Chapter 12
Twelve
Sebastian
“Come on, we can take the path that splits off the one over to the right,” Tucker says, pointing off the deck where I can see a well-worn path in the trees.
He puts a hand on my back as we move to the deck steps, and I flinch away without meaning to.
Fuck me, I did it again. I’m trying not to react like this, but every time he touches me, my brain goes right back to my shower earlier, and I imagine him on his knees, his mouth on my cock, and it sends a bolt of electricity down my spine that hits me in the balls in a way that feels way too good.
I move away so I don't accidentally do something that’ll freak him out without realizing it.
He lifts his hands in surrender and takes a step back.
“I’m so sorry, it’s a habit and something I do with my friends and family, I guess.
I didn't mean anything by touching you. I tend to get overly familiar and forget not everyone’s cool with that, but I shouldn't have put my hands on you,” he rushes to say, his eyes wide and the freckles on his nose standing out prominently against his skin as his face pales.
Fuck, I don't want him to feel bad for something as simple as our fingers brushing or putting his hand on my back. It’s not his fault I’m a freak who imagined him sucking my cock while I jacked off, and now I’m guilty as hell over it.
He, on the other hand, is a perfectly nice guy who has been super respectful and offered me a place to hang out that feels way better than anywhere else has in a long time. I shouldn’t put this on him.
“No, don't be sorry. It’s totally fine. As much as I’m around other people, I haven’t been touched casually since Eliana died.
I’m not used to it anymore.” I guess that explanation works because it’s technically true, even though I’m glossing over the real reason I’m jumpy as hell when he touches me.
Tucker visibly relaxes, and the color slowly returns to his face, which he keeps downcast away from me.
I freaked him the fuck out. He must have had someone in the past get mad about a casual touch and lay into him because of it.
You wouldn’t apologize so thoroughly and look like you’re about to get fucked up otherwise. Poor dude.
“Path to the pond is that way,” he says, pointing at it and keeping his distance.
“Lead the way.” I put my hand on his back to lead him down the steps this time, and now he’s smiling and shaking his head.
It’s not a far walk, maybe five minutes through the woods on his property.
We come out of the trees at a decent-sized pond with a short, sun-worn wooden dock on the side closest to us.
There are two Adirondack chairs at the end of the dock, and a small shed off to our right that probably has his fishing equipment or something in it.
I bet he likes coming out here. It’s quiet and peaceful and seems very Tucker.
The sun is starting to set, the sky a riot of bright orange, dusty pink, and streaks of crimson near the horizon.
The scene takes my breath away, and I’m sent back to every time Eliana insisted we chase the sunset, wanting to capture the beauty and take it in, no matter what else was going on.
She was a sucker for a pretty sky. I have to force my lungs to expand again so I don’t fall to my knees in the dirt with the memory.
The sky is reflected in the pond, broken up by the reeds and vegetation near the edges.
The night sounds of summer in the South serenade us.
Cicadas screech in their long-winded mating calls while crickets chirp and nightbirds call to one another.
It’s achingly beautiful in an unfamiliar way that calls me to fold into myself and weep for what I’ve lost, what Enzo will never have, and how I can't seem to measure up.
Instead, I push away the emotions and follow Tucker down the dock to the chairs, staring up at the sky above the trees in the distance and feeling incredibly fortunate that I get to experience this moment when Eliana has missed so many sunsets.
I clutch my sweating beer bottle in one shaking hand and bring the other up to my face, squeezing my temples as my eyes prick and burn with the thought.
“You okay?” Tucker asks quietly from his chair beside me.
I clear my throat and try not to let the memories drag me down with warm, welcoming hands into the despair I know is waiting for me.
“My wife loved sunsets. This would have made her so happy. She took photos of every pretty sunset, even if she caught it in a non-scenic spot. She used to say grocery store parking lot sunsets were some of the prettiest she’d ever seen.
But I think she’d have liked this even more.
It’s been a while since I sat and took one in like this. ”
“Do you ever take photos of the sunset now, like she did?” Tucker asks. I look at him and see gentle curiosity and support.
I pull my phone out with trembling hands and snap a photo of the fiery sky, catching the reflection on the water, with the trees in the background.
I turn to Tucker, flipping to selfie mode, and hold up the phone.
He gives me a shy smile as I look into the screen and take a photo that captures a bit of the sky behind us, but mainly shows us sitting on the dock, with Tucker mostly looking at me.
It’s perfect.
I put my phone away and shake my head, feeling awkward.
It’s not like how my wife used to collect photos of the sky and sort them into a folder on her phone that she would look at when the sky was gray or she had seasonal depression and said they made her happy again.
I sigh, the sound deep and resonant between us as it mingles with the night sounds.
“It was Eliana’s thing, you know?” I say, finally answering Tucker’s earlier question.
“I enjoyed them because she did. I never thought too much about them before meeting her, but now she always shows up in the summer sunsets that take my breath away unexpectedly. Like when I leave an evening practice and the sky is on fire, or I happen to glance out the window just as the sun is dropping below the horizon, and everything is streaked with deep purples and orange. Those were her favorite colors. That was unfortunate for our first apartment when we were in college, because we realized that enjoying two colors separately doesn’t make for a good combination when you decorate with them. ”
Tucker laughs with me, and I notice he’s been listening intently as I speak to the sky and the pond in front of us, which ripples with fish surfacing to eat insects that dip into the water.
“She sounds like an amazing woman. You must’ve been happy together,” he says.
Tell him.
Fuck, Eli, you’re bossy even now. I run a palm across my face and blink at the sky, following a bat making a jagged path across the expanse of orange in what I swear is an E shape. Okay, okay. I’ll tell him.
“We were, but I realized that even the happiest relationship still has its struggles. We fought about stupid stuff all the time.”
“Everyone fights, even the perfect relationships, or so I’ve heard,” Tucker says. “What stupid things did y’all fight about?”
“So many things.” I shake my head and chuckle ruefully as I take a sip of beer.
“If I knew how little time I would have with her, I wouldn’t have fought those battles, because they didn't actually matter. She was Brazilian, and I’m Italian, and we both had legendary tempers.
She was fiercely independent, and I wanted to take care of her.
She once left me at a bar and walked two miles home to prove a point. The girl was a powerhouse.”
“A true firecracker.” Tucker laughs. “Was it just your tempers that got in the way, or did it go deeper?”
I roll my eyes because it all seems so stupid now, but at the time, they were big fights between us.
I run my thumb along the condensation on the bottle in my hand before lifting it and draining the rest. This is my fourth beer, and I'm starting to feel a buzz.
Might as well get drunk as I tear my heart open and bleed out all the things I haven't been able to say to anyone in years.
“She wanted to settle down and start a family right away, but I was just starting my hockey career and knew it would move us around a lot. I thought we should wait until I was a more established player and had a chance to stay in one place a long time, so our kids weren’t moving around the country, or even the world, so much.
She gave me three years of marriage before she said it was time, and that was that.
She got pregnant and was so happy to have won that argument.
She liked to gloat. Neither of us planned for a future that didn't include her, so when Enzo was born, we weren’t expecting any complications.
She was healthy, a collegiate soccer player, she ate well, and there hadn’t been anything during the pregnancy that would have indicated trouble, but we still lost her.
I didn't know what to do. It’s so unfair.
My dreams all included her, but she was torn out of those images we’d painted, and all that was left were nightmares I still can't navigate through.”
I let the bottle drop to my feet with a thunk and cradle my head in my hands as the memories rush through my brain, burrowing out of the nooks and crannies I’d stowed them in and beating me senseless until I can't breathe from the pain. No one’s asked me about Eliana, thinking it was too sensitive a subject, and I haven't been able to say these thoughts out loud. They’ve just lived in my head, becoming a tortured ball of dread that I avoid whenever I can because I can't pick out the knots to untangle one from the other. Tucker’s calm, quiet acceptance allowed me to give voice to the ghosts that have haunted me for four years.
Now I’m pulling them out like an abscessed tooth, full of throbbing pain, yet hopefully left better for it. And fuck, it hurts so badly.