11. Tucker
TUCKER
She looks so surprised, and I don’t get it. I thought I’d made it plain with my intentions but maybe not. “What’s that look? You have to know I’m attracted to you.”
Her eyes widen, and I don’t stop. “Hell, honey, I was so hard last night with your hands on me, you had to know I wanted you.”
Her cheeks turn red, and she shushes me. “Tucker Yates, keep your voice low. Do you want everyone to think that we… that I…”
I laugh. “What? That you slept at my house and in my bed with me last night? Why, yes, I do want everyone to know that.”
She gasps. “Tucker!”
I pull her hand toward me and hold it in my lap. “You can’t be surprised by this.”
She shrugs. “So you want to sleep with me… but not sleep… you want to have sex with me.”
I growl. “Fuck, baby, you keep talking like that and I’m going to take you back to the car.”
She’s shaking her head, and I can already tell I’m not going to like what she has to say, so I keep talking. “I don’t want to sleep with you. I mean, I do, of course I do, but…”
I let my voice trail off.
“But what?” she insists.
I nod. It’s time. “We both know we can’t just sleep together.”
Her eyebrows shoot up. “We can’t?”
“Honey, you’ve been like a mother to Ace. You’re the closest thing to a mother he’s got.”
She nods her head. “I love him like he is my son.”
I swear, that right there does me in. It’s like a hit to the chest, and I know I’m making the right decision.
I want Dolly so badly that I’d wondered if sex and attraction was making me have poor judgment.
And I knew she loved Ace, but hearing her say it without any hesitancy at all makes me even more sure about what I need to do.
“And he loves you… so we can’t just sleep together.”
Her silence is not reassuring.
“Tell me what you’re thinking.”
“I don’t want to lose Ace.”
I squeeze her hand. “You could never lose Ace. You won’t. You can’t. He loves you, too. I would never try to keep you two apart.”
She points between the two of us. “So when you’re done with me, would I still be able to see Ace?”
I gasp. “Done with you? What the fuck, Dolly?”
She shrugs, her lips puckered. “Yeah, you know, after we sleep together.”
Stunned, I ask her, “You think I’m going to use you to get off? And then what? Just walk away?”
She pulls her hand from mine and throws both hands up in the air. “I don’t know what to think, Tucker. We’ve known each other for nine years, and it just seems all of a sudden you are, uh, attracted to me, so I’m just trying to catch up.”
I grip my hands together in my lap. I hate having this conversation here.
There are kids laughing, people talking in the distance, and so much going on.
If we were home or somewhere private, I could be holding her and reassuring her while we had this conversation.
“Honey, I’ve always been attracted to you.
I’ve told myself it was too messy with you being Karla’s best friend and how you and Ace are so close.
I’ve fought this like you wouldn’t believe, but the more time I spend with you, the more I know how good it could be between us. ”
She reaches for me, putting her hand on my arm. “Okay, so tell me what I should be thinking.”
“This could never be a one-night stand between us, Dolly. I want to date you.”
She laughs. “You want to date me?”
I don’t know how to put it any plainer than that.
“Yes, I want to date you. I like spending time with you. You’re smart, beautiful, sassy, you won’t take any of my shit, you don’t back down from something you believe in, you try to protect my son from people and things that hurt him, you take care of me…
and I’ve never wanted a woman as much as I want you. ”
She lifts her hand to my forehead. “You were hurt.”
It takes me a minute to get her meaning. “You think me hurting my head is making me say all these things?”
She lifts her shoulders, and I see the insecurity on her face. “You did just hit your head and get a concussion last night.”
I cup her face in my hand. “Honey, talk to me. You know that things were good between us before I hit my head. Hell, I was holding your hand in this very spot the other day.”
She shoves a thumb over her shoulder. “Yeah, because one of the moms was trying to hook up with you.”
I lean toward her. “I didn’t hold your hand because I wanted you to ward off some woman. I held your hand because I wanted her to know I was taken.”
She opens her mouth and then closes it. “But…”
“Dolly, this isn’t a hard decision. You either want to be with me or you don’t.”
She blinks up at me and breaks my heart with three words. “Tuck, I can’t.”