Her nod is resigned. She understands better than anyone, I suspect. “There’s a lot going on here at the homestead, Wyatt. I didn’t feel like there was ever a good time to leave.”

  “There never is.” The truth sits heavily between us. My leaving went over about as well as a stink bomb in Sunday school, but I still feel like it couldn’t have gone over any better regardless of the timing. “Well, let’s get this over with.”

  I take a step toward the front door, following Mr. Puddles, but Wren makes a sound of uncertainty. She clears her throat, and I look down at her. “There are things you should know. About Winston, about Dad and Uncle Jed.”

  I don’t stop my progress, on a mission now that I’ve started it. “I figured as much. Let me see what the hell they’ve gotten into now.”

  I burst through the front door and into the grand foyer as my mother, Pamela Ford, comes rushing down the stairs. She’s wearing one of the typical uniforms she rotates through, a white tennis skirt with matching tank top. Objectively, my mom is still a knockout, even if there hasn’t been a Miss Cold Springs pageant in at least a generation. She’s diligent about taking care of herself with visits to the tennis courts, the salon, and I suspect, the doctor.

  Her eyes go wide as she gasps at the sight of me. “Oh my goodness! Wyatt! Are you really here?” Her hands flatten against her chest dramatically. And the Best Actress Award goes to . . .

  “Flesh and blood, Mom.”

  “My baby!” she exclaims, running toward me. Her arms go around my waist, and I crouch slightly to wrap my arms around her shoulders, careful not to squeeze her too hard.

  “I’m not a baby,” I growl, fighting a smile.

  She pulls back, looking up to remind me, “Thirty-six hours of painful labor to push that big head out gives me the right to call you my baby for your entire life.”

  Yeah, I’ve been hearing that one awhile. “Disagree. But I’ll agree to your life. Deal?”

  In answer, she hugs me again. I take that as agreement and call it a win.

  From somewhere behind me, Wren adds on, “Sounds like you’re assuming you’ll outlive Mom. That remains to be seen with the upcoming festivities. I’m predicting Mom’ll be wailing at your funeral within the week.”

  “Oh, Wren! Don’t be like that,” Mom scolds her. Abandoning whatever plans she had, Mom starts dragging me toward the living room, talking a mile a minute and hitting me with rapid-fire questions. “I’m so glad you came for the wedding. Have you seen Winston yet? He’ll be so pleased to see you. How long are you staying? You’ll stay upstairs in your room, of course. Did you bring a date? You know she’ll have to stay in a different room so things are proper.”

  “Mom.” The tone of exasperation is obvious and does at least make her pause to take a breath. “I haven’t seen anyone but you and Wren yet, but this is strictly a visit. I’m going home after the wedding.” She didn’t ask that, but I know it’s the one thing she wants to know, and I’ve got to stop that train long before it can even start to leave the station. “And I’m alone. I wouldn’t dream of subjecting someone I actually care for to this circus shitshow.”

  Harsh, but true. And while my mother may not like it, Wren snorts and then mutters under her breath, “True that.”

  “Wyatt,” Mom gasps again, this time more in horror than excitement at my presence. I dare to call my family situation a circus shitshow? Oh, the humanity.

  A sudden shout brings us all up short, tension shooting through all three of us.

  “William? Is that really you?”

  Mom and Wren meet eyes, matching worry blooming faster than a hothouse flower. Their reaction worries me, and a moment later I can see why as my father, William Ford II (never Junior), stumbles into the room with a glass of amber liquid in his hand. From here, I can smell that it’s scotch.

  It’s early for a drink, definitely not an after-work cocktail, but maybe he had a rough day? He looks as though that’s a possibility, his expensive black slacks wrinkled and his white dress shirt rolled up to his elbows. He squints at me through bleary eyes, and I begin to suspect this isn’t his first scotch.

  “William? That you?” he repeats. It sounds like he’s forgotten that he already asked, and my concern ticks up a notch.

  “It’s Wyatt, dear,” Mom corrects him, touching his arm gently. I might be William Wyatt Ford III, but I’ve always gone by my middle name, the same way my dad has always gone by Bill.

  What the hell? I think, alarmed. Is this what Wren wanted to talk about?

  In all my years, I’ve never seen my usually meticulously steady and stoic father sloppy drunk. I think I’ve only seen him tipsy at a party once or twice, and those were usually events like New Year’s or a birthday.

  After all, he prides himself on his standing in the community as mayor and city council representative. He wouldn’t want to tarnish his reputation by being seen as something as mundane as a drunkard.

  For a moment, I’m too shocked to even respond, but eventually words come. “Hey, Dad. Cutting out of work a bit early today?”

  This a skill set us Fords learn at a very young age—the ability to say something without actually saying it. It’s all in the delivery, the tone, the subtle eyebrow lift.

  “Wyatt,” Mom starts, her worry morphing into embarrassment. “Don’t make it worse. Your father has been hard at work.”

  “Don’t need you to make excuses for me,” Dad snarls, jerking his arm away from Mom, who looks stricken.

  Wren sighs heavily before calling out, “Leo, code D-A-D in the living room.”

  Leo, one half of the couple who has cared for our home and us for decades, pops in immediately. He looks the same as the day I left, his dark hair still blacker than night and his eyes full of a degree of kindness I only ever received from him and his wife, Maria. “Oh, Mr. Ford, let me escort you to your office. You can have a minute to gather yourself.”

  Leo wraps a gentle but strong arm around Dad’s shoulders, urging him toward the hall, but Dad’s feet don’t budge. “I don’t need to gather myself. Don’t you see my son here? Back from running away to do God knows what, only God knows where.”

  I grit my teeth at being likened to a runaway throwing a temper tantrum when I left for valid reasons. But my anger morphs as I observe the power struggle, and I watch Leo subtly glance to Mom for approval, and she nods slightly. It appears to be a routine of “control the drunk” they’ve done before, and I’m left with a sour, bitter twisting feeling in my stomach.

  What the fuck is going on here?

  “Mr. Ford, I must insist. I believe there’s a call for you. Something about the council meeting?” Leo suggests more firmly, grasping Dad’s arm. I’m certain there’s no phone call and it’s simply a ploy to get Dad to agree to a moment out of sight.

  “Leggo of me!” he snaps, not willing to play along, it seems. “I’m perfectly fine!”

  Dad might be drunk, but he’s still strong. He jerks out of Leo’s reach, and the sudden movement knocks the glass out of his hand. It falls, shattering loudly on the floor. The sound’s like a hand grenade, shocking everyone in the room, and we all freeze.

  “Okaaay,” Wren says firmly, the first to gather her wits. With a note of resigned frustration in her voice, she directs, “Leo, I got this.” She gestures to Dad with a look of disgust. “Can you get Maria to clean this up and then grab Wyatt’s bags from his truck?” She motions to Mom, cutting me a look so hard that she doesn’t have to tell me to stay out of this. “Mom, can you help me with Dad?”

  He’s standing on his own, at least, a forlorn look of confusion on his face as he frowns at the mess of glass at his feet. It’s like he honestly doesn’t understand how the hard material in his hand suddenly got to the floor, droplets of scotch soaking into the cuffs of his pants.

  Wren walks over and wraps Dad’s right arm around her shoulder, and Mom takes his left. “Dear, I think you were working so hard that you forgot to eat lunch again.” Still making excuses, or maybe finding ways to make Dad more agreeable, they manage to help him from the room.

  “S-s-sorry, son,” Dad slurs, “I should’ve had lunch. Get Maria to make you a plate.” His voice fades as they go upstairs, heading toward not his office but my parents’ bedroom. I suspect he’ll be passed out, snoring obnoxiously, within moments.

  “How long has he been like that?” I demand from Leo as soon as they’re out of sight, my eyes still locked on the now-empty stairs.

  Leo hums thoughtfully, but he’s not counting days or weeks or months. He’s counting something that doesn’t apply to a lot of people any longer . . . loyalty. “Not my place to say.”

  I turn to look at him, realizing he doesn’t look exactly the same. The grooves on the corners of his mouth are deeper than I remember, as though he’s frowned more than he used to, and there’s a tiredness in his eyes that wasn’t there before. But this is one that I can’t let slide. “Leo?”

  He licks his lips and replies in almost a sigh. “You should talk to your brother. Things haven’t been the same since you’ve been gone.”

  The statement shouldn’t surprise me. I knew leaving would have consequences, but I mostly thought of them in terms of what I’d be gaining—freedom, a fresh start, control of my own destiny.

  It’s a heavy feeling to be reminded of what my leaving might have cost back here at home. And that a lot of those costs were going to be paid by the people I love.

  “Where is Winston?”

  “In your father’s office. Getting Bill around Winston is usually helpful in these situations. That’s why I told him there was a phone call,” Leo explains.

  I nod, and walk quickly down the hallway to Dad’s office. I stop short, though, when I see Winston propped up in Dad’s chair with his feet on the desk, phone pressed to his ear. His hair is longer than I’ve seen it before, with flips of length falling over his ears and into his eyes. His nose crinkles as he says, “I don’t care about champagne brands or colors, Cara. Cristal, Dom, Moët . . . don’t care. Ivory, pink, or neon orange like Cheetos . . . I don’t. Give. A fuck.” He’s silent for a second, listening. “Whatever Uncle Jed said is fine unless Avery wants something different.”

  I clear my throat and he looks up, half in shock, half in worry he just got caught out doing something wrong. When he sees me in the doorway, he shouts, “Wyatt? Holy shit, bro! You came.”

  That sounds like my brother, eloquent as always. Where Wren got the skills to verbally slice and dice at will, Winston is more of a smash-and-trash sort. I’m somewhere in the middle, I guess.

  Winston hangs up the phone without another word and rushes at me, grabbing me in a fierce bear hug and slapping me on the back. “You came.”

  “Of course I did,” I say when he lets me go. “Not every day my little brother gets married.”

  There’s more question there than there should be, but this is Winston we’re talking about. He once proclaimed that he was never going to get married when there were so many women to sample. Of course, he was a mouthy fourteen-year-old virgin who’d just been shot down by his crush at the time, but I thought he’d held on to the sentiment.

  “Nope. I’m a fucking goner of the one-and-done variety. Avery owns me—dick, heart, and soul.”

  “Romantic,” I summarize with a raised brow. “I want to hear all about this Avery who’s managing to get you down the aisle, but first, what the hell is up with Dad? He came sloshing through the living room like a squirrel who’d been noshing on old grapes off the vine.”

  Winston groans, and takes a step back to rub at his forehead. “Again?”

  Before I can question that, Wren barrels into the room, her eyes tight and her jaw clenched. “Incoming—Mom’s looking for you both. I’ll hold her off as best as possible. Get out while you can.”

  Winston and I look at her in surprise, our brains still computing what she just spit out in one rapid-fire sentence.

  “Go!” she hisses.

  That’s enough to get us moving, and we hustle through the foyer and out the front door like so many times before. We never had to “sneak out,” exactly. That was part of being a Ford: if you wanted to leave, you did, walking out with your head held high and your shoulders back. Anything less was weakness, and Fords do not show that to anyone, especially family.

  You just have to make sure you walk your ass out the door at the proper time. Thankfully, my keys are in the cup holder, right where Leo left them when he grabbed my suitcase from the back seat. I start the truck and pull out at a reasonable speed—to punch it and spin out would only call attention to our departure.

  “Wren’s the best,” Winston says from the passenger seat.

  “Always was, always will be,” I agree. “Now . . . we talk.”

  Chapter 2

  WYATT

  “Are you sure about this?” I ask uncertainly as I pull into the lot Winston directs me to. “There’s a sign right there that says ‘Fuck Jed Ford,’ and this is Uncle Jed’s ex’s place. Pretty sure we’re not welcome here.”

  “Here” is the Puss N Boots bar and grill. It’s a long, skinny building, cinder block and clapboard with a tin roof just outside downtown, with the aforementioned sign and a ten-foot-tall neon cartoon Puss in Boots, complete with hat, boots, and swishing sword.

  “Yeah, I come here all the time,” Winston says dismissively, as if that’s supposed to be reassuring. “It’s kind of an escape, because Jed and Dad wouldn’t dream of setting foot inside these four walls. Mostly because Etta would personally chop them to bits and Tay Tay would fry them up and serve them with a side of his homemade fancy ketchup. He does a killer one, by the way.”

  “What?” I ask, not clear on half of what Winston said. But escape I understand, so I park and follow Winston’s lead inside. It’s not that pleasant of a walk: my guts are still roiling from what happened at the house, and a potential ambush doesn’t help things, to be honest. I haven’t been in town in years, and I’m not expecting a warm welcome or any of those supposedly friendly faces at my return. My hackles are up, my skin uncomfortably tight, and I’m ready to throw down at a moment’s notice.

  When the door closes, I look around, alert for any incoming friends or foes. Honestly, I don’t want either one right now. But I can see why this is a popular spot. Regardless of the exterior architecture, the bar feels spacious but warm at the same time, with enough room for a bunch of tables, a bar, and an area with pool tables and a few arcade games. The wood paneling and hardwood floors are well worn but look cared for, and despite the midafternoon hour, there’s quite a crowd in here.

  There’s absolutely no pretentiousness to it. It’s a bar with a “take it or leave it” vibe. And right now, I think I want to take it. Especially if it offers that escape Winston promised.

  Three hours in town and already looking for an out doesn’t bode well for this visit, man.

  “Order up,” a voice calls as a bell dings. “Come get your shit or I’mma eat this good-looking, finger-licking basket of fries myself, Charlene.”

  “That’s chicken, not fries, Tay Tay. Chicken is good-looking and finger-licking,” another voice answers.

  From the kitchen, there’s a bark of laughter. “Girl, everything I make is good-looking and finger-licking. And by everything, I mean everything.”

  I see a blonde woman approach a large cutout in the paneling that shows the kitchen beyond. A guy in a black, silky do-rag peeks out with a smirk of satisfaction. I’m going to assume that’s the cook, and the blonde snaps some gum as she gives him a look. “I know what you’re implying, Tay Tay, and ain’t nobody sucking on your”—she cleared her throat—“straw to give a Yelp review.”

  I snort in surprise, nearly choking on my own spit. Holy shit, there are levels, and then there’s this place.

  “Have to take my word for it, baby. Five stars, every time,” the guy—Tay Tay, I guess—quips, flashing five fingers through the air repeatedly.

  “If you say so,” she tells him, grabbing the basket of fries and speed-walking across the room. As she passes by the door, she sees Winston and me and I hold my breath, ready for another bomb. “Seat yourself anywhere. I’ll be with ya in a jiffy.”

  Without a second glance she’s off, doing business. Huh, no evil looks, accusations, or punches thrown my way. I’m more surprised than I’d like to admit.

  “See?” Winston says, reading my thoughts. “We’re fine here. And we can talk without Dad interrupting. Or trying to drunk dial council members.” He rolls his eyes.

  “No way. He did that?” I ask, somewhere between horrified and delighted. There’re a few members of the city council who need an unfiltered verbal smackdown, in my opinion, though it surprises me that it came from Dad.

  “More than once,” Winston informs me, pulling out a stool and perching at a table I suspect might be his usual. There are pictures of Etta all over the place, mixed in with newspaper articles about Cold Springs, but the photo by this table is of Hyde Hill, one of Winston’s favorite places to go when we were teens.

  Before I can ask anything else, the blonde reappears at the side of the table. “Hey, honey-babies, what can I getcha?”

  “Draft beer and a burger, please, Charlene,” Winston says automatically.

  There are no menus to speak of, so I go for the sure bet and echo Winston’s order. “Same for me, please.”

  The woman’s eyes narrow as she looks up from her notepad. “Who’s your tall-drink-o’-water friend, Winston? Gonna introduce me?”

  Winston chuckles and slaps me on the back. “Charlene, this is my brother, Wyatt. Wyatt, this is Charlene, who is way, way, way out of your league.”

  Charlene tuts. “Now don’t you go telling tales. You don’t know, maybe I’m looking for something a bit different this go-round.” She’s talking to Winston, but her eyes are drinking me in like I’m fresh spring water on a hot day in the desert. “Hi there, Wyatt. Pleased to meetcha.”

  She slides her pen behind her ear and offers her hand, which I take, shaking politely. “Nice to meet you too, Charlene. I’m afraid my brother’s right, though. I’m not looking for a . . . go-round, sorry to say.” Her pink-glossed lips pout, and I rush to correct the harsh brush-off. I lean to the side, scanning her head to toe to take in her blue cutoff denim shorts, white shirt knotted above her slim waistline, glittery nails, and eyes surrounded by liner and long, fake lashes. “As beautiful as she might be.”