Chapter Eight #2
The walk is pleasant with the ocean breeze blowing over me.
The surf is calm and gentle, just a little foam washing up on the shore with each step I take toward Tucker.
A couple of shells give me pause on my way, so I lean down to pick them up, then rinse them in the foamy waves at my feet.
One has a purple sheen to it, which seems exceptionally perfect for the morning.
Finally, after what feels like forever, I spot a familiar beach towel and light pink hair on the horizon.
Tucker smiles shyly on my approach. I send him a friendly wave before wordlessly joining him on the blanket.
The sun is just below the horizon, already starting to send the sky from dark blue and orange to light pinks, purples, and oranges.
I wordlessly hand Tucker the bag of gluten-free mini rice cakes with chocolate glaze on them. He takes them with a furrowed brow and clear question on his face.
“Saw them at the store the other day, thought you’d like them.”
Tucker holds them to his chest for a moment, closes his eyes, and when they reopen, I see a sheen of tears. “Thank you. These are my favorite. No one has ever… brought me gluten-free snacks before.”
Everyone is clearly an asshole. “Not even River?”
“River just expects me to always be prepared and bring my own.”
“Ah.” I bend my legs and wrap my arms around them as the sun starts to break free from the horizon. “Almost wish time. I have the perfect wish.”
“I always wish for the same thing,” Tucker admits so quietly I almost miss it.
“Well, I hope it comes true for you one day.”
“Me too.” Tucker opens the bag of mini rice cakes and eats one slowly, seeming to savor each bite. After a few of his own bites, he holds the bag out for me to try one. I take one with a grateful smile, and it’s pretty good for what it is. “Will you be coming to dinner tonight?”
“Yeah, but I have to leave early.”
Tucker turns a confused look my way. “Got a hot date?”
I snort at the idea of it. “Absolutely not. I do a puzzle over video each week with a friend of mine.”
“How delightfully domestic,” Tucker says, tone clearly teasing.
I can feel the flush on my cheeks, but I don’t say anything. Instead, we both turn back to watch the sun crest over the horizon. I close my eyes and take a deep breath, wishing for home and peace, wishing for comfort and kindness. All things I can give myself if I allow it.
“How’s Cupcake?” Tucker asks.
My throat tightens at the thought of her. “At the vet actually.”
“Oh no! Why?”
“Sometimes her breed can have stomach issues. She’ll be okay, Orson promised me.”
“Ah,” Tucker says with a lot of feeling. When I look over at him, he’s smiling gently, and his eyes flick over my face quickly. “Orson never breaks a promise.”
“I believe you.” Because I do, and I believe in the magic of this small little island in a way I never thought possible.
“Wanna look for sea glass? River collects it.” Tucker doesn’t wait for me to respond, he just rolls up to standing.
When his back is turned, I take the chance to catalog the slight roundness of his stomach, the soft muscles on his back, and the way his ass fills his own sweatpants.
I like the way he looks soft but strong at the same time, and the softness of his face makes me feel like he’d kiss with a gentleness that would undo me.
I only stand when he looks back at me expectantly, one of his bushy blond eyebrows raised in question.
Sea glass is a trickier find than seashells, but after thirty comfortably quiet minutes, we both have a handful.
I take Tucker’s hand in mine, ignoring his soft gasp, and transfer what I gathered over to him.
“Here,” I whisper so the ocean breeze carries my words to him, “you can give these to River.”
“You don’t want them for yourself?”
“What would I do with them?” I shrug. “River will have much better use for them. He uses them for his witchy stuff, right?”
Tucker sends me that confused, almost hesitant look again.
I want to hug him. Struck by the force of the feeling, I take a step back before I can impulsively give in.
If he was further into his freedom, maybe I would’ve made a move already, maybe we’d be ten kisses deep into a relationship and I’d tell him some truths about myself that would be met with acceptance and kindness.
But time is our friend for many reasons, and I don’t think he’s ready.
“I’ll see you at dinner tonight,” I tell him just before turning around to head back to my house.
“Bye, Charles!” he calls out from behind me.
I look over my shoulder at him with a fond smile. “Bye, Tucker.”
Brent’s waiting for me outside the front door when I arrive at their house for dinner.
He looks as big and broad as ever, but his face is softer than normal.
Brent’s the kind of guy who’s big on hugs, which you wouldn’t think by looking at him.
But I’m grateful for the hug he envelops me in all the same.
He smells like car grease because he probably spent the day out in the garage tooling around with one of the cars.
Normally he’d drag me over to the garage to help him, but he doesn’t today.
Instead, he just slings an arm around my shoulders and guides me inside the small beach house.
Tucker’s warm laughter greets me and I can’t help the smile from working its way across my lips.
Thankfully, Brent is too focused on guiding me to the living room, where there’s multiple football games playing on the television.
My heart does that familiar lurch it does when I see football, but it settles when Tucker pops around the corner to send me a wave in greeting.
I wave back like a clumsy idiot, almost hitting myself in the process, but Tucker’s grin just grows a little wider at the sight.
I sit beside Brent on the large couch and he gives me a look that’s far too knowing.
I clear my throat awkwardly. “How was your week?”
“Quiet,” Brent replies with one eye squinted my way. “Have you visited Marcia lately?”
“Yes, last week. We’re still working on those hand-knitted blankets. Her hands are so small, she has an advantage.” I mimic doing the loops Marcia has been painstakingly teaching me for months. Brent laughs at my clumsy recreation. “The holes in my blanket are going to be huge.”
“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” Brent remarks just as Mark wanders into the living room with a cider for each of us.
Mark winks at Brent, then disappears back into the kitchen.
Another laugh rings out, and butterflies fill my chest when I can so easily recognize it as Tucker’s.
“I’ve always loved Mark’s laugh, but Tucker’s is my favorite sound in the entire world. ”
“Laughs are a beautiful thing.”
Brent takes a slow sip of his cider, then lets out a thoughtful hum. “When someone laughs freely with you, it means they know you’re safe.”
“Or they think you’re a dipshit!” Mark hollers from the kitchen.
Tucker’s giggle is softer, as if he’s used to their shenanigans but still finds it funny after all these years.
Their home is always warm, not just from the food that’s cooked with love or the half-open French doors on the back porch, but from happy memories and love.
My gaze catches on the family photos that line the wall behind the sofa.
There’s a photo of the three of them in the county courthouse, and they’re all wearing matching emotional grins.
Tucker’s tight corkscrew blond curls seem so out of place between Brent’s dark beard and hair and Mark’s bright auburn waves.
The other best photo on the wall is a clearly teenage Tucker with bright blue curls and character ears on his head from a theme park visit.
He looks sullen and annoyed, with a beaming River beside him.
My chest feels tight again, so I rub it while taking a sip of the chilled cider Mark so kindly gave me.
“Why don’t you ever help cook dinner?”
Brent scoffs. “Mark hates me in the kitchen. I’ll grill if he wants me to, but after his years running a kitchen, he’s far too picky to let me help him. I’m big and clumsy.”
“Ah, that makes sense.”
“Just like he stays out of the garage.” Brent shrugs his shoulders with a tender smile.
“It’s good to have separate things that you’re good at.
It makes me appreciate every meal he makes, and he appreciates every car I remodel.
We have hobbies together, and hobbies separately.
That’s the key to thirty years together. ”
“Thirty?” I gasp, because I hadn’t ever done the math. That amount of time seems impossible and amazing all at the same time.
Brent’s lip twitches at the corner. “Thirty. I’ll take thirty more if he has that long in him though.”
“Thirty more years with you and I’ll need a Nobel Peace Prize,” Mark says as he marches to the dining table carrying a steaming glass dish full of what appears to be pasta.
Tucker follows with a basket of garlic bread and a smile on his face.
“Dinner’s ready,” Mark says, all while leveling his husband with a teasing glare.
“All right, we’re coming, we’re coming.” Brent stands with a groan, knees and joints popping off like fireworks. I don’t tease him because some day that’ll also be me.
I take a seat at the table beside Tucker but hold myself back from glancing over at him.
The pasta smells like garlic and spices.
Brent and Mark are some of the first people to cook me a home-cooked meal and welcome me at their table with love.
Before Tucker returned, we’d talk about current events, cars, or just town shenanigans.
His presence adds an unfamiliar element to the routine that I’m still learning.
“River told me that the lantern festival is still only at fifty percent,” Tucker says after we’ve all filled our plates with pasta.
Mark groans. “The festival has been getting harder and harder to sell out over the years. Marcia won’t admit it, but she’s getting older, and it’s a lot of responsibility. She needs a helper.”
Tucker lifts his hands with a laugh. “Don’t look at me. I’m not assistant material.”
“Don’t we know it,” Brent says with a teasing chuckle.
“River should just take it over,” Tucker says diplomatically.
Mark nods in agreement. “He’d run it like the Navy.”
Tucker eyes his father shrewdly. “Where’d you learn that phrase?”
Mark blinks quickly. “TikTok.”
Tucker groans loudly, then shoves a forkful of pasta into his mouth to no doubt make himself remain quiet.
I bite back a chuckle and take my own bite of pasta.
It’s thick noodles, with a warm cheesy sauce and sun-dried tomatoes.
I can hardly tell the noodles are gluten-free because they’re so perfectly cooked and the sauce is so perfectly flavored.
I almost forget sometimes that Mark was a superstar chef at a Michelin-star restaurant for so much of his life, but it shows when he makes meals so comforting and delicious that it brings tears to my eyes.
Tucker taps my foot with his under the table and wiggles his eyebrows.
“The garlic bread is gluten-free too.” He goes on to prove it to me by swiping a piece of the bread through the sauce and taking a large bite.
A glob of sauce gets stuck on the corner of his mouth, making my blood heat to boiling.
If we were alone, maybe I’d be brave enough to reach out and swipe it away, but I won’t.
Instead I just point toward it, and he wipes it away with a furious blush.
Instead of drawing more attention to him, I grab a piece of garlic bread from the bowl and copy Tucker by swiping it through the rich cheese sauce on my plate.
“S’good,” I tell Mark through a mouthful of bread.
Mark chuckles and shakes his head as if I’m his own son. “Thank you.”
We eat in silence until we’re all full and push our plates away.
Brent stands and picks up Mark’s plate, and I help by grabbing Tucker’s and my own, then follow him into the kitchen to rinse the plates off.
We return to the table, only for Tucker to disappear into the kitchen like a man on a mission.
He appears a few moments later with a plateful of double chocolate chip cookies.
He flushes and holds the plate out to me. “I baked them.”
I take one with a small smile. “I didn’t know you bake.”
“Cook, he cannot, but bake he can,” Mark sings as if it’s a well-known fact in their home.
Tucker flushes a brighter red, then sets the plate down at the center of the table, all while grumbling and taking a cookie for himself. The cookie is sweet and soft, tasting more like a small bite of gooey cake than a cookie.
Tucker leans toward me and whispers, “I thought it might make you feel better… because of Cupcake.”
I turn toward him, our faces inches apart, and my breath catches in my chest. We stare at each other for just a moment, caught in each other’s gaze.
“Thank you,” I whisper back, not knowing if the words are too big or too little for the moment. “Thank you,” I say again, lower this time.
Tucker’s mouth twitches at the corner in the hint of a smile before he pulls away, out of my space.
We both clear our throats and continue to eat, but I pray his dads weren’t watching.
I wish on every sunrise to keep these soft moments between Tucker and me tucked away where no one can steal them from us.