Now and Then Read Free Page B

Ford smugly confessed to breaking their pact about not watching
Lost
without her, updated her on the friends they’d shared back in school, broke her heart with news about the death of his parents, and made her grin with tales of his little sister marrying Sam—which, for the record, she’d totally called ten years ago, and without even meeting them.
    He’d kept at it with the game design and even found some success, which was awesome. And while it sounded like he still needed to work as a property manager on the side, it made her happy to hear he’d followed his dreams and achieved his goals.
    For her part, she hadn’t been quite so forthcoming. It was easy to talk about work. Tell him about Jet and how he’d actually been the one to get her her first job, interning with the Brewers in Milwaukee. But not how she’d known him from her neighborhood growing up. Or how her choice to work with pro athletes hadn’t solely been based on her love of sports, but on the fact her father and, more important, Timothy O’Shea—the man profiting from her father’s weakness—had a strict no-go policy regarding national sports leagues. Brynn was able to work with some of the highest-paid men in the country and know she’d never get pressed to go to them for a bailout. Too much publicity with those guys. Too many resources. Way too jaded. Which meant too much risk for O’Shea and her dad, and a safe workplace for Brynn.
    Yeah, there were things about her family she hadn’t shared with Ford the first time around—the gambling, the debt, the criminal acts. The cops knocking on their door in the middle of the night if they were lucky, someone else knocking if they weren’t.
    Untruths she hadn’t cleared up—like her father owning a hardware store instead of just working in one a few months before he’d been fired for stealing. Like her having an awesome big brother who was a little overprotective, instead of the jerk who’d literally sold tickets to her bedroom window when she was sixteen. Like having a loving mother who always put her first, instead of a mother who loved her husband to the point of not being able to protect her own children from his mistakes.
    Things she’d been ashamed of growing up and foolishly thought she’d be able to leave behind when she escaped to college with the money her grandfather saved for her. Things she could have told him about now, but honestly, he didn’t need to know.
    She didn’t want Ford’s pity. What she wanted was for this man to have a happy memory to remember her by. She’d hated the way she ended their relationship—hated knowing that she’d poisoned all the good between them with that last phone call. With the stupid lie she’d thought would be easier than the truth she’d been too humiliated to share.
    So she focused on the good things. The fun stuff.
    She laughed, loving the feeling of it overflowing inside her as Ford told her about Sam’s cousin Tony Farrow—that kid she could remember hearing about ten years ago, the mouthy goof who’d made it a daily habit of professing his love for Ava—taking their buddy Mitch Wells to the
Fifty Shades of Grey
opening to pick up women. His pregnant friend, Maggie, and how bad it freaked him out when she’d accidentally rubbed her huge,
hard
belly across his ass. And how he’d had to cheat to beat his sister when they’d been racing to see who could assemble the coming baby’s travel bassinet.
    And when the laughter finally eased, slowing and stretching until it became one long sigh, Brynn propped her elbow on the table and rested her cheek in her hand, watching him as he watched her. It was there in the space between them—the connection, the pull from all those years ago. So tempting, she found herself getting a little lost in his eyes, wondering how that dark hair—shorter and neater now—would feel between her fingers after so long, remembering what it had been like to have his kiss and to give in to all the