Butterface (The Hartigans #1)(45)
Okay, that took some of the tingly excitement out of her metaphorical sails. “Then why are you?”
He shoved his fingers through his hair but, because it was him, it all just fell back into perfect place instead of looking a mess. “I wanted to see you.”
And BAM she was back up to teetering on the edge of something fantastic. Why did he do this to her? He made her feel excited and scared and nervous and sparkly—yes, it sounded dumb, but it was true—and at home all at the same time. She didn’t understand it, just like she couldn’t quite grasp why after everything they’d agreed to he’d shown up on her porch saying he wanted to see her.
He climbed the first two steps, his hand on the recently sanded banister and all of his intense focus on her. “Can I ask you a question?”
If there was a time in her life when she’d ever wished she was a Rizzo from Grease, this was it. To have that confidence and bravado and chick balls. Instead, she was a Frenchie, forever the goofy sidekick. She knew this. Still, she dug deep to find her badass inner Rizzo. “Depends on what you want to know.”
“Are you involved in anything illegal?”
And that was pretty much the last thing she’d expected him to ask. The preposterousness of it made her laugh out loud. “Well, I have a lead foot. Does that count?”
Ford didn’t laugh. In fact, his jaw seemed to tense even more. “So, no running numbers or delivering messages or wet work?”
“I don’t even know what that last one means.” She shook her head. She was a wedding planner, and the only kind of wet work she dealt with was being sure to keep extra tissues on hand for the mother of the bride. “Why are you asking me this, Ford?”
The stubborn man didn’t answer. Instead, he vaulted up the last three steps to the porch and strode toward her, right across the spot on the porch marked with a big red X so Juan would know which boards needed to be replaced.
“Wait, Ford, watch out for the—”
She spoke too late. The wonky board that always felt like it was about to give way when she stepped on it finally did. The crack sounded, then a snap, and then a crash as Ford fell through the porch up to his hips.
“Oh my God,” she yelled, dropping the watering can in her shock. It bounced once and fell over onto its side, all of the water inside spilling out and rushing right to Ford, soaking him. “Are you okay?”
He looked down at the boards surrounding him, a few of which had broken off into sharp points but none of which were close enough to pierce him. “I’m a little scraped up, but I’ll live. It looks like for the most part it was a clean break,” he said. “But don’t come any closer. I don’t want you to go down, too.”
He braced his hands on the boards closest to him, but they started to creak as soon as he put his weight on them. Oh, this was not going to go well. The more he tried to get himself out, the worse it seemed to get. It was like her house was trying to eat him.
“I need to get help,” she said, pulling out her cell phone from her back pocket with shaky hands.
Ford continued to survey his situation. “Who are you going to call?”
“The fire department,” she said, already scrolling for their non-emergency number. “They got one of my cousin’s kids’ head free after he’d gotten it stuck between two banisters at my grandma’s house.”
“Do not dial that number,” Ford said, each word coming out as a staccato punch. “I’d rather live the rest of my life in this hole than have you call the fire department.”
“That makes no sense.” That wasn’t rhetorical. It really made no sense at all. If she hadn’t seen him fall through the porch herself, she would have figured he’d banged his head hard to be talking such bologna.
The vein in his temple pulsed, and he squared his jaw with enough force that it made the muscles on the side of his face bulge out. Ignoring her question, he tested out the boards within reach, each of which wobbled under the pressure. Finally, he let out a frustrated huff.
“My brothers and my dad are firefighters. I would never hear the end of it if they had to come pull my ass out of a hole in a porch. They’d stop and take pictures before they did it. They’d probably call my mom and FaceTime her during the process. I could save the entire family from a deranged serial killer, and they’d all still be telling the story of the time I got stuck in a hole on your front porch.”
After having lunch with his family, she had to admit he wasn’t wrong. They wouldn’t do it out of meanness, but they’d totally give him a hard time for a good long while. And she could understand why. Ford was always so damn sure of himself that seeing him in this situation was something to savor for a little bit.
“I don’t know,” she said, letting her finger hover over her phone. “Calling the fire department seems like the standard operating procedure here. I know how much you love following protocol. Remember when you refused to start painting the hallway until you’d stirred the paint for exactly thirty-five seconds?”
“That’s what the guy at the paint counter recommended to achieve the best sheen,” he declared as he crossed his arms across his chest as if the truth of the statement was obvious.
Which it was. Just not in the way he was thinking. “Like I said, you always follow recommended protocol.”