“You need help packing? Maybe call the girls over?” he asks.
Shaking my head, I let out an exhale. “They’re all pregnant. Channing and Exeter are really pregnant. I can’t ask them to help.”
“Hutton and Laurie will help you,” he announces. “I’ll call Beau and Ford to move everything.”
Frowning, I look down into his eyes and tilt my head to the side. “What about you?”
He shakes his head slowly from side-to-side. “Can’t. I’ll be training eight hours a day and I can’t risk pulling anything.”
“Oh.”
Louis’ lips turn up into a grin. “Can’t tell you how fuckin’ happy I am to have you fall asleep next to me every night,” he murmurs.
My own lips turn up into a wide smile. “Me too,” I agree.
Though most of my panic has eased, I can’t help but sense a strange feeling in the pit of my stomach. I don’t think that this is going to go down as easily as he’s making it seem, but all I can do is hold on for the ride and see where life takes me.
LOUIS
After following behind Tulip’s car as she drives to work, I kiss her in the parking lot before she heads inside for the day. I wish that I could take her and pick her up, but I don’t want to accidentally leave her stranded again. I have meetings today with my trainer, chef, and sparring partner, it’s going to be crazy busy, again.
Leaving the grocery store, I can’t stop the smile on my face. Everything is happening just the way that I’ve always wanted it to. I have Tulip at my side and soon she’ll be moving in with me.
There’s something so fucking perfect about the way things are turning out. I don’t know if that means that something is coming to try and destroy it all, but I refuse to think about that.
Tulip has enough doubt rolling around in her head for the both of us, I’m going to stay completely confident and positive.
I see Ford’s front gate and I decide to visit him on my way home. Making a sharp right, my truck bounces going through the gigantic fucking potholes in his road before I stop and jump out to open his unlocked gate.
Getting back in my truck, I pull through, closing the gate behind me, then drive down his rough as shit road toward his house. This fucker really needs to get his road smoothed out, he won’t, but he fucking needs to.
Once I’m in front of his house, I shift the truck into park and jump out. I don’t expect to see him leaning against the front railing of his porch, his phone in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other.
Ford is an early riser, he has to be, he has a whole fucking ranch to run. He’s usually out and working somewhere. To find him standing on his porch, that makes me think that there’s something really fucking wrong.
“Ford?” I call out as I begin to walk toward him.
He jerks his body, looking surprised to see me. I’m not sure how he didn’t hear my truck come up the drive or hear my door slam, but whatever he’s reading has to be really fucking intriguing. He quickly straightens his back, shoving his phone into his pocket as he smirks over at me.
“When’d you show up?” he asks.
“Just got here, what’s going on?” I ask
He looks down at his dirty work boots, inhaling and exhaling as I climb his wooden front porch steps.
“Nothin’,” he lies.
“Ford.”
Lifting his gaze to meet mine, he shrugs his shoulder. “Don’t matter.”
Shaking my head, I wrap my fingers around his shoulder and give him a small shake. “It’s something that matters, brother.”
His eyes don’t leave mine and I swear to fuck I’ve never seen the man look so goddamn sad in my entire life. He inhales a deep breath, then exhales and leans over the porch railing again, his gaze shifting from me to his barn in front of us.
Dropping my hand to my side, I wait for him to speak. “Stephanie was it for me. Always. She left Gallup because she didn’t want to just be some rancher’s wife and pop out half a dozen of my babies. She made a name for herself, the whole fuckin’ world knows who Sterling LaRue is, but to me she’ll always be Stephanie.”
“Heard you and her had a thing back in the day. It was serious then?”
Ford snorts. “For me, yeah. I was ready to walk down the aisle. Eighteen and ready to start the rest of my life. Wore my best goddamn jeans, white button-down, a vest I rented, along with a tie that matched her fucking bouquet.
“She stood at the end of that aisle, on her daddy’s arm. She took one fucking step toward me before she turned around and goddamn bolted. Never saw her again. Haven’t talked to her either.”
I didn’t know. Nobody had ever told me. All I knew was that he wasn’t quite over the girl. I’d heard rumors and some of the guys had made jokes about how he couldn’t fuck without one of her movies playing in the background, but I had no clue that he had been fucking jilted at the altar.
“I had no clue…”
He shakes his head. “Nobody talks about it anymore, thank fuck. Probably because I got into more than a dozen barroom brawls if anyone even fucking mentioned her name around me. Only people who mention her now are Wyatt, Rylan, and Beaumont.”
“Something happen with her recently?” I ask, dipping my chin toward the phone in his pocket.
“She’s engaged.”
“Fuck.”
He snorts and pushes off his porch railing to stand up straight again. “It’s fucking stupid, right? Been almost two decades since she ran, not walked, goddamn ran away from me and here I am upset that she’s engaged to some fucking A-list actor.”
“Not stupid, not if you still care about her.”
“That’s the thing. I shouldn’t give a flying fuck.”
“But you do.”
“Yeah, I do.”
I don’t say anything else and neither does Ford. I stand next to my friend for at least thirty minutes in silence while he processes the news of the one marrying another man.
I try to envision Tulip leaving me and marrying someone else, hell it almost happened with Joey, and I was sick over it. Which is why I was so fucking jealous seeing them together last night. Just thinking about her leaving me for him or anyone else fills me with rage.
“I’ll be fine,” he lies.
It’s then that I decide not to ask for his help moving Tulip over to my place. He needs a friend right now and that’s exactly what I’ll be to him. What he doesn’t need is for me to ask him a favor, especially since that favor is probably what he wishes he could have with Sterling.
Instead, I just sit with him until he’s able to shake off the shock and practically forces me to leave so that he can get working for the day.
Chapter Sixteen
TULIP
After work, I head home to eat a quick bite then pack an overnight bag for Louis’ before I get dressed for Headlights. I don’t know if I’ll be allowed to dance, if I’m fired or what, but I’m going to go and face the music for my no-show of last night.
Opening the trunk of my car, I toss my overnight bag inside before I sink into my driver’s seat and start the engine. Looking around, I can’t help but shake the feeling that someone has been watching me all evening.