21. Tucker
Chapter Twenty-One
TUCKER
Skylar was nervous, and I found myself trying to put her at ease.
I was a good friend, but my friends were easy.
They all knew me well. We’d formed an unbreakable bond in our time in the Air Force together.
We’d been living and working together for years.
The weave of those bonds only strengthened.
They knew I liked to keep to myself and didn’t mind it.
When I was younger, I was more social. But life could mete out harsh lessons sometimes.
When Claire died, I lost touch with my easygoing side.
I kept to myself. It was easier that way.
Although I’d told myself for years that I didn’t want to let anyone matter too much, I knew my friends mattered as much as Claire did. But those relationships were different.
Falling in love required strength. I simply didn’t know if I had it in me anymore. So when it came to women, I didn’t really try, not much at all. And maybe I was an asshole because of that.
Skylar sat across from me, worrying about saving money instead of eating out at a restaurant. Maybe I didn’t understand that lesson in life. I’d had a stable childhood with two parents who took care of me. They had always been there for me.
I wanted Skylar to have that certainty. I wanted her to stop worrying, to believe life could be okay.
This whole thing was fucking crazy. I wasn’t that guy—protective and taking care of other people.
Oh, I had been with Claire. I’d been so in love with her.
Even now, I tried to look back and tell myself it was just because I was young.
I had been young, and there was something to that kind of love—an innocence to it, a headlong, rushed quality that I doubted could be replicated, but it ran deep, and it cut even deeper.
When she got sick and fucking died, I learned just how brutally unfair life could be.
The old muscle memory was there, though. I knew how to make an effort.
I sensed Skylar was even skeptical about my effort, which made me silently laugh a little. Perhaps, I’d finally encountered someone more guarded than me, which was saying something.
She loved the king crab. After two bites, she looked up at me. “Oh, my god,” she moaned.
“I told you it was good.”
She actually smiled. “Wow. It’s amazing.”
“Don’t get king crab anywhere other than Alaska, though.”
“No?”
“It’s pricey here, but it’s obscene everywhere else because they have to fly it out, so…”
“It’s even more expensive,” Skylar finished my sentence for me, her eyes widening slightly. “It’s so good, though.”
“I know.”
She flashed a rare smile then, and I felt like I’d won something, a tiny something, but something nevertheless. There I was, trying to put Skylar at ease and wrestling with my body’s reaction to her.
Fuck me. She was so delectably cute. She had this tomboyish quality with a femininity underneath that I sensed she tried to hide, though she didn’t hide it well.
With her dark hair gleaming under the lights and her big blue eyes, she was stunning.
Her skin was soft and silky, and I knew how it felt to have her come all over my fingers.
Before I’d gone to pick her up tonight, I told myself this was just dinner, but my body had a different opinion.
My body thought we should have dinner, and I should take her back to her place and not leave until I was buried deep inside her. Even then, that might not be enough to slake the need rampaging through me.
Danny brought our check. I slipped my credit card out and glanced at Skylar. “Well?”
“What?” she asked.
“Are we splitting the check or not?”
She eyed me for a few beats before pulling her wallet out. “We’re splitting.”
I shrugged. “Okay, or I have another idea.”
“What?” She eyed me skeptically, a little wrinkle forming between her brows.
“I cover tonight, and then you get the next place.”
Pink washed over her cheeks in a rush. “What?”
“Have you had dinner at the lodge?”
“Um, last week?”
“I meant the ski lodge.”
She bit her lip before replying. “No. I’ve heard about it.”
“That’s our next dinner date.”
She twisted her lips to the side, eyeing me carefully. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know what? If you want to eat at the ski lodge, or if you want to have dinner with me.”
Skylar let out a sigh. “Both.”
I didn’t want to admit how much that bothered me, but I wasn’t going to let it show. “You can think about it. The offer stands.”
“What do you mean the offer stands?”
“Just generally speaking. There’s no deadline on it.”
“What do you mean?”
“Exactly that.”
“But…”
“If you decide you want to go, you can let me know.” I wanted to push a little, just a little, but Skylar was seriously skittish.
She pulled the check across the table and literally tapped her finger on each row. A few seconds later, she announced the split. Danny returned and took my credit card and her cash.