Chapter 7PATIENCE
Chapter 6
TUCKER
“Are you hungry?” I asked Patience as I pulled out onto the main road. “I’m starving.”
“I could eat,” she answered as her stomach growled loudly.
“I guess that means I should feed you. What’s good here?” I deferred to her knowledge of the town, giving her the option to tell me where to go.
“You like Italian?”
“Who doesn’t? It’s one of my favorite food groups.” I gave her a smirk.
“Mine too. We can go to Nonna’s.”
“Alright, point me in the right direction.”
I followed her directions as she took me away from Main Street. When we pulled up to the restaurant, it looked like an old, large, single-story home that was converted into a restaurant. If I was just passing by and there had been no cars in the parking lot, I would have thought it was just someone’s home.
“You come here often?” I joked as we walked in the front door and people called out to Patience by name with smiles and greetings. More than one of them sent curious looks my way, but I ignored it.
“Yes.” She grins. “My best friend’s family owns it. Speaking of—” I watched as another woman shorter than Patience with dark brown curly hair and skin that seemed kissed by the sun, came over and wrapped her up in a hug.
“I heard about Grant,” I overheard her say as she pushed Patience back to have a look at her. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah. I’m good. Griff and the boys were at the bar when everything went down, so they would have stepped in if Tucker hadn’t gotten there first.” She nodded toward me over her shoulder, and the woman she was hugging swung her gaze toward mine.
“Hey.” She gave me a big smile and a dimple in her right cheek appeared, giving her a mischievous look. “I don’t believe we’ve met yet.” She held out her hand to me. “I’m Giana Lombardi.”
“Tucker Roth.” I accepted her hand and gave her a small nod of greeting.
“Let me get you guys seated.” She turned and led us toward the back of the restaurant dining room.
Patience shuddered subtly when I placed my hand on the small of her back, guiding her through the den of the restaurant. My own palm felt warm with an electrical current at the touch. When we got to the back, she slid into the curved booth first, and I moved in beside her, putting my back to the wall.
“What can I get you guys to drink?”
Patience smiled. “Sweet tea for me.”
“Same, please.”
“Sure, coming right up. Patience, you want the calamari or the spinach artichoke dip today?”
“You know me so well.” She grinned cheerfully. “I think I’ll let Tucker decide the appetizer.”
“Both.” I shrugged. I’ve never been a picky eater, and I had no idea which one Patience would prefer. She left it up to me, but I wanted to make sure she got what she wanted.
“I’ll get that put in and your drinks.” Giana laid two menus on the table in front of me.
Patience nudged me playfully. “You could have chosen something different if you wanted.”
I placed my elbows on the table and leaned a little closer to her, whispering conspiratorially. “Do I look like the type of man who does anything that I don’t want to do?”
“No.” She took a deep breath. “No, you don’t. Which reminds me, you told Grant we were dating. Now, we are here at Nonna’s together after we were seen shopping together, and we are going to the grocery store next—”
I looked at her questioningly. “Yeah, so?”
“This is a small town, Tucker. People will talk, and everyone will assume we are dating.”
“That’s not a bad thing with your ex around, Patience. I deter him from being an asshole even more than he already has been.”
“Here are your drinks.” Giana said breaking into the conversation as she brought our drinks to the table. “Your appetizers will be up in a minute. Do you know what you want to eat for your meal?”
I nodded for Patience to order first. She didn’t even need the menu to decide what she wanted. “I’ll have the mushroom and spinach ravioli, please.” She ordered with a smile.
“I should have known.” Her friend smiled at her and sent me a conspiratory wink. “Creature of habit this one, although, that seems to be rapidly changing.” She grinned. “And for you?” Giana asked as she scribbled down Patience’s order on her notepad.
“I’ll take the spaghetti and meatballs.” I handed her the menus before she could ask for it. No self-respecting Italian restaurant didn’t have spaghetti and meatballs.
“Thanks, Giana,” Patience said quickly.
“Thank you,” I echoed before turning back to the woman beside me as her friend walked away with a grin and a nod.
“I’m just saying, Tucker. I have a track record where men are concerned. If you stay for any length of time, and it still appears we are dating, people are going to assume this is real.”
I leaned back to study her face. Her brows were furrowed with concern, and her cheeks were flushed with embarrassment. “What exactly is your track record, Patience? That statement is a bit broad and can mean a few different things.”
“Let me just put it this way. Grant isn’t the first boyfriend to end up mad at me because things don’t progress where they would like them to.” She held up her hand. “He is the first to get physical with me, but I’ve been called more than a few vulgar names because I don’t let the relationships go far enough to get physical in other ways.”
I studied her and let her words fully sink in. Surely, she wasn’t telling me that she was still a virgin? She was twenty-one years old. Most girls don’t make it out of high school with their virginity intact, let alone into their early twenties.
“You’re telling me you’re a—” Her hand shot out to cover my mouth before I could say the word. I laughed behind her hand at the expression on her face as her eyes darted around the room like she’d been hiding some top-secret piece of information that she didn’t want leaked.
“Yes,” she whispered harshly. “So, if you stay too long and we keep up this ruse, people will suspect this is real.”
“And you don’t want them to think it’s real?” I asked quietly when she removed her hand from my mouth. I couldn’t give two shits what anyone thought about our situation, except for Patience, but I didn’t grow up in this town either. My family wasn’t here; not that I had any family to speak of, anyway.
She fiddled nervously with the napkin in front of her. “I just want you to know what you’re in for. I get bored with guys easily, which is why I break it off before anything happens. They say I’m cold, or worse, but it’s not true.”
“Patience, you don’t have to convince me of that fact. I know for damn sure you aren’t cold. There’s nothing wrong with being a virgin or selective. If it bothers you that people will think this is more than it is, then you can fake break up with me whenever you want.”
A look of relief was written all over her face, and I didn’t know whether to be insulted or amused by that fact. I settled on amusement because I didn’t want to dig into the reason I felt slightly annoyed at her relief.
We stopped talking as her friend walked up to the table and set the appetizers down in front of us. The air around us was charged with sexual tension that made my dick uncomfortably hard in my jeans.
She chewed on her lip, and I could all but see the wheels in her head turning like the cogs of a clock. “What is it?” I asked after her friend walked away and she hadn’t spoken up. She was just watching me with questions in her eyes.
“How do you know?”
“Know what?”
She hesitated and licked her lips. “Know that I’m not cold. You seem so sure of it, but I have a list of boyfriends who would say otherwise.”
Un-fucking-believable, I said to myself. The guys in this town were pieces of shit to make a girl feel like that. No wonder she won’t let her guard down around them if this is how they’ve treated her.
I dropped the fork I was about to use to pick up a piece of calamari and rubbed my hand over my jaw. How do you explain to an innocent that you’ve seen her body language around you? How her eyes light up like fireworks when she’s verbally sparring with you?
“I know the same way I know that at some point, this thing building up between us is like a volcano just waiting to erupt.”
She scoffed and shook her head. “You can’t know that.” The look she sent me said she didn’t fully believe what I said.
I cocked my head and studied her. She was denying what was glaringly obvious to me. There was mutual attraction and no small amount of desire simmering between us.
“Deny it all you want, Sweetheart. This thing,” I used my finger to indicate the air between us, “It will go off eventually, and when it does, it will be explosive.”
Chapter 7
PATIENCE
Fuck.
My panties might as well have been thrown into an incinerator. I crossed my legs under the table to try to ease the ache between them, but it was pointless. I honestly thought maybe all my ex-boyfriends had been right about me. Maybe I was frigid or just didn’t share desires the way normal couples did. I thought maybe I was broken.
As it turned out, we were all wrong. I didn’t respond to them because they weren’t Tucker.
I needed to get a bit of control over this conversation and quick before I went up in flames right there in the booth.
“A volcano? Isn’t that typically how you would describe someone with a bad temper?”
He grinned, and my insides melted a little more; if that was even possible? Dammit. “Yes, but it’s an accurate assessment for someone who has blue balls, too.”
The clearing of someone’s throat brought both our attention from each other to Giana, whose eyes sparkled with laughter as she slid our meals onto the table in front of us. “Call me later,” she mouthed, using her thumb and pinky to make the universal sign for a phone. I could hear her laughter as she walked away from our booth.
I nodded and rolled my eyes at her. She knew my work schedule. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind that if I didn’t call her, she’d be calling me to get the scoop on what was happening between Tucker and me. If she didn’t get a response through calls or texts, she’d track my ass down while I was at work.
“What’s the female equivalent of blue balls?” I asked, trying to lighten the subject a little and get the topic onto anything but the sexual chemistry that was driving me mad. I took a calamari ring and dunked it into the marinara before popping it into my mouth.
“I don’t know. Maybe chapped lips or a bummed beaver?” He joked and reached over to nab a calamari ring for himself. “None of the women I’ve ever been with have had to suffer from that particular condition.”
I almost choked on the calamari. My shoulders and chest heaved with coughs because the little circle of goodness that I love went down the wrong pipe. Tucker was gently patting me on the back as I tried to gain control over the racking coughs. I shook my head and reached for the sweet tea, gulping down a large swallow.
“You okay?” He was concerned, but also amused by what happened.
“Jerk,” I called him, but my laughter, ruined the false indignation I was trying to present.
I reached over to spoon some of the spinach artichoke dip onto a smaller plate with a few pieces of warm flatbread chips, then offered it to him before grabbing a second plate for myself.
Playfully, I threw a piece of chip at him, and he caught it and popped it into his mouth. “See, a toad.” I stuck my tongue out at him and enjoyed the deep rumble of his laughter.
“So, are we gonna Lady and the Tramp this thing or what?” He grinned and bounced his eyebrows at the big bowl of spaghetti and meatballs that was in front of him.
“Just remember, the tramp was the dude in that movie.”
He chuckled. “Did your mother ever tell you that you’re a smartass?”
“Every day of the week and twice on Sundays.” I grinned at him.
“Quoting A Few Good Men , consider me impressed.”
“What kind of movie did you think I would quote?”
“A chick flick, maybe Clueless or Legally Blonde ?”
“As if.” I gave him a smartass smirk. “Is that better?”
“Well, you have something else in common with Cher.”
“What?”
He leaned in closer to me and whispered close to my ear so only I could hear him. “You’re a virgin who can’t drive.”
I sucked in a sharp breath and pulled back from him. “You’ve seen Clueless ?”
“Even if I haven’t had my share of girlfriends in the past, I had a younger sister who watched it weekly when she was a teenager.”
“Had?” I asked when I see a flicker of pain in his eyes.
His demeanor did a one-eighty. “She died a long time ago. I don’t really want to talk about it.”
“Okay,” I agreed immediately, though I wanted to find out more about his sister and what happened to her. “Is the grocery store the last stop today?” I asked, changing the subject.
“Yes. The last thing you can help me with, at least. I’ll make sure you get back home to get ready for work in plenty of time.”
“Sounds good.”
We talked a little more as we ate, but it didn’t get back to the funny banter we had before he mentioned his sister. I didn’t know what I missed more as we finished lunch—his smiles or his teasing. I’d never had so much fun on a date, and even when things got serious as far as the conversation went, I still felt so relaxed around him. I caught myself analyzing the last hour and had to put a stop to it.
This isn’t a date. I had to remind myself because I kept forgetting that fact. Tucker and I were—I don’t know what we were—we weren’t friends exactly, but we weren’t dating either. He only told Grant that to protect me, because that’s the kind of guy he is. My mind wandered as I tried to find a label that fit what Tucker and I were to each other, but I had nothing. He didn’t fit in any one box.
“You look like you’re trying to solve world hunger.” He was reaching for his wallet to pay the check for lunch, and I reached for my own, not expecting him to pay for my food as well.
“Just thinking. How much, so I can pay my half?”
Tucker paused and looked at me like I’d just slapped him in the face. “Where I come from, the guy pays.”
“For a date, maybe, but this isn’t a date.” I opened my wallet to reach for the tip money I had inside from the previous night.
His hand covered mine as he reached out to stop me. “Maybe not a date, but it’s a thank you for driving me around today.”
“Oh.” I paused, not sure what to say to that. “You’re sure?”
“I’m sure.” He took his hand away, but I could still feel where his skin touched mine. He handed a black card over to Giana when she approached the table.
“Was everything alright?” she asked, accepting the card from him.
“It was wonderful as always,” I answered with a smile. “Thanks, G.”
“Thank you. It was great. I hope to come back before I leave town.” Tucker paid Giana the compliment and her gaze slid over to me as her smile faded with concern.
“I hope you do too. Give me a moment and I’ll be back with your card.” She turned away, leaving us alone at the table.
“Thank you for lunch,” I said softly, ignoring the heaviness that I felt over his words about leaving. I shouldn’t be attached to him. He was always going to leave, but I didn’t want him to. I slid out of the booth once the Giana brought the receipt back. My stomach was full of good food and butterflies again, which made me a bit nauseous.
He’s not here for long, Patience , I scolded myself. My head was warning me, but my heart was being stubborn and refused to give up the flicker of hope for so much more.
***
“Do you need help upstairs?” I asked over my shoulder as I opened my door to climb out.
“No. You need to go get ready for work, so you aren’t rushing and running stop signs again.”
“You’re never going to let me live that down, are you?” I settled my hands on my hips in a mock annoyed gesture.
“Maybe someday, but today is not that day.” He nodded toward the house. “Thanks for the offer, but I got this.”
I nodded and grabbed my purse before heading into the house. I had about forty-five minutes before I needed to be at the brewery, so I ran upstairs and swiftly changed into my black jeans and a shirt. Quickly, I ran a brush through my hair and pulled it up into a messy bun on top of my head. Fixing my makeup took a little more time, but since I didn’t wear much, it’s over and done soon enough.
“Did you eat?” Mom asked when I walked back downstairs and into the kitchen.
“Yeah. Tucker and I went to Nonna’s before we went to the grocery store.”
Mom’s gaze lingered on me, but I looked away quickly so she couldn’t read my thoughts. Tucker read me so easily. It was hard to believe that the people closest to me couldn’t see what he does. He was a good guy, but he scared the shit out of me because he was a loner—not the type to want to settle down. Even as I said that to myself, I knew it sounded hypocritical when I didn’t typically last past five dates with a guy myself, but I couldn’t help it.
“Did you apologize for being rude this morning?”
“No. I’ll apologize next time I see him,” I promised.
Mom nodded and gave me a hug. “Have a good night at work. I love you.”
“Love you, too. Tell Dad I love him when he gets home.”
“I will.”
By the time I finally left the house, I had fifteen minutes to get to work. I knew I was cutting it close, so I ran upstairs to his apartment and knocked quickly on the door. Tucker still had my keys from earlier. When he didn’t answer, I knocked harder.
“TUCKER!” I shouted as I knocked again.
The door pulled open quickly and my mouth snapped shut. Tucker was wet and only wearing a towel around his waist. His shoulders were wide, and water from his hair left drops to fall onto the smooth muscular curves of his shoulders and slide down his well-defined pecs with dusky brown nipples. My mouth watered, and I suddenly felt thirsty as hell, like I hadn’t had anything to drink in days.
The six-pack I saw earlier was on display again, and the sharp V of his lower abdomen made me want to drop to my knees and give homage to the muscles the man had cultivated over the years. I noticed the rather ugly scar on the left side of his ribcage, but even that scar didn’t detract from his masculine beauty. My eyes ate him up like a candy bar. When my eyes moved on from the feast that was his abdomen, I noticed the tent behind his towel.
I swung my gaze back up to his and found him looking at me just as hard. There was amusement in his gaze for sure, but also a hunger that I had never seen on any man’s face before. I shivered from the primal desire I saw deep in his eyes. “Keep looking at me like that, Patience, and I’ll lose what little control I have.”
I swallowed hard and licked my lips nervously as those butterflies started dancing again. What did I need from him? I know I came up here for a reason , I questioned myself. Fuck. Him coming to the door naked, save for the towel, made me lose my train of thought.
“Keys!” I half shouted as I remembered what had brought me to his door. “I need my keys so I can get to work.”
Tucker grabbed the keys from the table next to the door and handed them to me. I quickly grasped them, but he didn’t release them right away. My gaze swung back up to his. “Drive carefully, Patience.” His cocky smirk showed his amusement at how much he rattled me. We both knew it, and he enjoyed it.
I nodded as he released the keys into my hand. I turned to run down the stairs and rushed to the safety of my car. My chest eased when I felt like I could breathe again. The image of Tucker in nothing but a towel was going to play the main role in my fantasies for a while, if not for the rest of my life. He was perfection, even with the angry scar. He was sinful, beautiful, tantalizing perfection, and I wanted nothing more than to taste the unknown with him. I was in way over my head where Tucker Roth was concerned. He was so out of my league that we weren’t even in the same damn arena, but that didn’t stop me from wanting him.