Chapter Sixteen
Phoebe
Before going back to Tucker’s house, we stopped for tacos. I didn’t want any, but he insisted. Said it would help with my hangover.
It did.
I feel a lot better after eating tacos from a food truck in the parking lot of the grocery store. Never again will I pass them up.
Now, I lie in Tucker’s bed, my head on his chest while he plays with my hair. Both still fully clothed.
My stomach feels better, but I have a horrible headache. Between the dehydration from the hangover and the crying, it hurts to blink. But I want to know anything and everything Tucker wants to tell me.
I can’t quite wrap my head around everything right now. It hurts too much to think that hard. And my emotions are all over the place.
And I lied. I said I would fall in love, but the truth is, I already have. Even though Tucker never stayed after coming to my room, I still feel cared for. But hearing him tell his brother losing me wouldn’t hurt stabbed me right in the heart.
I want to believe he didn’t mean it. He says he didn’t, and I hope I’m not making a mistake accepting it.
“Tonight, we’re just going to talk and sleep,” Tucker says. “No sex.”
“You don’t want to have sex with me?”
“I always want to have sex with you, but I know your head hurts. Besides, this is kind of a big moment for me.”
“You don’t have to—”
“Yeah, I do,” he says, his lips pressing against the top of my head. “You deserve to understand how I got… like this.”
I smile against his chest. I can feel a scar on his chest, and I want to see it. My heart aches to think it’s tied to the one on his cheek, and I’m a little unsure if I want to know how they came to be. How and who marred his beautiful body.
“Jo was everything to me,” he says, his voice vibrating his chest and tickling my ear. “I would have done anything for her, but she was the daughter of one of our rivals. My family is… you know… the mob.”
Leaning up, I look down at him. We turned out the lights, but there’s a sliver of light from the window that gives me enough to see the outline of his face. “What? Your family’s in the mob?”
“No, my family is the mob. Generations tied to it. And it’s pretty hard finding someone who isn’t tied to one of the rivals because there are so many. And when my family found out about Jo and me, they weren’t what you’d call happy. Or supportive.”
He gives me a history lesson of his father. How he became the head of an organized crime family, and I can honestly say I wasn’t certain they were real. Not beyond the 90s with all the RICO cases that I read about in school.
“How did you and Joanna get together?”
Having families who hate each other seems like it would be difficult to end up together. Unless their goals were to piss off both sides, I suppose.
“Honestly, I don’t even know how it started. We had mutual friends who played both sides, and we kind of bonded over the sins of our fathers. Then one day, we were just… in love. We hid it for the longest time, but we got caught.”
“That sounds romantic. And kind of scary,” I say.
He chuckles. “We were planning to run away together. I disappeared to get everything ready. The plan was to meet up at the park and take off. Get married and live our lives away from our families.”
There’s a pain in his voice that brings tears to my eyes. I don’t know what he’s about to say, but I know it’s going to break my heart.
“My father ordered her death. I went to meet her, and she didn’t show. By the time I found out what happened, I was too late. I tried to save her, but it did no good. I threw myself in front of her as my brother slashed at her, and he got me instead.”
“He cut your face?” I whisper. “Ryan?”
He nods and takes my hand in his. Bringing it to his cheek, he runs my fingertips over the scar and down underneath his shirt where it continues at a diagonal. I’ve never officially seen him naked, and I want to. I want to kiss away the scar on his chest that I can’t see.
The last thing Tucker deserved was losing the love of his life and having physical scars to show it. To live with the visual reminders of it.
That’s why he didn’t want to tell me how he got them. All I can imagine is a younger version of him, jumping in front of the woman he loves as his brother cuts at her and taking the blade himself. Then he probably freed her and held her as she laid dead in his arms.
He planned to run away and marry the woman he loved. They were going to leave their families behind, and he had to witness his own family killing her.
God, it must hurt him every single day. I know the pain I feel at my own loss, but this is different. It brings tears to my eyes, and I lay back down, resting my head on his chest.
“She was from a religious family. She wanted to get married in a cathedral. I never thought that when I stood beside her in front of the pews that she’d be in a casket instead of a wedding dress.”
The hurt this betrayal and loss have caused him is more than evident in his voice, and I just want to kiss away his pain. But we’ve never kissed. He’s kissed my neck and my temple, but that’s it. Never my lips.
“I’m so sorry, Tucker,” I whisper, kissing his chest over his T-shirt.
“I’m sorry I made you believe I could just forget about you when things settle down. That’s the farthest thing from the truth. You’ve burrowed your way into my soul.”
His fingertips run through my hair, and I sigh. I suppose I can settle for being in his soul. Souls continue on beyond the present plane, and maybe it means more than being in his heart. Even though I’d give anything to be there, too.
“Can I ask a favor?” I ask, my heart in my throat. “You can say no if you want to.”
“What’s that, Yellow Crayon?”
“I know you’re specific with your… preferences, and I’m okay with having you how you need, but can you not see that woman from the brothel? At least while I’m here?”
I’m terrified, my heart racing, that I’ve overstepped with my request. But I need him to know it bothers me. When he leaves me alone after the deed is done, I don’t like thinking I’m just like her. That I get the same treatment as an escort.
“I saw Queenie before I came to find you at Sarah’s house,” he says.
And my heart breaks. “Oh.”
“I told her I couldn’t see her anymore. And I haven’t been with her since our first night together,” Tucker says. “The only time I’ve gone to Velvet Desire is for business.”
Relief fills me, and I let out a long breath. “Thank you.”
“Is that why you faked it with me?”
He sounds hurt, and I’m glad we’re lying in darkness. I don’t think I could handle the hurt I know is in his beautiful blue eyes. It still amazes me how much emotion I can read in them when his face and body language give nothing away.
“Every time since that first night, I could tell.”
“I thought I did such a good job,” I say with a pout. “And it’s part of the reason. I’m sorry, Tucker.”
He chuckles and runs his hand over my cheek, tucking my hair behind my ear. It’s such an affectionate gesture, and I want nothing more than to kiss him. To show him he’s safe to let me in more than he has. I need him to know that I have no intention of hurting him.
Then again, the way we’re lying could be considered cuddling. Which he doesn’t do. Maybe there is hope after all.
“That’s why I accidentally got you drunk. I planned to only get you buzzed so you’d open up, but I didn’t count on how much of a lightweight you are.”
“I kind of figured out you were the one behind it. But I don’t know why. You could’ve just asked.”
He chuckles, but it’s one of those humorless ones he does so often. “No, I couldn’t. You stopped talking to me. You’d lie and say you were fine when I knew you weren’t. And it wasn’t just in the bedroom.”
“I suppose you have a point.”
“You started getting quiet. It kind of freaked me out. I wanted to get you talking again.”
Now, I’m the one to laugh without humor. “Most people would pay me to shut up.”
“It took some getting used to, but I like when you talk. And it was kind of nice knowing you wanted to get to know me even when I made it known I didn’t want to answer anything. No one has wanted to know me in a long time. I’m just not an easy man.”
“So, your solution to find out my deepest secrets was to get me drunk?”
Groaning, he sighs. To be honest, I’m not exactly a fan of his interrogation method. It makes everything feel so messy and disconnected. Not how I imagine a relationship should be.
“I didn’t mean to get you drunk. And I only wanted to know what I did to upset you.
It’s been horrible thinking I’m killing your spirit.
But I had to know. And if you’d said that’s what I was doing, I’d have figured out how to let you go.
It’s the last thing I wanted to do, but I would have, if I had to. ”
He’s right. I hate to admit it, but he is. I wouldn’t have told him the truth. “I understand. I don’t like the method, but I get it.”
“You still haven’t told me. Not the full reason. Please don’t tell me I’m dimming your light.”
“It was partially the thought of you with your escort. But it was the leaving right afterwards. That bothers me, but I know it’s kind of what you need; plus, now I know why.”
“I’ll do better,” he whispers.
His fingers massage my scalp, and I close my eyes as the relaxing tingles help ease the ache. It’s such an unromantic touch that feels incredibly intimate.
Tucker Vega. A man who is nothing but contradictions.
“I have a question for you.”
His voice is quiet, and my defenses go up against my will. “What’s that?”
“Your tattoo… Is that why you’re terrified of the basement?”
How does he know about my tattoo? He’s never seen me naked. Has he? Did he see it last night? He said we didn’t have sex, and I woke up mostly clothed. “Kind of.”
“Can you tell me?”
My heart races as memories try to flood my mind that I keep locked up behind the door of my brain, and my vision blurs. “No,” I whisper. “I’m sorry. Please don’t make me—”
“Shh,” he says, wrapping his arms tighter around me. “You don’t have to tell me. I hope you’re ready one day, but I won’t make you. Just promise me something.”
He’s not making me tell him, so he gets whatever he wants. “Anything.”
It’s the moment I know trying to keep a shield up to protect my heart is pointless. I’m drowning in love with him.
“If I ever do something that triggers you—anything that makes you think about the basement—tell me. I’ll stop immediately. No hesitation or questions.”
The fact he’s worried he might trigger me makes me want to cry. He does care. No one who doesn’t care would ask this. “As long as you don’t force me into a basement, I’m okay. Any basement. I freak out. Full panic. Straitjacket necessary insanity.”
It’s true. I had to break a lease before I moved into an apartment in college because they switched me to a basement apartment. The freak-out scared the landlord enough that the fee to break the lease was waived.
“I hope one day you’ll feel you can tell me what happened, Yellow Crayon. I want you to let me in as much as you want me to let you in.”
Swallowing, I squeeze my eyes shut, tears slipping out and onto his chest. “The memory of why I got the tattoo isn’t the problem. It’s what happened because of it that I can’t let out of the vault. I’m scared I’ll shatter if I do.”
“I’m right here if you decide to try,” he whispers. “But if you can’t, I understand.”
I nod and take comfort in his arms. A comfort I’ve never felt with anyone since my grandma was alive. No one has ever wanted to before.
So what if he took me to a bar to liquor me up? I still trust him. I know I’m safe with him. And I’d forgotten what that feels like.