Chapter 21
NORA
THE PUB is busy. I knew it would be. Thursday nights are sometimes as busy as Saturday night. Tuck brought me to work and walked in with me, getting us some looks from some regulars who were already there, and Stony.
With his usual grumpy face in place, he doesn’t pay any attention to anyone as we walk together across the bar.
The only deviation from his usual routine is his palm sliding across the small of my back as we part ways, he to his table and me to the break room.
It’s a light touch, a comforting touch, confirming he would be right there.
Maybe I’m reading too much into it, but that minor gesture speaks volumes to me. Not only is it sweet in its intention, but it shows a sort of protective dominance, and the palm shaped heat soaking through my clothes to kiss my skin sends a shiver up my spine wanting more.
Sammy practically attacks me as we walk into the break room. “O.M.G!” She drags out the letters on a whisper-hiss as she grabs my arm like we’re in high school. “You just walked in with Tucker Harlow like it’s not a huge damn deal! Spill! Are you two knockin’ boots?”
A laugh bubbles from my chest, mostly because I haven’t heard the term ‘knockin’ boots’ since my Grams used to say it.
Even though the few kisses we shared in my room earlier were so hot they turned me into a melting puddle in his arms and had my panties soaked through, I’m not going to tell Sammy that.
I can feel my face turn red as I avoid eye contact and put my purse in my locker. “We like each other.”
“I knew it! I told you! Are the rumors true?” She leans in and lowers her voice for the last question as she waggles her eyebrows, which I can only assume are the rumors about his prowess.
Tipping my head sheepishly, my eyes go wide as I roll them, and I whisper, “I don’t know about that.” Her smile falls, and her hand slips from my arm in disappointment, so I add, “Yet. But he’s a good kisser.” I try to suppress the smile on my face but do a horrible job of it.
Her smile comes back, and she rocks up onto her tiptoes like an eager child. “Yeah?” She grabs my arm again. “But you’ll tell me if the rumors about his size are true?” She pulls on my arm. “Please, will you tell?”
Pulling away in mock horror, I smile as I pull my apron around my waist to tie it. “I will not.”
She’s tying her apron, too, and says, “Fine. I’ll know. Especially if you’re walking funny.”
Twisting my face in distaste, I look at her and wrinkle my nose. “Gross, Sammy.” Without waiting for her to respond, I turn to go to the front, but she’s laughing as she follows behind me.
As I walk up to the bar to grab a notepad and pen, I see Trudy take a beer to Tuck’s table, which is my table, and she leans toward him as she sets it down, her ample boobs on display.
She cuts the neck collars of our already low-cut V-shirts to show more cleavage.
With her super short skirts and the front of her shirt knotted in the front to show her waist, she looks like she should be in a strip bar instead of a pub.
I’ve wondered if she is looking for more tips or more attention, but hey, whatever.
The blood in my veins turns green even though Tuck barely acknowledges her.
She’s in my section on purpose, and she’s trying to get his attention on purpose.
At first, I don’t know why that bothers me so much, but then I realize it’s because I know they had a thing once.
She knows more about him than I do. Intimate things.
Things that I want to be special between him and I.
Sammy should have never told me they had a fling, but maybe it was better coming from her than finding out at, lets say, right now, as the skank tries desperately to get his attention.
I learned a couple of weeks ago that Trudy is close in age to Tuck; I think she’s thirty-one to his thirty-four. That’s a ten-year difference between him and me. I don’t think that matters to him, but it doesn’t stop my over-analyzing mind from wondering if he’s going to compare me to her.
It isn’t lost on me that Trudy and I share similar physiques, we both are well endowed and have wide hips.
But that’s where the commonalities end, her box-blond hair and heavy makeup are very different from my flame-red hair and minimal makeup.
This just means that my insecurities are having a hay-day trying to determine if Tuck has a type and where I fall on his scale.
Sometimes I really hate Matt for making me question my worth. My mind knows better, but it was the constant little jabs at my self-esteem that took root and created a vining wall of insecurities with leaf upon leaf of slights and hurts.
Sammy bumps me with her shoulder next to me as she grabs another notepad and slides it into her apron.
“Don’t pay any attention to Trudy. She saw you come in together, so she’s bein’ a bitch.
I swear she thinks she has to have every man’s attention.
” She twirls her finger in the air to indicate the entire room.
Then she winks at me. “We all saw you come in together, she’s just making a fool of herself. ”
That somewhat soothes the jealousy that’s making the top of my head hot as I look back over at his table.
Trudy sets her hand on the smooth wooden surface and cocks her hip, saying something, but he just leans away from her, resting his hands on his thighs, and his eyes lock with mine, ignoring her.
She turns to look over her shoulder at what he’s looking at and sees me watching them. Her lips press into a tight line as she looks back at Tuck to see if he’s looking at me - he is. I can see the angry huff as she rolls her eyes and walks away from his table.
I want so bad to preen right in front of her.
Butterflies are dancing in my stomach, and the memory of his kiss warms me from my head to my toes as he holds my gaze.
He doesn’t smile when one side of my lips tips up, but he does the next best thing, he winks at me.
It’s not just a wink, the tenderness in his eyes and the intensity of his stare sends a message to everyone watching.
Sammy bumps me again, but against my back this time as she walks by. “Holy shit, girl, that man only has eyes for you.”
Throughout the entire evening, Trudy let me know just how much she doesn’t like me with her catty side-eye and cold shoulder when we waited at the bar together. It was hard to be angry or upset about it since her issue is rooted in some kind of weird jealousy.
However, who acts like that? She barely knows me. I know Sammy said she’s ‘just an unhappy attention whore’, but still. She doesn’t give Sammy a hard time when the customers flirt with her. Is it just about Tuck? Or does she just have some kind of gripe with me?
True to his word, Tuck sat at his usual table all night, nursing a few beers.
Stony gave him some disapproving looks for taking up a table all night, but I have a feeling that he would rather shove pins under his fingernails than say anything to Tuck about it.
It was kind of odd knowing he stayed for me, since just a few weeks ago I thought he wasn’t a nice person.
Now, he’s one of the best people I know.
One topic of conversation throughout the evening has been the fall festival happening this weekend.
Quite a few people asked me if I plan to go, telling me I don’t want to miss it.
Apparently, the City of Claremore puts on a festival with carnival rides, games, food trucks and lots of fall-themed activities.
It sounds fun, but I doubt grumpy Tuck would ever ask me to go to something so crowded.
I listen politely to the various accounts of how much fun it is, especially since the temperatures have dropped, signaling fall is really here.
With each new conversation encouraging me to go, I realize I have become a staple here for the regulars that come in through the week. They think of me as one of them.
It feels good to be included.
Close to last call of the night, I’m at the bar waiting for the last round of drinks for one of my tables. Trudy steps up next to me and calls out an order. Even her perfume is unpleasant, it’s some kind of floral scent that attacks the olfactory and clings to the senses longer than it should.
Against everything in me, my imagination conjures a picture of Tuck kissing Trudy and her perfume lingering on his clothes after. Immediate revulsion squeezes my chest.
“You think he’ll stick around for you?” She says as she slides her eyes in my direction for a moment and turns her attention back to Stony.
Clearing my throat, I take a calming breath and keep my eyes trained on the beer from the tap filling mugs. “I don’t think anything.”
Lifting her nose in the air, she lets out a soft snort.
“Yeah, you do. I can see it written all over your gullible face. You think you’re special and he’s gonna carry you off into the sunset.
” She huffs a mean laugh and doesn’t even try to keep her voice down.
“I got news for you sweetheart, that’s not gonna happen.
He’s got a playbook, and you’re just on page one. ”
It’s at that moment that my patience hits its limit.
I’m so tired of being taken for granted and underestimated.
Because I’m quiet and polite, people think they can walk over me, and I won’t fight back.
Grams always used to tell me my backbone needed a little extra grit.
As I straighten my spine and turn to Trudy, I make my resolution to put a stop to it right now.
For years, Matt took advantage of my nature and stomped on my heart time and again. The resentment I keep a lid on, so I won’t see the world and everyone in it as just another nightmare about to happen, erupts.
My anger is spuming, and I let it fly. Her eyes flare as she finally looks in my direction.
My heart is beating hard enough to vibrate all the way to the tips of my fingers.
“It’s insulting to me that you think I will be as stupid or as easy as you.
Don’t project your deluded thoughts and poor decisions onto me.
I don’t expect anyone to carry me anywhere.
I’m fully capable of taking care of myself. ”
As Stony turns to me, his eyebrows down because I’m making a scene in his pub, a powerful arm wraps around my waist, pulling me against a hard body, and lifts me away from Trudy. I didn’t realize that I had stepped so close to her, and my palms hurt from my fingernails digging into the skin.
In opposition to what I just said, Tuck lifts my back against his muscular front and turns to carry me down the short hall to the break room. My fingers are wrapped around his iron forearm, which is across my front. “Put me down right now.”
He sets me on my feet, and I step away and turn on him. My chest is rising and falling quickly as all the hurt and anger of the past couple of years stings my eyes.
“Is it true? Will you use me for sex and toss me away? Are you just another asshole in a melting pot of assholes who crawl out of the shadows when they get a sniff of someone nice to take advantage of?” I do something I’ve never done to another person before in my life, I lift my hand and shove his shoulder, which doesn’t budge an inch.
It doesn’t feel as good as I thought it would.
In fact, I feel like an ass for taking my wrath out on him and putting an angry hand on him.
Standing across from me, his hands hanging at his sides, his expression doesn’t change. His gaze moves over my face as I take a breath, not letting him answer the question.
“Because if you are, just go away and leave me alone. I don’t need or want to go through that again.
” I don’t realize tears are streaming down my face until I feel the cool tickle under my chin, and I angrily bat them away, not wanting to show weakness right now.
“I’ve had enough. No more!” I slice my hand through the air in front of me for good measure.
My chest is heaving, and I’m trying to hold back the tears that are falling regardless of my efforts to put up a strong front. I choke back a small sob and wipe my cheeks with shaking fingers. I’m not really a crier, so twice in one day reflects the proverbial end of my rope.
Tuck’s face is soft as he watches me. His hazel eyes are more gold right now, and he gives me a moment to compose myself. “You done?”
The question catches me off-guard, and some of my anger drains away as I realize I lost control. Lowering my eyes to his chest, embarrassment turns my face red because I made a horrible spectacle of myself. Wiping my nose and my cheeks again, I nod my head.
He takes a step closer to me, lifting his hands in front of his chest in surrender, making me look up at him again. His eyebrows move up in question as he moves his palms next to my face and lets them hang in the air for a second to see if I’m going to pull away.
When I don’t, his rough palms gently cup my cheeks, and he bends his knees to bring himself to my height as he tilts his head and takes a breath through his nose.
“No, I’m not going to take advantage of you.
It’s true, I used to say I wasn’t the settling type; everybody knows that about me.
But I’ve never felt this way before, Nora, or been this far.
“Now, I understand that you’re having a little trouble in the trust department, with good reason. But I can’t prove that I want to get to know all of you, good and bad, if you don’t let me.”
All my anger drains away, and I feel like shit. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have taken it out on you. I’ve never pushed another person before in my life.”
His tender eyes are locked on mine. “Sugar, you can take it all out on me if you want to. I’m here for it if you let me. I’ll do anything for you.”
My eyes volley between his. “Then ask me to go to lunch with you again.”
His lips tip up in a small smile, and he slides his thumbs under my eyes. The pads are a little rough, but he does it gently. “I’ll do you one better. Nora, sugar, will you go out with me Saturday night? I heard there is a festival that you might be interested in, and I would like to take you.”
He must have heard all the people talking to me about it through the evening. “But I have to work Saturday night.”
“Let me worry about that. Would you like to go?”
I nod. “I would like to go with you.”
He brushes his lips against mine and smiles. “Good. It’s a date.”