.”
I hear his words. I understand what he’s saying. But I’m so overwhelmed by everything that there is. Lost in not losing him that his words are there, but my need for him to be alive drowns everything out.
The fear.
The panic.
It’s just him.