Chapter 13
IS CHAUFFEURING A WOMAN HOME YOUR THIRD JOB?
Tucker
The crowd has died down and left the bar with just a few stragglers still singing off key despite Nan closing up the karaoke machine over an hour ago. The floor is sticky and smells like whiskey and fried food, and my back is sore as hell. But somehow, I can’t stop smiling because Scottie is here.
I’m not ashamed to admit I’ve been watching her all night. Laughing with Lily and Poppy at the bar. She didn’t get up to sing karaoke, but the three of them belted the songs—badly, but full of life.
She lights this whole damn place up.
Like she doesn’t even realize how much space she takes up just by being herself.
I’d be lying if I said I don’t like having a front row seat to it.
Lily leans against the bar, sipping the last of her drink like she’s savoring it. She has a look on her face like she needs to ask me something, but thinks I’ll say no.
“Having a good night?” I ask with a raised brow.
“Great night,” Lily says, dragging out her words. She turns to face Scottie and Poppy, who seem to be engaged in a deep conversation. “Scottie’s got potential.”
“At karaoke?”
“Life, Tucker,” she answers, still looking at her before she faces me again. “Not everything is about the music.”
Scottie laughs at whatever she and Poppy are talking about, and I face her again, wiping down the bar top. Her cheeks are flushed, hair a little wild, and eyes bright in a way that makes it hard to look away.
“A part of me is envious of her,” Lily continues. “But that’s how it starts.”
“How what starts?”
“Believing in the what ifs,” she says, voice barely above a whisper, as if she doesn’t want anyone to hear her saying it out loud. She glances at me and knows I heard it. “Believing in something like that will get you every time.”
I laugh, thinking she’s joking around. “You sound like you’re speaking from experience.”
“Or deep regret.”
I stand there silently, because I haven’t heard Lily talk like this before. I have a strange feeling that Lily knows what it’s like to want something she never let herself chase. It makes me wonder how many people settle into a muted version of life because they’re too afraid to want more.
I think she’s going to walk away, but she turns back to me, the smile from before on her face like that conversation never happened. “Do you think you can give Scottie a ride home? I mean, since she’s staying with you anyway.”
I freeze mid-wipe of the counter and give her a knowing look. “Really, Lil?”
“Uh-huh. Why would I go to the other end of town when you’re going that way anyway?”
I glance at Scottie, who’s hugging Poppy goodbye, before she walks to where Lily and I are at the bar.
“Ready?” she asks Lily.
“Actually…” Lily pauses, extending a hand toward me. “Tucker is going to take you home, if that’s okay? Since he’s going that way.”
Scottie looks at me, and her expression is unreadable.
Honestly, it’s a welcoming look. It’s not a death stare like I’m the last person she would like to get a ride home with. It does something to me I can’t quite explain.
“Sure,” she says.
I nod. “I just have to close up here. Are you okay to wait like fifteen minutes?”
“Yeah.”
She takes a seat on the barstool and pulls out her phone. I move around, closing out the last two tabs, wiping down counters, and pretending I’m not rushing just to have a reason to be near her.
By the time I’m done, the bar is empty.
When I finish up and grab everything from the kitchen, I come back out and find myself staring at her for a moment. She sits there under the low glow of the lights dangling over the bar. Her hair is loose, and she’s the most relaxed I’ve ever seen her.
Right now, it’s just her—no audience. The version of her that doesn’t need to perform, and god, that version wrecks me, but everything about Scottie does. The way she bites her bottom lip, the little frown when she’s thinking, and the way she looks way too good under bad lighting.
She’s supposed to be my fake girlfriend, not the reason I forget how to breathe.
“Ready?” I ask, clearing my throat and rounding to her side of the bar.
She stands from her stool and follows me wordlessly.
I lock up the front door behind me. The night air is thick and quiet, the kind of silence that makes my thoughts too loud.
I open the passenger door for her, and she smiles as she slides in, crossing her legs and tugging her seat belt into place.
Rounding the hood of the truck, I hop in and immediately notice her perfume everywhere.
It’s something soft, like vanilla. It throws me off kilter because it’s a smell that doesn’t match her bold lipstick and sharp words.
The engine rumbles to life, and Scottie breaks the silence. “Thank you for the ride. Is chauffeuring women home your third job?”
I turn to face her with a smirk before pulling the truck out onto the main road. “Nope. I only do it for you, Scottie.”
Even with the street lights illuminating her face every few seconds, I can see the way her cheeks flush the perfect shade of pink before she looks away quickly, like she knows I see it. It’s a simple proof that I’m not imagining the pull between us.
She clears her throat. “Is this…normal? Lily inviting people out and then dumping them on you?”
Her tone is guarded, wondering whether she misread the whole friendship she’s forming with Lily.
Shit.
I tighten the grip on the steering wheel because the last thing I want her to feel is out of place. “She’s only done it twice. And it’s not—she’s not ditching you. She has this theory.”
“About what?”
I turn onto the long stretch of road that leads toward my house. “Before Griffin and Blair got together, Lily did the same thing with them,” I say slowly. “And with Dallas and Poppy. She thinks she’s this quiet mastermind, nudging people toward their happily ever after.”
Her brows lift. “She’s matchmaking?”
“She thinks we don’t notice.”
“And what does she think she’s doing with us?”
I can feel her stare on the side of my face. I shouldn’t answer that. I know saying it out loud will make it real in a way the cameras haven’t yet.
I exhale. “She thinks because you’re staying on my property, it’s fate. She’s trying to speed it along.”
I take my eyes off the road for just a moment to see her reaction. She blinks once, and then two times. Her lips part like she wants to say something, but close again.
Suddenly, the air between us feels heavier, like a door we didn’t realize was cracked just swung open.
She turns away from me, facing out the window as she whispers. “Oh.”
She’s not disgusted or annoyed.
Just…shocked.
And there’s something that resembles hope in the sound, even if she didn’t intend it to come out that way. Or maybe it’s just me wanting to go back to the first time I met her, when she didn’t loathe me.
When I turn into the driveway, the crunch of the tires on the gravel breaks the quiet.
I wish she would say something more. But she doesn’t.
We both get out of the car and she’s already retreating from where I stand in front of my truck.
I watch her, scanning her body from head to toe, and fully plan to watch her until she disappears up the stairs and inside.
But she stops, turning around to face me.
“She’s wrong, you know,” Scottie says across the driveway. “About us. I mean…we’re just—”
“Working together?” I offer.
“Right.” She nods, biting down on her bottom lip. “Working. Fake it in front of the camera. But that’s…yeah. Nothing more.” She says it like she’s convincing herself as much as me.
My chest tightens for a second. Not painfully, just sharp. Like a reminder that she isn’t mine.
Closing the distance between us, I stop in front of her. “Lily doesn’t think she’s wrong,” I say softly. “But she never considers the parts she doesn’t know.”
“What parts?”
I lift my hand before I can talk myself out of it, slowly, like I’m giving her every chance to pull away.
My finger slides beneath her chin just enough to tip her face up toward mine.
The contact is light, but it lands heavy.
She freezes, not startled, but aware as her lips part on a breath she didn’t mean to take, and I swear I feel it everywhere.
“Like the fact that you’ve spent enough time with me to learn I’m not actually as unbearable as you pretend I am.” My hand moves from her chin to cup her neck. Her pulse jumps under my touch, but she doesn’t move. “And you still look at me like this.”
“Like what?” she asks with an unsteady voice.
I lean in, hovering close to her lips. “Like you’re trying to remember why you decided I’m off-limits when the camera isn’t on us.”
I want to kiss her. Hell, I want everything with her right now. I’m completely sober and clearheaded enough to know exactly what I’m feeling—and that somehow makes it worse. Being this close to her again sends a rush through me that I can’t explain. It’s like a high that only she can give me.
I feel her hands lift at my sides, but she drops them. Like she’s afraid if she reaches for me or touches me, she won’t stop.
“We’re not supposed to be blurring the lines,” she breaths against my lips.
I press my body into hers without even thinking, and every part of me lights up.
Tipping her head to the side, my lips find the shell of her ear.
“They’ve already been blurred,” I whisper, letting my hand move from her neck to the back of her head, tangling my fingers in her hair, before pulling her hair lightly to allow me full access to her neck.
She releases a breath that sounds like a muted moan.
“You haven’t backed away, Scottie. Tell me one more time this doesn’t mean anything. Tell me your body doesn’t remember mine, and I’ll walk away right now.”
She steps back, panting as she puts distance between us like it’s a safety measure. Her eyes are on the ground in front of her, chest rising and falling. The distance does nothing to undo the tension. It only sharpens it.
I don’t move.
Neither does she.
“Scottie,” I say, softer than I mean to.
“This is a bad idea,” she whispers, looking up at me.
I don’t answer—I can’t.
Deep in my bones, I know she’s right, but I don’t want her to be right.
When my mouth curves into a smile, her cheeks turn a shade of red in the soft glow of my porch light.
She turns her head again like that’ll keep me from seeing it, but it’s too late.
I’m already memorizing her. The way you study a structure before you ever swing a hammer because you know one wrong move changes everything.
I’ve never wanted to kiss someone I shouldn’t so damn badly.
I could tell her that—the truth.
That I can’t stop thinking about her laugh.
Or the way she looks when she’s not putting up her walls.
Instead, I step closer again. Just enough that I can feel her warmth and smell that vanilla again. Close enough that the line between real and fake starts to blur in a way that scares the hell out of me.
Her hand lifts like she’s going to stop me.
Instead, it lands on my chest, fingers curling into my flannel like she needs something solid to hold onto.
As soon as my hands come up, ready to take her face in my hands and claim her with my mouth to hers, she steps back.
She pauses, shaking her head, only to put more distance between us, thinking it will save us.
“Good night, Tucker,” she whispers.
I nod because if I say anything, I’ll ruin everything we’re pretending isn’t happening.
She disappears up the stairs and into the loft, while my feet stay planted where she left me, with only one thought on my mind.
One of us is going to get hurt when this is all done.
I already know it’s me.