A few years back, I hired a private investigator to try and find him when my own feeble Internet attempts got me nowhere. The man said there was a paper trail from Rosefield to New York, but then it was as if Kerouac had completely disappeared without a trace. Off the grid. Nowhere to be found. I worried something unspeakable had happened, but the investigator said he was likely overseas. He offered to keep looking, but it wasn’t going to be cheap and I was running out of funds so he gave me everything he’d collected on Ford Hawthorne up to that point, including his father’s obituary, which mentioned his stepbrother, Mason Foster.
Some basic Internet research on Mason placed him in Silicon Valley, which ironically was already on my radar since Lila and I were starting up a PR firm and planning to cater specifically to the tech industry. The summer after our college graduation, we moved west, set up shop, and pitched our services to any tech giant CEO who would give us five minutes of their time.
One of those CEOs happened to be Mason, who hired us on the spot.
He saw. He wanted. He took.
I now know that’s Mason Foster’s obnoxious modus operandi.
“You’re going to meet my mother today.” He reaches out, placing his hand over mine. “She’s dying to meet you.”
“Please tell me you didn’t give her the impression that we’re together? I don’t want it to be awkward when I have to set the record straight.”
Mason chuckles. “What she doesn’t know won’t hurt her.”
Exhaling, I keep my gaze focused on the passing cars between miniature moments of freaking out on the inside.
The fact that I’m going to see Ford again feels surreal and monumental, like I’ve been waiting for this moment all my life.
Though five years might as well have been a lifetime without him.
“She just wants to see me settled and happy,” he says, finally removing his hand from mine. “I just want to see her smile.”
It’s a sweet sentiment coming from a man who tends to drop names, hog spotlights, steal credit for other people’s hard work, and generally only do things that benefit himself.
“Huh. So, you do think of others once in a while.” I bite a smirk.
His body shifts toward mine. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I’m teasing,” I say. Not really.
“I’m always thinking of everyone else.” His brows furrow, his lips thin and tight. If he were Kerouac, he’d have met me with a quick one-liner and a half-smirk.
“Okay.” I exhale, letting it go and melting into the buttery leather seat before checking the time on my phone.
Twenty-five minutes.
Chapter 49
Ford
“Fordie! We were wondering if you were coming or not.” My overly excitable cousin, Bristol, leaps at me, bouncing on her toes and flinging her arms around my neck. “I’m so glad you could make it. I didn’t see you last night, were you at the mixer?”
“I was. You were busy making rounds.” I give her a peck on the cheek. “Congratulations.”
“Thank you.” She places her hand on her heart, brows raised. “I saw your sister and Arlo. He is getting so big!”
I nod, pretending I don’t fucking hate small talk.
“Okay, come on,” she says, pulling me by the hand toward the dining room. “Everyone’s in here. And you haven’t met Devin yet. You’re going to love him.”
I follow her down a hallway filled with family portraits and down a couple of steps toward a sunken dining room with twelve foot ceilings, a view of the ocean, and a table that seats twenty-five. Only when we arrive, it isn’t the original Renoirs and Picassos that capture my attention, it’s the red-lipped beauty with the wild jade gaze seated at the far end.
She smiles when she sees me, a coy, hesitant, half-turned smile.
I look away.
Bristol introduces me to her fiancé, and I pretend to pay attention to the generic conversational bullshit coming out of his mouth. Nicolette watches me from where she sits, Arlo to her right. I went for a jog this morning, only meaning to do about three miles so I could clear my head enough to function today, but once I started, I couldn’t stop.
I kept going, running harder and faster, pushing myself until I had no choice but to stop and breathe. Really breathe.
The table is packed with family, some of which I hardly recognize. Others I haven’t seen since my father’s funeral ten years ago.
“Looks like there’s an open seat down there, Ford.” Bristol points to the spot across from Halston. “Have you met Mason’s girlfriend? She’s super sweet.”
Catherine and Mason flank her sides.
Jaw flexing, I take a sharp breath and make my way to the seat across from the woman who singlehandedly altered the entire trajectory of my career.
“Ford,” Catherine says, peering up at me through mascara-caked lashes. Her hand rests beneath her chin, and she still wears the diamond engagement ring my father purchased for her shortly after my mother died.
I suspect she’s only wearing it for show.
“Catherine.” I’m unable to hide the contempt in my tone, but I don’t fucking care. She should know by now that she disgusts me.
“Hi, Ford, I’m Halston,” she says, a glint in her emerald irises as she squares her shoulders. “Nice to meet you.”
Jaw slanted, I squint in her direction before relaxing enough to compose myself.
Fine. I’ll play along.
I’ll gladly pretend we’re strangers.
I hardly recognize her after all.
“Halston was just telling us she’s an avid reader,” Catherine says, grinning and twirling the diamond cross around her neck. “I told her I’ll have to show her your father’s old library. So many first editions.”
“Yes,” I say. “It’s a shame they’ve been just sitting there. Untouched. All these years.”
Catherine’s smile fades for a moment. “Those books meant so much to George. I can’t quite bring myself to part with them yet.”
They were supposed to be mine. My father had always promised them to me.
Must have slipped his mind to put that in the will before he died.
“I’m sure they’ll be worth a small fortune by the time you’re ready to sell them.” I sit back in my chair, eyes locked on Halston’s.
“Do you read, Ford?” Halston asks, lashes batting slow.
My chin juts forward as I contemplate my response.
“I’ll bet you’re a Kerouac kind of guy,” she says, propping her head on top of her hand, her full lips drawing upward.
“I had a Kerouac phase once,” I say. “Many years ago. Glad to say I finally came to my senses.”
Halston’s smile disappears. She sits a little straighter. “On the Road isn’t necessarily one of my favorite books, but it’s still an iconic classic in American literary history. It still has a place on my bookshelf, I’ll say that much. I revisit it from time to time, when I’m feeling … nostalgic.”
“Sounds like a perfectly good waste of time,” I snuff, glancing down the table.
“It’s not a waste of time at all. I enjoy it. I like thinking about Kerouac, his words and what they meant,” she says.
Our eyes hold.
“You know, some people say that Kerouac was just a regular guy, stuck between the life he was expected to live and the life he wanted to live,” Halston says. “An ordinary man placed in an extraordinary situation.”
From my periphery, I see Catherine and Mason exchanging looks.
“Okay, everyone, we’re going to head out to the beach.” Aunt Cecily stands at the head of the table. “Roger just got back with the Quahog clams. We’re going to dig our hole and get going! There’ll be games for the kids and drinks for the grown-ups!”
Chairs scoot, screeching against the wood floors, and everyone files out the sliding doors to the deck that leads to the sandy beach path. I stay back, letting everyone else go on ahead.
“Hey, you doing okay?”
Nicolette taps my shoulder. I’d completely forgotten she was here.
Frowning, I say, “Of course I am.”
“Sorry you got stuck sitting with the evil queen.” She pouts.
“I survived.”
“I know you did. I’m proud of you for not causing a scene.” Nic pulls me by the arm toward the crashing waves. “God, they’re assholes. Did you see she still wears her engagement ring?”
I manage a curt chuckle. “I saw.”
“And how the hell did Mason land such a bombshell girlfriend?” she asks. “He’s so phony and awkward and a social idiot and she’s so refined and elegant. It’s got to be the money. That’s the only thing I can think of.”
“Does it matter?”
Nic laughs. “No. I suppose it doesn’t. I’m just being catty.”
By the time we make it to the shoreline, two of my uncles are digging a hole in the sand while the other one is prepping the rocks and seaweed. My aunt hands us each sweaty bottles of beer before chasing after two little kids who are running toward the lapping water.
“I wish Dad was here,” Nic says, uncapping her beer. “Seeing everyone … just makes me miss him. He’d be all about the clam bake right now. That was always his thing.”
Focused on the sea, I think about the man who made me who I am today, for better or worse.
“You need to forgive him.” My sister nudges me. “It’s been over ten years. What good is it doing for you to still be angry with him?”
“I’m not.”
“Yes, you are.”
“He was our father. He was supposed to love us and take care of us.” My body tenses, the breeze blowing soft across my skin. “He just abandoned us. He wrote us off. Literally. He wrote us out of his will. Not even so much as a goddamned book to remember him by.”
“He was brainwashed by the evil queen. You know it. I know it. The people of the United States of America know it.”
Once again, my sister’s flippant disregard for a situation so tragic gets under my skin, though I suppose we each have our own ways of dealing with uncomfortable situations.
I build walls.
She makes jokes.
“Seriously though, you have to let it go.” Nicolette’s hand glides through the air. “Life is too damn short to spend it angry and pissed off, Ford.”
Arlo runs past, giggling and chasing after a few of the other kids. The last time I felt that free, that alive, I had just started my new job, and I was spending my nights chatting with a woman who put a genuine fucking smile on my face for the first time in years.
Glancing toward the rest of the group, I find Halston. The wind blows her dark hair, the strands undulating as she brushes them from her absinthe eyes, and she looks my way.
Half of me wants to swallow my pride, ask her how she’s been and if she’s thought about me as much as I’ve thought about her.
The other half of me wants to rut around in this anger, my fists still clenched and not yet ready to let it go. It takes a big person to forgive someone for destroying their career and shattering their heart. I always prided myself on doing the right thing, taking the high road, but that was then, when I was Kerouac.
And I haven’t been him in a long time.
Chapter 50
Halston
This has got to be some kind of joke.
I’m wandering the halls of Cecily and Roger Hawthorne’s Sag Harbor estate completely lost and disoriented. All I did was come inside to use the restroom five minutes ago, and now I’m in the west wing of the beast’s castle. I’m pretty sure the candelabra is going to start singing to me if I don’t get the hell out of here soon.
A wall of family portraits seems vaguely familiar … maybe we passed that on the way to the dining room earlier?
Stopping, I linger in front of them, studying the black and white photos displayed in museum quality arrangements. A large photo on the end catches my eye after a minute. A man who looks exactly like Ford with his dark hair, square, chiseled jaw, and hooded eyes stands in front of an old car, his arms crossed and the ocean in the background.
“That was my father.”
His voice startles me, and I take a step back.
“Ford.” I release a breath, my palm resting over my frenzied heart. “Hi.”
He moves toward me but keeps a safe distance, studying me, taking me in like it’s the first time all over again.
“It’s good to see you again,” I say. “You look … amazing.”
And he does. The tanned skin, the longer hair, the look in his eyes like he wants to devour me … it’s working quite nicely for him.
My attention falls to his hands, which are hooked at his sides. I can’t help but to wonder how they’d feel in my hair, under my clothes, tracing my mouth, sliding inside me.
He glances past my shoulder before tightening his mouth into a hard line, and then he pushes past me.
“Wait, so you’re just going to walk away?” I ask.
Ford stops, releasing a hard breath before turning to me. “Yeah. I am.”
I wince, refusing to accept that I’ve come this far only to be disregarded by the only man I’ve ever loved.
“I’m really glad you were able to move on so easily,” I say. “Really glad life just went on for you.”
Lines spread across his forehead. “Yeah, looks like we both moved on just fine. Good job landing my stepbrother. Real winner you got there.”
“You’re jealous.” I smirk.
“More like disappointed. Thought you had better standards than that. Guess people change.”
“I’m not with him, Ford.” I step closer, taking my time and approaching him like a handler would approach a stray dog in an alley. “We work together. I do his PR. He asked me to come as his wedding date.”
Ford doesn’t flinch. “That’s not what he’s telling everyone.”
“I know. And we’ve had that talk. Many, many times.” I shake my head. “He has a hard time taking ‘no’ for an answer, and he’s having an even harder time accepting the fact that nice houses and fast cars don’t really do it for me. He likes me, Ford. But I don’t like him. Unfortunately, I’m still hung up on somebody that I used to know.”
“That ship’s sailed, Halston.” His words sting, but I refuse to take them at face value. There’s something else going on here, something I’ve yet to pinpoint.
“Are you still working in education?” I ask.
He scoffs. “Seriously?”
“I’ll take that as a no …”
His hand drags through his hair, his head tilting back as he groans.
“What are you doing now?” I ask.
Ford contemplates his answer, or maybe he contemplates whether or not he wants to give me one at all. “I’ve been traveling. Internationally. Doing contract work.”
“Makes sense. I tried to find you a few years ago,” I admit. “Trail went cold in New York. Assumed you left the country, but I never really knew for sure.”
He nods, his silence indicative of the fact that he doesn’t want to be here, having small talk with me.
“I think about you all the time,” I tell him before he walks away and I never get the chance again.
He says nothing, just stands there staring at me.
“You’re not going to say anything?” I chuckle, half nervous and half hurt.
“What do you want me to say?”
Shrugging, I blink away the threat of tears before it becomes noticeable from where he stands. “I don’t know. Say something.”
His palm rubs his jaw as he peers at the floor.
“I don’t understand,” I say.
His gaze flicks onto mine. “What don’t you understand?”
“We had a connection,” I say. “Something I’ve never had with anybody else, something I’ll probably never have with anybody else. We couldn’t be together then, but now? I’m almost twenty-four. I’m no longer your student. All the barriers have been removed, and you won’t even give me the
time of day without acting like I disgust you.”
“Yeah, well, pretending like nothing happened has never been my strong suit.”
“I’m not asking you to pretend like nothing happened. I’m asking you to treat me like a goddamned human being. One, might I remind you, that you once claimed to love.” I step closer, invading his space, my finger pressed against his chest, which at this point is nothing more than a hollow cavity, heartless. “Oh my god. I get it. I get it now. You only wanted me when you couldn’t have me. Wow.”
“That’s not true.”
“Yes, it is. You’re just like the rest of them.” I step back, jaw slack. “How the hell did I not see that?”
“That couldn’t be further from the truth.” He moves toward me this time. “Wanting you had nothing to do with whether or not I could or couldn’t have you.”
“Then why don’t you want me now? Now that you can have me?” I ask.
He pauses, his presence imposing and daunting, yet I can’t leave. Not until I get my answer.
“I waited for you,” I say, voice breaking. “You asked me to wait for you. You said you loved me. So, I waited. I waited five fucking years.”
I try to say more, but the words get stuck. My eyes burn, but I won’t cry. I won’t give him the satisfaction of knowing he hurt me because clearly that’s what he wants.
“Halston.”
Placing my hand up, I pull in a ragged breath, gather myself, and walk away.
Lila was right.
I was an idiot for waiting.
Chapter 51
Ford
“What are you doing out here?” I ask. The low Atlantic tide is painted in moonlight and there’s a slight chill in the summer air. Everyone’s long gone inside. I hadn’t seen Halston in hours, not since our little confrontation in the hall. “I thought you left.”
She’s seated on a rocky slope beside the boathouse, her knees drawn to her chest and her arms wrapped around them. The wind ruffles her dark hair, which I’m still not used to on her. The Absinthe I remember had wild blonde waves that matched her wild spirit.
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