Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
TUCKER
An hour later, I’d fed Hank, gotten him into the shower and into his pj’s, and left him happily camped on the couch watching Below Deck—his latest obsession. He laughed like a stoner at the crew drama and pointed at the screen every few seconds like he knew the cast personally.
To each his own.
I was at the kitchen table in the middle of an online arson-investigation continuing education test, when Her Fluffiness scratched at the door. I let her in and narrowed my eyes. “Why do you smell like rotisserie chicken?”
She sat daintily at my feet and lifted a leg and began to clean herself with haughty indifference.
“Nice.”
When she’d finished bathing, I heard a crinkle. She had a note attached to her collar, and not one of mine:
If you don’t want me to feed your cute little freeloader, keep Her Royal Highness on your side of the fence.
Gee, wonder who that could be from? I grabbed a pen and wrote back:
I don’t tell my women what to do.
And beneath that:
Nice job on the gazebo…
Because Are you okay? felt too dangerous to ask. So did Do you need me? But she hadn’t needed me in years. Maybe never had.
It was me who’d needed her.
Still did.
I went back to my test. Twenty minutes later, Her Fluffiness leapt into my lap. I scratched her favorite spot behind her ears, and—yep. Another note. Same paper:
Or maybe you’re just not invested in your relationships.
Oof. That one landed. I set the cat down and grabbed a beer from the fridge, then took it and my laptop outside to finish the test. The sun had dipped behind the oaks and redwoods, bathing the backyard in a soft amber glow.
A breeze rolled in from the coast, carrying the scent of eucalyptus and cut grass, and a hint of that late-summer warmth that reminded me fall was just around the corner.
I sat on top of my picnic table, bottle sweating in my hand, watching my cat vanish into the bushes like she had secrets to keep.
A moment later, my dad stepped out onto the porch in a white T-shirt and the blue bunny boxers he’d picked out himself—because apparently personal dignity was overrated. And who was I to judge? We all make our own choices.
For example, I’d go without rather than wear anything with bunnies.
Dad pointed to the sprinter van on the street. “Ah?”
“That’s Hazel’s,” I said. I cocked my head. “You remember her?”
“Ah.”
No clue if that meant yes or no. “It ended badly,” I added, half to myself.
“That’s one way of putting it,” said a voice I hadn’t heard in nearly a week but had somehow been echoing in my head every damn day.
Hazel.
She peered over the fence, a wild halo of waves framing her face like a warning and a promise all at once.
I lifted my beer in a mock salute.
“Ah,” Hank said again and gestured to the foil-wrapped leftovers on the table.
“He wants to know if you’re hungry,” I translated.
Hazel scaled the fence and landed on my grass with lithe grace as if she did it every day. She wore a cropped sweatshirt, beat-up sneakers, and tiny denim shorts that showed off legs for days—no makeup, just sun-warmed skin and attitude.
Fuck, she looked good—too good.
Thinner than when she’d first returned to Star Falls though, and something that felt uncomfortably like worry tightened in my gut. Noticing was one thing. Worrying? That was something else entirely. I told myself not to make it mean anything.
And failed.
She eyed Hank.
He stared back and nudged the food toward her.
When she didn’t make a move toward it, I shifted closer and opened the foil. “Your faves.”
She looked at me, surprised.
I almost smiled. “Have you forgotten we lived off my cooking during our high school years? Burgers and hot dogs were my specialty.” At my side, Hank shifted but didn’t make a sound. I ignored him because Hazel’s gaze was locked on mine.
“I’ve never forgotten a thing,” she said softly. Her eyes flicked to the food and lingered. “I didn’t figure fatty burgers and hot dogs would be on your very grown-up food pyramid.”
I did smile now. “They’re turkey.” I leaned in conspiratorially, with a wink. “Hope you can keep a secret.”
The look on her face said she could and had…and I wondered at the secrets she held close to the vest.
“Come on,” I cajoled, wafting the food beneath her nose. “Being a vandal burns up a lot of calories.”
She eyed a hot dog. “I’m not a vandal.”
“I know.”
Her eyes flew to mine. She assessed me. I wasn’t sure for what, but I did my best to look like something she needed in her life. That might’ve been too tall an order because she dropped her gaze.
“I know something else too,” I said.
Suspicion flared in her gaze. “Like what?”
“The mayor wants to thank you with a commendation.”
“Is this the same mayor who wanted to close up the streets at dusk when I got back?”
I laughed and she sighed.
“I don’t know what to say.”
“You could just accept the commendation with a thank-you.”
“That would imply I was over it,” she muttered.
I pointed to the food again. The food she was now staring at like she hadn’t eaten in a week.
Hank scooted over on the bench to make room for her. When she bit her lower lip, I knew we had her. I ducked inside for a plate and the buns, but by the time I got back, Hazel and Hank were each eating a hot dog with their fingers like long-lost friends.
Hank grinned at me.
Hazel took the plate and began to doctor up a bun. I held out a container.
She stared at it. “Tell me that’s your special sauce.”
“It’s my special sauce. And no, I’m still not telling you what’s in it.”
She reached for it, but I held it up out of her reach.
“One condition.”
“No.”
I met her gaze. “You don’t even know what it is.”
“I don’t need to. It’ll be a bad idea.”
“What the hell do you think I’m going to ask of you?”
Her gaze skittered away.
I wanted to reach for her, but Hank was watching us like it was his favorite soap. “Dad,” I said. “Time for your show.”
Hank got to his feet and beelined for the door.
“Don’t move,” I said to Hazel and then moved inside to get Hank settled in his recliner, the remote in his hand and his plate in his lap.
“Ah,” he said, which I took to mean Try not to be a dumbass.
But I was so good at it.
Back outside, Hazel sat right where I’d left her, those slay-me baby blues sharp and…angsty. Which, gotta admit, hurt.
I sat next to her and nudged the sauce toward her.
“Price?” she asked.
“You stop pretending I’m the one ignoring you.”
She frowned. “So you’re not going to take any responsibility?”
Shit. Fine. “I’ll accept twenty-five percent.”
“Fifty. Final offer.” She slathered her burger with sauce and took a bite, closing her eyes like maybe it was the best thing she’d ever tasted.
Once upon a time, she was the best thing I’d ever tasted…
“Deal,” I said a little hoarsely.
My still-open laptop beeped, and she glanced over at it. “What was that?”
“Online test for arson investigation. Timed out.”
She turned to face me. Since I was straddling the bench, this put her in between my legs, but she didn’t shy away from the closeness. And it’s not like I was going to.
“One of us grew up,” she murmured.
“Says the woman who spent all night rebuilding a gazebo in the dark.”
She dropped eye contact, and something deep inside me tightened.
“I heard things got a little rough at the state park,” I said. “You okay?”
“You keep asking me that, even though you already know the answer. I’m always okay.”
“You don’t have to be. Not with me.”
A soft sound escaped her. Half laugh, half tears. “Stop humoring me.”
“I’m not,” I said. “You’re trying to right your wrongs.”
She shocked the hell out of me when she dropped her forehead to my chest. “Trying being the key word.” Her voice was muffled against me, but I didn’t miss the thick emotion in it.
I closed my eyes. Anchored by the weight of her, by the shape of her head against my chest like she still fit there. Like nothing had changed and everything had.
I gave her a moment to collect herself. Gave me a moment to collect myself because having her this close and touching me of her own free will felt way too good. “Still feel humored?”
A laughing breath huffed out of her. “Shut up.”
I couldn’t stop my hand from stroking down her hair. “Make me.”
She laughed again, and I felt like Superman. “You used to say that to me,” she whispered. “‘Make me.’”
She remembered that? God help me. “We used to say a lot of things.” Like how we were always going to be in each other’s life, no matter what.
She used to sit just like this, between my knees, making me promise we’d take on the world together, forever and ever, to infinity.
She lifted her head. “Why are you being so nice?”
Again, my fingers glided softly down her silky hair. “Thought maybe we could try something new for a change.”
She looked at my mouth, her breath hitching again as I slid a hand up her back to the nape of her neck before slowly closing my fingers into a fist around her ponytail, so soft against my callused palms.
Insanity. This was insanity. We can’t go back. We can never go back.
I knew this better than anyone.
And yet, with a slight tug on her hair, I tilted her head, trying to decide where I wanted my mouth first: her throat or her lips. “Hazel…”
“Yes,” she breathed, her eyes drifting shut in permission. She leaned in, her fingers brushing my knee—tentative, then firmer, like she needed the contact as much as I did.
This wasn’t nostalgia. This was need—messy, urgent, bone-deep.
And I wasn’t sure I could walk away from it again.
But my heart pounded like a drum, matching the racing pulse at the base of Hazel’s throat.
Fuck, this wasn’t my smartest move, but I didn’t care as we breathed each other’s air, eyes locked.
And then, with heat licking through my veins like an out-of-control wildfire, I kissed her.
The world spun. Hazel melted, wrapping herself around me like a pretzel. The heat of her mouth drove me wild, making me forget everything but the feel of her.