29. Tucker
Chapter 29
Tucker
“Tucker.” Soft fingertips brushed across my forehead.
With my eyes still closed, a smile formed on my lips. Bex’s morning voice was sexy as hell, and my cock reacted immediately, swelling to life, ready for an encore after last night’s performance.
I extended my arms, intent on pulling her closer. But when my hands came in contact with what felt like her fully clothed form, my eyes flew open.
Dread settled in my gut like a rock when I found her perched on the side of the mattress, her carry-on suitcase visible near the door in my periphery.
She didn’t have to say a word for me to know she was leaving.
“Bex.” Her name came out like a plea.
The room was still dim; the sun hadn’t yet fully risen, but I could make out the glassy sheen of her eyes, which were glued to a spot on the wall above my head. “My flight’s in a few hours.”
With my throat closing up, I begged, “Stay. ”
She offered me a sad smile, finally daring to meet my eye. “I can’t. I’ve got things I need to take care of in Chicago. I’ve already put them off long enough.”
Okay, I could work with that.
“Are you coming back?”
Bex’s only reply was a nod.
“When?” I pressed.
Her gaze dipped to her lap, where her wringing hands rested. “I don’t know.”
Those three words were all it took for the revived dream of a life together to go up in smoke.
No. Fuck that. I wasn’t giving up on us without a fight. I’d made that mistake once before, and I refused to make it again.
Sitting up, I grabbed her trembling hands. “Bex, baby. Tell me what it’s going to take to get you to stay. Whatever it is, I’ll do it.”
A tear crested her lashes before carving a path down her cheek. “Tuck, this is already hard enough.”
The admission that she was struggling to leave only strengthened my resolve. “Aren’t you happy here with me?”
Bex squeezed her eyes shut. “It’s been a dream come true.”
“This could be our life, Bex,” I pressed. “Let me give that to you.”
“It’s not that easy,” she choked out around a sob.
“But it can be,” I vowed. “Let me love you. Let me take care of you. Let me make up for all the time we lost.” My voice grew thick as emotion rose to the surface. “Just please don’t leave.” I sucked in a shaky breath before I begged again, “Please.”
The word came out broken, the same way my heart would be if she walked out that door .
Pulling her hands from my hold, Bex stood. I was off the bed in a flash, and she didn’t make it all of two steps before I was on my knees with my arms hugging her waist. I didn’t care if it looked pathetic; I was in desperation mode.
“Don’t go.” I was full-on crying now. The pain of losing her a second time crashed over me.
With my face pressed to her belly, I could feel the silent, full-body sobs rolling through her. This was killing her just as much as it was killing me.
There was only one card left to play.
“Bex, I love you.”
I wanted that to be enough for her to end this torture she was putting us through, but I had a sinking feeling it wasn’t. Then, the ugly part at the back of my brain suggested that maybe I wasn’t enough for her to want to stay.
“Tucker, I have to go.” Sniffling, she peeled my arms away and took a step back.
In a state of shock, I was still on my knees when I heard the front door close behind her.
Bex was gone. Really gone. And I was a fucking mess.
I hadn’t slept a wink in the day and a half since she’d left. My chest was concave; each breath a struggle. There was a dull pounding in my skull, and my eyes felt gritty after running out of tears. But most painful of all was the ache beneath my sternum, the likes of which no doctor could fix .
Was this some kind of karmic retribution where I was forced to step into her shoes and feel the agony of having the person who owned my heart walk away?
I’d lived through hell these past ten years, but if this was what it had been like for her, I could understand why she ran, why she couldn’t bear the mere mention of my name.
I called off work yesterday and again today. Felicity was ready to strangle me after being out of the office all of last week, but I couldn’t be around people right now, couldn’t see past anything other than the vision of Bex walking out of my bedroom without a backward glance playing on a loop in my mind.
Drowning my sorrows in a bottle of scotch was a bad idea. Instead of dulling the pain, making it so I could forget, even if only for a brief time, it served to make me more depressed.
Bex had said she was coming back, but the absence of a firm return date might as well have been the final nail in the coffin of our relationship—if that’s what you could even call it at this point.
I could envision what the rest of my life would look like, waiting around like an eager puppy, praying she dropped me a few scraps of affection when she passed through town in hopes that it would be enough to sustain me until her next visit.
That wasn’t any way to live, but what other option did I have? There was no moving on from Bex. She was my endgame, even if I wasn’t hers anymore.
A knock sounded at the front door, and hope lit up my insides. Bolting off the couch, I swung it open, exclaiming, “You came back!”
The woman on the other side arched a curious eyebrow. “Of course I came back. I texted on Saturday to tell you we were coming in today. ”
Saturday. Only five days had passed since then, but it felt like a lifetime ago now.
“Right. I remember now. Sorry,” I apologized to my sister.
I dragged a hand down my face as tiny arms wrapped around my leg. On autopilot, I bent down to pick up whichever child it happened to be. A quick glance revealed it to be Hope, the only girl in Evie and Jenner’s trio of toddlers.
“What’s wrong with you?” Evie’s nose wrinkled as she hiked my nephew, Hunter, higher onto her hip. “Have you been day drinking?”
Jenner stepped up beside her, holding Hunter’s twin, Hendrix, his brown eyes full of empathy. “I take it things didn’t go well with Bex?”
Evie’s jaw dropped, and her head swiveled toward her husband before fixing me with a stare. “Wait. Did something happen?”
I heaved a heavy sigh. “It’s a long story.”
My sister turned on the sass. “Might as well spit it out and save yourself the trouble of me badgering you for the next month. The longer it takes to pry it out of you, the more ornery I’ll get, seein’ as that’s time you’re stealing me away from my family during Jenner’s off-season.”
“Fine,” I grumbled, not in the mood to rehash the whole tale but knowing that Evie would make good on her promise to pester it out of me.
She tapped her foot. “So, we doin’ this out here, or are you going to invite us in?”
Rolling my eyes, I stepped aside to allow them entry. “I forgot how demanding you can be.”
Evie pressed a kiss to my cheek. “You’re not fooling anyone, Tuck. You know you missed me.”
Yeah, I really had.
Emotionally exhausted, I collapsed against the backrest of the deck chair after spilling my guts to my big sister while we watched Jenner chase the kids around the yard.
To her credit, she managed to keep her mouth shut, listening without interruption, even when I could tell she was nearly bursting to add her input.
“Well?” I asked expectantly.
Evie blinked at me before promptly smacking me upside the head.
“Ow!” I rubbed the spot where she’d hit me. “What was that for?”
Unapologetically, she replied, “Trying to knock some sense into you. Did it work?”
My gaze shifted to our audience of ankle-biters, and I gestured toward Hope, who had stopped running and was watching us intently. “Nice example you’re setting for the kids.”
“Please.” Evie scoffed. “If you think she hasn’t taken a swing at one of her little brothers when they’ve had it coming, you’re not as smart as all those fancy degrees suggest.”
I pressed a finger to my chest. “You think I had it coming?”
“Are you really this blind?”
My hackles raised. “Maybe you should spell it out for me.”
“Jenner!” My sister hollered to her husband.
The man stopped dead in his tracks. “Yeah, babe?”
She shot me a smug smirk as she asked, “What’s your biggest regret?”
Jenner didn’t hesitate. “Not chasing you down when you left me.”
I stared at him dumbstruck. Could it really be that simple ?
Evie’s voice brought me back to reality. “What the hell are you still doing here, Tucker? Go get your girl. Show her that you’re not giving up, that you’ll fight to the ends of the earth to be with her. And if that’s not enough, you have her give me a call, and I’ll explain the miserable scene I witnessed today, how I watched the hope dim from your eyes when you found me on your front porch when you thought for a brief moment it might’ve been her.”
Fuck, my chest twisted just reliving that. “I don’t need my big sister to fight my battles.”
“Then fight them yourself! Stop sulking and take action!”
The pain of Bex’s rejection barely thirty-six hours ago was still so fresh in my mind, and if she turned me away again, it would wreck me.
Would you be any worse off than you are now?
Evie was right. I had to do something. Sitting around moping wasn’t going to get me anywhere.
Decision made, I rose to my feet.
It was Bex or bust.