Chapter 6
6
T ucker willed time to move faster.
The day ticked by meticulously slowly, though he found various tasks to keep himself busy. He’d completed nearly everything on his to-do list before helping the servers deliver food to each table. He was almost positive he was getting on their nerves—more than a couple of times, a few of the servers told him to take it easy, grab a drink, and let them do their job. He was a workaholic—they all knew it and had no problem telling him to take a step back so he didn’t burn out.
But he needed to keep moving. Needed to stay busy, until she showed up.
Because ever since he met Hanna, he realized maybe everyone else was right—that there was more to life than the restaurant.
As he was taking a shrimp cocktail to a couple on a date much less disastrous as Hanna’s, he saw her come in out of the corner of his eye.
She was wearing jeans and an oversized sweater, her brown hair pulled into a clip. As she caught his gaze, she smirked and held up a magnifying glass.
Tucker let out a guffaw, startling people at the tables around him. He bit his lip, giving hasty apologies for his outburst, then dropped off the shrimp cocktail before meeting Hanna at the hostess stand, where she was already charming the hostess.
“I’ve got it from here,” Tucker said to the girls at the hostess stand. They eyed him curiously as he put a hand on Hanna’s lower back and steered her toward a table close to the bar, a zap of electricity radiating through him at the contact.
“I hate to break it to you, but this date is not off to a good start,” Hanna said, a frown on her face as she sat down.
Tucker’s grin faltered, wondering what he’d done wrong. Slowly, he sat down across from her.
Then Hanna leaned in and conspiratorially whispered, “I was promised a trench coat.”
His shoulders dropped as he chuckled. “You were.”
“At least you got one thing right, though,” she said, her cheeks flushing.
He lifted a brow quizzically.
She bit her lip, eyes darting away, before whispering, “The devastatingly handsome part.”
His cheeks warmed—not just at the compliment, but in her utter shyness in its delivery. He hadn’t known Hanna long, but in that short time, he hadn’t come to think of her as timid.
It was cute, this new side of her. He liked it. He liked her.
“Hey, Tuck,” one of his best waitresses, a college student named Sheila, interrupted them. “Can I grab drinks for you?”
Tucker gestured to Hanna, encouraging her to go first.
She ordered a old fashioned, and he asked for an IPA they had on tap.
“And an order of shrimp cocktail, please,” he told Sheila, keeping his eyes on Hanna—on her fidgeting, on the cheeks that kept getting rosier.
Sheila left to put in their orders, and an awkward silence fell over the table. There were a million things he wanted to ask her, a million things he wanted to tell her. But he couldn’t remember the last time he’d been on a date. Usually, he and Shawn just fucked around with tourists. He hadn’t had time for anything more—hadn’t made time.
And now he felt himself spectacularly lacking when it came to romance and casual conversation.
Not to mention, he could be entertained just by staring at her, watching the way she took in the world, the way her face flushed at the mildest things, the way she got easily distracted. Hanna moved through the world like a newborn giraffe.
He reminded himself to never say that to her. Probably wouldn’t be received as a compliment.
“I believe you owe me a story about… What was it again? A dead squirrel?” She finally said, her lips tilting upward.
Tucker felt his mouth curve into a smile as Sheila placed their drinks and appetizer in front of them.
“That I do,” he responded as she took a bite of shrimp cocktail. “So?—“
“Holy shit, this is good,” she interrupted. “I didn’t even get to taste this last time on that horrible date, but oh my god.”
She groaned, and the sound went straight to his cock as he watched her lick her lips.
Fuck. That mouth.
“Sorry to interrupt, but, like, I want to take a bath in this sauce,” she said, dipping another shrimp, breaking him out of his reverie. “Of course, that dream will never become a reality because this is your Granny’s secret recipe and you’ll never give it to me. Not that I would ever ask for it. I respect the secret family recipe situation. But wow. This is heavenly. Okay, sorry for interrupting. Back to this super embarrassing childhood story.”
She was an absolute tornado.
He loved it.
“No apology necessary,” Tucker responded sincerely. “Anytime you want to interrupt me to compliment my food, go right ahead and do it.”
She grinned and kept eating.
“So I was 14, I had just seen Sherlock Holmes, and I suddenly decided I wanted to be a detective.” The memory was fresh, as if it had happened yesterday and not over a decade ago. “I’d overheard my mom talking to our neighbor, Mrs. Lee, about how dead squirrels kept being left on her front porch. They had no idea why. And I decided that I would be the one to solve the case.”
“How ambitious of you,” Hanna said with faux seriousness in between bites.
“Of course, I knew my parents would disapprove,” Tucker continued. “At the time, I told myself they wouldn’t understand . I also didn’t talk to them unless I absolutely had to since I was well into my angsty teenage years. So early the next morning, before anyone woke up, I snuck over to my neighbor’s house to see if there was a dead squirrel.”
Hanna’s eyes widened. “And?”
“There was.” Tucker leaned back, taking a dramatic pause. “I went back the next four mornings and always, without fail, there was a dead squirrel on the porch.”
“What did they look like?” She asked breathlessly, fascination and curiosity swirling in her eyes.
“Dead,” he laughed. “Maimed in one way or another. A little bloody. Stiff.”
“You didn’t take detailed notes?”
He bit back a grin. “Clearly, I wasn’t the detective you were.”
“Are.” She raised her eyebrows and grabbed another shrimp. “So what did you do?”
“A very stupid thing.” His cheeks grew hot. “I took all the squirrels home, put them in a plastic bag, and labeled them with the day I found them. As evidence.”
She burst into laughter. “You’re kidding me.”
Making her laugh was so fun. He’d embarrass himself more often if it meant this was the reaction he got. “I kept the bags of dead squirrels in a box in my closet with the other evidence.”
“Part of me is impressed by your dedication to detective work,” she said, reigning in her giggles. “And part of me is extremely grossed out. Didn’t it absolutely reek?”
“Oh, absolutely. Bad. And?—”
“Wait,” she cut him off, her eyes widening. “Did you say other evidence?”
He bit his lip. “I started taking anything near the ‘crime scene,’” he said using air quotes, “that looked like it could have any sort of relation to the dead squirrels.”
“Naturally,” Hanna said with amusement. “So that would be…?”
Tucker rubbed his hand over his face, half-disbelieved that he freely offered up this story. “Newspapers. Leaves. Their welcome mat…”
She covered her mouth. “You didn’t.”
“That’s not even the worst part,” he said, gearing up to drop the big whammy. “I also started collecting various… fecal samples from other animals I found nearby.”
“Tucker,” Hanna whispered, eyes darting around nervously, though amusement sparkled behind them. “That’s serial killer behavior.”
“Well, that’s exactly what my parents thought when they found my little collection.”
Her hand clapped over her mouth. She gasped. “No.”
“Unfortunately, yes.”
“ No.”
“When I got home from school, there was a police officer and a social worker waiting for me.”
Hanna covered her eyes with her hands. “Oh my god, I’m getting so much second-hand embarrassment. What did you do?”
“Well, I was confused.” Tucker ran a hand through his hair. “But the officer had laid all my evidence out on the dining room table and asked me to explain myself.”
“Tucker.”
He loved the way she said his name, but couldn’t help wishing it were under different circumstances. “My dad looked so serious, and—I kid you not—my mom was crying.”
“Oh god. It keeps getting worse.”
“It was mortifying,” he said grimly, his embarrassment coursing through his body as if this had only happened last week rather than 15 years ago. “I spent, like, 30 minutes explaining myself. The cop thought it was hilarious. ”
He let out a chuckle recalling the way the officer struggled to keep in his laughter as Tucker described his sleuthing efforts. Small town life meant he never quite lived it down, given the officer who was at his house that day was the same one who pulled him over for driving 45 miles per hour in a 25 mile-per-hour zone when he was 16—and the one who broke up the drunken beachfront bonfire he and Shawn organized the night of their graduation.
To this day, he was a regular at his restaurant—and still cheekily called him Sherlock.
Running a hand through his hair, he added, “My mom made me write an apology letter to our neighbor.”
“What did it say?” Hanna asked, wiping tears of laughter from her eyes. “‘Sorry I stole your welcome mat, it was in the name of justice?’”
Tucker grinned. “Something like that. She also thought it was hilarious, and like everyone else in my small hometown, she refers to me as Sherlock to this day.”
“Is that supposed to be an insult?” Hanna asked, her eyes crinkling with barely-held-back laughter.
“That’s what I said!”