Page 50 of His Forever Girl

Finally, Tess sat back, wiping her face with her hands.

“Here,” Graham said, pulling a travel package of tissues from the compartment that separated their seats. “Use this.”

Tess took the tissue and wiped her face, before grabbing another to blow her nose.

A few seconds ticked silently by. The world outside the car moved—a man on a lawn mower, an older lady walking a fluffy dog, and squirrels scampering up and down the graceful oaks. All going about their business on a Sunday afternoon.

“I’m pathetic,” Tess said finally, tearing her gaze from a bed of tulips dancing in the breeze to his. “I don’t know why I called you.”

His smile tipped the corners of his mouth. “How is it pathetic? Besides, I called you.”

“Oh, yeah. But I shouldn’t have asked you to come.”

“Why?”

“Because.”

He issued a soft laugh. “Things are weird between us, but that doesn’t mean I don’t care about you, Tess.”

“I know,” she said exhaling, looking back down at the tissue wadded in her hand.

“I’m very sorry about your father,” he said.

Tess’s heart squeezed and she pressed her fingers to her temples where a dull headache throbbed. “It feels surreal. All of this.”

Graham draped his hands over the steering wheel and stared at the sunshine filtering through the leaves. For a long while he didn’t speak, and somehow the stretch of quiet comforted her more than empty platitudes. Eventually he turned toward her. “You want to go somewhere?”

Tess nodded. “I can’t go back yet. My thoughts are too mixed up, and I don’t know what to say to my dad yet.”

“He’ll understand,” Graham said, turning the key, bringing the car to life. Pulling away from the curb, he hooked a quick left and backed around so they were headed back toward Metairie Road. “Coffee?”

Tess shook her head. Her roiling gut couldn’t handle the acrid brew or the shot of caffeine.

“Something stronger?”

“No.”

Graham said nothing more. Merely drove toward New Orleans, bypassing the on-ramp and going under I-10, passing Delgado and the cemetery with the raised tombs sitting vigil over the city. As he drove, radio on a soft rock station, Tess tried to gather up her shredded pride and erect the defenses she’d put in place weeks ago. She didn’t want to open the door to Graham again.

So why’d you ask him to come get you?

She didn’t have the answer.

Turning off the boulevard, he looped around and entered City Park. Pulling into a parking lot, he shut off the engine. “Let’s walk.”

Without waiting for her answer, he climbed out and shut the door. Her door opened and Graham leaned in, extending his hand.

Tess looked at it. She didn’t want to touch him. Didn’t want him to crawl inside the walls she’d so carefully put back into place.

“You don’t want to walk?”

“I don’t want to do anything. I don’t want to feel anything. I don’t—”

“Get out,” he said, not unkindly, but with a firmness that told her he was used to stubborn women… or stubborn seven-year-old girls. “You need to process. You need to walk.”

“I already walked.” She looked up at him.

He arched one eyebrow, looking quite dashing in the bright afternoon light, wearing a pair of shorts and a long-sleeved T-shirt pushed up his forearms.

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