Page 96 of Knocked Up in Alaska

“It was the right answer for me then…for who I was and what I had going on. My situation’s different now. It’s not what I need anymore. Everything I need now is here.” Tentatively, she touched his forearm. “Right here.”

“You don’t have enough information to make that call, Lilah.” He uncrossed his arms and got to his feet, took a few restless steps away, swung around, and came back to loom over her. “You don’t appreciate what you’re forfeiting. You only see what’s in front of you right now. You don’t see how, ten years from now, you might look back and regret a missed opportunity. You don’t know.”

“And you do?”

“I know how time and a broadened perspective can change a person firsthand. A decade in the Army and a chance to view life from different vantage points changed me for the better, or at least the wiser. It taught me things and gave me things that seventeen-year-old kid I was back when I enlisted had absolutely no grasp of—possibilities, opportunities, a chance to grow up and learn more about life than I’d picked up fucking around in a back-river town in Ohio.”

“So I should…join the Army?” She asked the question quietly, with the sinking knowledge that her attempt at logic, or sarcasm, wouldn’t change his stance.

“Of course not.” He paced away again, turned to her from halfway across the room. “I didn’t have a shot at college. Didn’t have the brains, didn’t have the resources. You, Lilah”—he stepped toward her and knelt until they were eye-level—“you have both. Now, you have both. I’d be a selfish hypocrite if I didn’t do everything in my power to put you on the path you were always meant to follow.”

“Last time I checked, Ford, you weren’t omniscient. You don’t know the path I’m meant to follow.”

He pushed to his feet and ravaged a hand through his hair. “I don’t need to be omniscient to know this. Any fool can identify a truth this simple.”

“Except me, apparently. Are you calling me a fool?”

“No. Jesus.” Frustration turned his voice harsh. “I’m calling you young and inexperienced, and that, too, is a simple truth. You’ve never even been out of Captivity. Hell, Mia’s got more miles under her belt than you—”

“So, until I see some more of the world, I’m not qualified to trust my own judgment or pursue my own goals in my own way? That’s arbitrary, don’t you think?” She didn’t need to raise her voice to cut him off, which was a good thing, because at this moment, she didn’t have that kind of volatility in her. Everything insider her stood still and quiet, coated with a thin, protective layer of frost.

He dropped his chin to his chest, let out an exasperated breath designed, she thought, to make her feel like a difficult child refusing to accept reason, then raised his eyes to hers. “We both know the door to the cage you’ve been in all your life is finally open, but you’re hesitating at the threshold. That’s understandable,” he went on even as she shook her head. “Common, even. And probably intensified for you because you’re not flying off solo and free, the way you always imagined. It’s scary. You’re scared. That’s all. Fear’s got you standing fast instead of taking flight.”

Well, now she had to tamp down on the volatility that eluded her before. “So I’m a coward? If I’ve changed my mind about my future, it’s because I’m too scared to go after what I want, and not because I’ve spent time considering my situation—which was not my situation when I made that plan—and deciding on a new, more appropriate plan?”

“Staying put for all the wrong reasons is not a plan.”

“You want a better reason? How about my feelings for you?”

He stared at the floor. Took a deep breath. “That would be the very worst reason.”

She flung her arm out, helpless to contain her frustration. “Ford, I love you.”

“And that makes me the luckiest bastard on the planet, but it’s not fair for me to hold you to it, Lilah.” He shifted his attention to her. “No more fair than if I’d held Jen to it back when she and I were in a position very similar to yours. It feels fair at the time, because you’re young, and inexperienced, and scared shitless about the future—no, don’t shake your head at me. I know because I’ve been there. So yeah, I’m a bastard. I should never have laid a hand on you, and I knew it. I knew it wasn’t fair, no matter how much I wanted you. No matter how much I…” Now he shook his head. “I have to do the fair and right thing here, because you deserve the chance to find out what love feels like when it is fair and right. You deserve everything. I can’t be a factor in you selling yourself and your goals short. I won’t be. You’re going to college. You’re going to meet people. And when you date men your own age, you’re going to realize there are more options for you than a small-town bar owner.”

His words infuriated and wounded her in ways she hadn’t imagined possible, but a tearful temper tantrum wouldn’t solve this. She couldn’t do anything about their age difference. She couldn’t do anything about her lack of experience. But those truly weren’t the point. The point of contention, the one she’d never quite been able to put her finger on before now, was that she wasn’t some sheltered girl anymore, but a capable adult, competent to chart her own course. And all she could do to demonstrate that was to stand her ground with as much maturity as she could manage. She stepped up until they stood toe-to-toe, crossed her arms, and lifted her chin. “Well, I guess you’ve got a problem, then, because I’m not going anywhere come fall, or winter, or any other season, and while they’re not the only reason, my feelings for you certainly do factor.”

“We’ll see what Rose says about that.”

Did he honestly think he could intimidate her with a scowl and a threat of running to her mother? She lifted her chin another notch, even managed a tight smile. “My mother and I have already discussed my plans. We’ve got no issues. She recognizes that I’m in charge of my own life. She recognizes it. The law recognizes it. It’s only you”—she poked him in the chest—“who refuses to recognize that fact. And you know what?” When he didn’t respond, she poked his chest again. So much for maturity. “It’s disrespectful and insulting. You don’t support my decision. So be it. You don’t have to. I won’t be leaving Captivity, but please consider this my two-week’s notice at The Goose.”

He stepped around her, picked up his shirt, dragged it on before moving to the front door. “Notice waived. I’ll pay you for the two weeks, but you don’t have to come in.”

Right. Money for nothing because he saw her as a charity case. That had to change, too, starting now. “Oh, keep your damn money. I quit.”

“Fine.” With his jaw clenched tight enough to make the muscle at the hinge twitch, he opened the door.

“Ford?”

He paused but didn’t look her way. “What?”

Nerves rampaged through her system, making her palms sweat, forcing her to actively resist twisting her fingers together. “You called me a coward, but back at you, because you dodged something important here, too, and I say you did it out of fear.”

“Did I?” He still didn’t look at her.

“Yeah. You spent a lot of time telling me about my emotions, but you didn’t tell me how you felt about me. About us.”

Now he did turn to face her, his expression locked and guarded. “This is about you. Lilah, it’s always been about you. That’s how I feel.” With that, he walked out and pulled the door closed behind him.

“Jesus, Ford,” she whispered. But she knew he believed his words. Deep down, she’d already known. He’d told her. He had a long history of letting go, of shoving his own wishes aside to do what he believed to be better, overall. And maybe sometimes he’d been right, but not this time. She dropped to the couch, trembling, suffering the burn of tears that threatened but refused to flow because too much frustration blocked them. Unless Ford suddenly woke up ready to accept her feelings, and his own, she was just the latest thing he refused to hold tight.

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