Page 31 of The Forever After Bet

Ford cups his hands around my face, kissing me. He’s gentle at first, brushing and pecking, but then his tongue pushes at the seam of my mouth. He scrapes his teeth over my bottom lip. I open my mouth with a moan, and Ford thrusts his tongue in. It’s possessive and makes my toes curl. He breaks our kiss, resting his forehead against mine. “I’m sorry I’m getting ahead of myself. It just feels so good to have you in my arms again.”

“I’d stay like this with you forever.” I smile, rubbing my hand along his jaw and neck. I want to ask him about our marriage license. Are we married or did he and the guys manage to get it out of the mailbox? But I’m too scared. He doesn’t know that I know about it. Maybe for now, it’s better if I don’t say anything.

“What happens now?” I ask.

“What do you want?”

I bite my bottom lip, fidgeting on Ford’s lap, running my fingers along the Nike sign on his shirt.

He puts his fingers under my chin, tilting my head so I’m looking at him. “I’ll respect whatever it is you want, even if it’s hard, even if you don’t want to be together until after graduation.”

“No!” I yell, feeling panicked. I shift so I’m straddling his lap and wrap my hands around his face. “No. We’ve spent enough time apart from each other. After everything happened, it just gave me time to think about what our life would’ve been like, being married and in high school. At the time, I thought it was the answer, but I’ve had a lot of time with my thoughts over the past two weeks. We deserve to have a normal high school experience, whatever that is—stressing about grades, going to, or playing basketball games. The excitement of being asked and going to school dances, hanging out, and having fun with friends without worrying if we’ll have enough money for food this week.” I rest my forehead against Fords.

“That’s what I want. I know you said we can’t go back, but I want to make the most out of what’s left of our senior year of high school. I want to walk down the hall holding your hand, sit with you at lunch and steal your French fries, and make out with you in the janitor’s closet.” I lean in, giving Ford a soft kiss.

Ford leans his forehead against mine. “I want that, too.”

I sigh, relieved, but Ford sits back, giving me a stern look. “What about our parents?”

I shake my head. “I don’t know. Your parents hate me now.”

“They don’t hate you. We never really talked about anything. The conversation ended when you left, but they blamed me. They’ve given me too much freedom over the past couple of years. My parents have tried a couple of times to take back some control, but they’re no good at following through. They check in with me a lot more than they used to, though. I’m more worried about how your parents will react.”

“It’s Beth we need to worry about. Things are still not good with her. I avoid her when I can.”

“Have you gone back to calling her Beth to her face?”

I shrug and shake my head no. “I don’t call her anything. I got mad at her on Saturday night. She said some cruel things.”

Ford rubs his hands up and down my arms. “Will you tell me what happened?”

“I was in the kitchen trying one of her frosted snickerdoodle cookies when I heard you and Ty in the basement watching football. I was going to watch a movie with the little boys, but I didn’t know you were coming over. I turned to go back upstairs, and Beth asked me to take the plate of cookies downstairs. I gave her a look, and she told me I needed to get over my feelings for you, to move on, like you had. That harboring feelings for someone who didn’t like me was sad and pathetic.”

Ford raises his hand, pointing to himself. “Sad and pathetic.”

“Stop it.” I laugh, grabbing his hand. “She kept calling me sweetie, and I hate that term of endearment. I got mad and told her not to call me that anymore.”

“Has she?” Ford asks.

“We haven’t really spoken since then. Something’s going on with her. I saw on the family calendar that she has a doctor’s appointment on Friday. I hope she figures out whatever she’s dealing with.”

“I’m sorry. I hope, for your family’s sake, she figures things out.”

I sigh, rubbing my forehead. “I think we should keep our relationship a secret from our parents.”

He blows out a breath, and then nods. “Okay.”

“Really? You’re not even going to argue with me about it? Last time you were so against having a secret relationship.”

“I know, but it didn’t do any good. We still ended up finding ways to be together. I don’t want to do that. I’m okay with not telling our parents.” Ford trails his fingers along my neck. “You’re not going to like this, but I think we need to keep our relationship a secret from everyone but our friends.”

“But you just said—”

Ford puts his thumb over my mouth, quieting me. “I know I did. You have no idea how much I want that, but Mason and Bree’s website is still up. I don’t care about the gossip that has to do with me, but I can’t handle it when they go after you. It makes me sick inside. We need to figure out a way to shut it down, and then we can go public with our relationship again.”

“With everything else that’s happened, I forgot about the website. That stupid thing has made both our lives miserable.”

“I agree, and we don’t need any more of it.”

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