Chapter 6
Tucker
“I told her we met at the hotel bar,” she says. “At a conference.”
My brain gets stuck, like someone’s jammed a pole into an old-fashioned steam engine.
There are so many things wrong with this situation, I don’t know where to start.
But the biggest of all is that Autumn Sato is…
Hot.
It hit me like a ton of bricks when I stepped into the room.
Long dark hair, dark eyes, gorgeous smooth skin, and a soft wide mouth painted glossy red in a way that instantly made me think of things I shouldn’t be thinking about.
Since I couldn’t look at her mouth, I let my eyes drop, and that was a mistake, too, because I’m a sucker for willowy, for small, secret curves, tits you can cup completely in your hands.
So when she says that she told her sister we met at the hotel bar at a conference, I can see it way too easily.
The two of us side by side in a dark bar, heads tilted toward each other, her lips tilted up in a suggestive smile.
The incline of her head as she suggests we go upstairs.
The elevator door closing, her crossing the space between us to rise up onto her toes, my hands closing around her slim hips, drawing her abruptly, possessively, against me, the give of her mouth as I take it, hungry.
And then I push it all away—her pretty smile, her slim hips, the feel of her body against mine, the softness of her mouth, my ravenousness.
I hate myself because the last thing, the very, very, very last thing I want is to have any feelings—even the basest, least romantic ones—for another client.
It cannot happen.
Then I fully absorb what she’s said, and: “Wait a second.”
Her eyebrows go up.
“What kind of conference?”
She bites her lip.
“Autumn. What kind of conference.”
“A by-invitation-only Happiness Extravaganza.” She barely whispers it.
“You told your sister I was at a happiness conference.”
She winces. “I didn’t realize you were going to turn out to be—” She traces her hands as if outlining the contours of my body in space. I ignore the way that lights my skin on fire and instead focus on the absolute depths of bullshit she’s taken us to.
“A grumpy asshole who doesn’t talk,” I finish for her.
“I wouldn’t have put it that way—”
“But you think it.”
“I prefer not to use labels.”
I scowl. This woman. At least there’s that. At least there’s the fact that in a million years, I could never fall for someone like her, all sunshine and roses and I prefer not to use labels. All It’s gonna be great!
Spoken like someone who’s dodged all of life’s bullets.
I shake my head, not bothering to hide my exasperation. “Okay. You’re not labeling me. But you decided to tell your sister, before you met me, that I was someone who would show up at a happiness conference.”
Something hardens in her gaze. “Wishful thinking,” she says, words sharp.
Ah. So she’s not all sweetness and light.
But then, like a curtain coming down on the moment of honesty, she smiles, bright and perky again. “I guess we’ll have to work on your…grumpies.”
“My—” I can’t even repeat the word.
“You know, jolly you out of them. You can’t be grunting at everyone. No one will believe you’re my type.”
Ouch. Not that I care.
“What is your type, exactly? Wait, I know the answer to this—Buddy the Elf.”
The smile slips a little. “No one wants Buddy the Elf for a romantic partner.”
“He gets the girl in the end.”
“It’s a Christmas movie.”
“So Dani Rojas from Ted Lasso.”
Her gaze skids away.
“Nailed it, huh?”
“What about you?” She squints at me. “Cruella de Vil? Cersei Lannister? No, wait. I’ve got it: blond, busty, and looks up at you in adoration.”
“Annie Wilkes in Misery,” I say. “Can’t argue with bondage.”
I might be baiting her. It’s possible that, against my will, I’m amused by this. It’s possible that for the first time in a long time, I’m curious about what’s going to happen next, like this is a movie I’ve found myself in, written by someone else.
It’s possible that for the first time in a long time, I feel alive, something I can’t name surging in my blood.
Autumn bites her lip again. Her bottom lip is a work of art, plump and bright red, the red leaving a tiny smear of lipstick on her tooth.
“I can’t pretend to be a sunflower.” I cross my arms. “Or a fluffy cloud or a unicorn. People will know it’s bullshit. I mean, look at me.”
“You could be muscly on the outside and a fluffy cloud on the inside,” she says.
I ignore the effect of the word “muscly” on my ego and dick. “Yeah, but I’m not.”
“It’s not like you have to start giving people a synopsis of every workshop you attended. You can say that once we met at the bar, neither of us paid any attention to the conference.”
That jump-starts another slew of images. I push them away because I have no business imagining her reaching for the hem of her top and pulling it over her head, the light of my hotel room low around us, two drinks unfinished on the table.
“Wait,” I say. “If we met at a conference, how are you planning to explain the fact that I’m related to your sister’s wedding planner and live in the town where her wedding is taking place?”
“Easy,” Autumn says. “I’ve already told her that’s how we got to talking.
We sat down next to each other at the bar at the conference.
We were making small talk, and you mentioned that you grew up and live in Rush Creek, and when I said my sister was getting married here in a few weeks, we both knew it was fate that we’d met. ”
I almost choke. “Fate.” I’m about to point out that I’m the last person who would use the word fate in any context, when a head pops around the side of Hanna’s office door and we both jump to our feet like we’ve been caught doing something illicit.
Balding—which gives me instant Weggers PTSD, but it’s not him—this man is East Asian, or maybe half, and something familiar in the brightness of his eyes and the shape of his mouth instantly suggest he’s Autumn’s dad. “Hi,” he says. “I’m Carl Sato.”
“My dad,” Autumn says, hugging him. “Dad, this is Tucker Hott. My boyfriend.”
Something about hearing the word spoken out loud jostles free an old panic. “I’m really actually her—”
She gives me a dark look.
“He knows, doesn’t he?” I demand.
“Might as well practice,” she says. “Right?”
“Tucker,” Autumn’s dad says, “wonderful to meet you. Autumn has told me so much about you.”
“I haven’t,” she corrects. “Because if I’d told you so much, I would have told Summer, too, and then she would have known I was bringing him, which she only found out last night.”
“Tucker,” Carl says again, this time extending a hand, “wonderful to meet you. So you and Autumn met recently, right?”
“That’s right,” I say. “At a”—I choke a little—“Happiness Extravaganza. In the hotel bar. It was—”
“Love at first sight,” Autumn says.
Oh, Jesus.
“You look like you’re going to throw up,” she says.
I try again.
“Don’t try so hard,” she says. “Don’t think about how much you hate this whole thing, and you’ll be fine. People see what they want to see anyway.”
“Speaking of which,” Carl says, “I can help with your bags if that’s helpful.”
He seems to be addressing me. “My—bags?”
For a second I think he must mean my baggage, which is plentiful. Then I realize he means my literal luggage.
Then I realize why he’s talking about my luggage, about half a second before Autumn says, “Because you have to move into my hotel room. Obviously.”