Nothing But Trouble

by Amy Andrews

  Ford pinned her with a look. “Addie, when dudes come in to see you for physical therapy, you tell them to stop crying over something your grandma could do.”

  “Well, she could! My nonna is tougher than most of the crybabies who come in whining about their injuries. They don’t wanna put in the work it takes to get over them and fully heal. Telling them my grandma could do the things I’m instructing them to do is motivating.”

  “Not to ask you out,” Ford said, and snickers went around the table.

  “Very funny. Being scared of me and being undateable are two different things.”

  “You’re hardly undateable,” Tucker said, the words similar to exchanges they’d had in high school.

  “Yeah, but it’s nearly impossible to find someone who doesn’t already know too much about me—or me about him—and even if I manage that, then I introduce him to you guys, and things unravel pretty quickly after that.”

  “Maybe with one of us gettin’ hitched, we’ll be less intimidating.” Shep dealt the turn and they started a round of betting.

  “I’m sure it’s me,” Addie muttered. “Now, do you guys want to talk about my pathetic dating life, or do y’all want me to finish taking your money?”

  “Wow, what great options,” Tucker deadpanned. “Not sure why anyone would be scared of you. Couldn’t be all the threats.”

  She turned those brown eyes on him and cocked an eyebrow. “Listen, city boy. Maybe you can just flash your shiny car and some Benjamins to get your way where you live, but here we still live and die by the same code.”

  He leaned in, challenge firing in his veins. “And that is…?”

  “Loser buys beer next time. And/or acts as designated driver.”

  “And sleeps on the breakfast bar,” Easton added, jerking his chin toward the hardwood bench they’d taken turns crashing out on at one time or another. There were only so many sleeping spots in the houseboat. Winner and runner-up got the bed, and third place landed the couch.

  “Oh, man.” Shep rubbed his lower back. “I don’t think I’ve recovered from the last time I passed out there.” He took the top card off the deck, revealing the river, and Tucker watched faces for signs of what cards they had or were hoping for and if they’d gotten it.

  The guys folded after he doubled the bet, and then it came down to him and Addie.

  “Poker’s so much better with all of us here,” she said.

  “Trying to distract me?” Tucker asked. “’Cause it won’t work.”

  She laughed. “No, just telling the truth. We’ve tried to play with people from everyone’s respective jobs, or some other rando who wants in when they hear we play poker, and it always sucks. And it’s never as interesting with just four.”

  Ford shifted forward in his seat. “Remember Buck? That guy never shut up.”

  “And thanks to you”—Tucker gave Ford’s shoulder a shove—“we already have the loudmouth position filled.”

  Ford flipped him off and then let out a loud burp. “He also scratched his balls even more than Easton does.”

  “Hey,” Easton said. “When you’ve got balls this size, it requires constant adjustment.”

  Addie took a swig of her beer. “Buck wasn’t as bad as that Yank Shep brought over. That dude didn’t even know how to play.”

  “That Yank happens to be my cousin,” Shep said. “And it’s not like I wanted to bring him. My mamma insisted, and it was easier to drag him along than argue with her.”

  “We explained the rules over and over”—Easton reached across the table to grab the potato chips—“and that dude still didn’t know whether to check his ass or scratch his watch.”

  Whenever Tucker came home, he noticed the extra twang in his friends’ voices—not to mention the more colorful sayings—and he knew by the end of the night, he’d pick it right back up, his own accent thicker for a few days before the city smoothed it out a bit.

  “All right, let’s see what you got,” Tucker said, and he and Addie placed their cards on the table at the same time.

  Then she proceeded to take the last of his chips.

  They played until everyone was sober again and Addie had pretty much cleaned them out. One by one they left, save the two of them.

  “Are you staying here at the houseboat tonight?” she asked as she gathered her keys off the table outside. “Because you know that my door is always open, and I even have a bed that doesn’t sway.”

  That was Addie’s way of offering him a place to crash without making him feel homeless. His parents had divorced his junior year of high school, which was extra fun in a small town where everyone gossiped about it. It became even more fun when Mom moved in with a congressman who owned a country estate all of two months later. Dad had always pushed him to get out of the small town and find a way to make some real money, but once the bank foreclosed on their house, he pushed Tucker even harder to go into a high-paying field. Losing his childhood home had left him feeling completely uprooted, something he’d only ever confessed to Addie. It didn’t help that Dad sold nearly everything so he could move towns, and Tucker had to beg him to hold off selling the houseboat.

  Halfway through law school, Dad claimed he needed money too badly to wait any longer, so Tucker drove to Uncertainty, took out a loan against the small plot of land his grandfather had left him, and bought the houseboat himself. He’d nearly paid it off, although he’d already seen repairs that would need to be made whenever he found spare time—so probably about three years from now. “I like it out here on the lake, and I don’t mind if my bed rocks a little.”

  “Dirty,” she teased, and he laughed. Although now he was thinking about how long it’d been. Work was getting in the way of every single aspect of his social life. If he loved his job, it would be one thing, but he was giving up a lot for a future of making a lot of money—right now he still had plenty of bills and student loans to worry about.

  A smile curved Addie’s lips as she ran her hand over the deck railing. “I love this mini-house and all our memories here.”

  “Yeah, those were definitely the good ol’ days.” He folded his forearms on the railing and looked out over the water. It’d been a long time since he’d been able to kick back and joke with people who understood him. A long time since he’d felt so relaxed. And while being with the whole gang was a blast, Addie had always been his go-to when he needed advice or wanted to get more real. Certain things couldn’t be communicated over the phone, and no matter how hard they’d tried to keep in touch via the various forms of technology, it just wasn’t the same, and now he was out of practice. So he stuck to simple. “Tonight was the most fun I’ve had in a long time.”

  “Me, too. Like I said, poker’s not the same without you. Same with football games, whether we’re both cheering for Auburn on Saturdays, or if you’re spending Sundays being an annoying ass who talks trash about my team.” She set her jaw. “Even you have to admit that the Falcons had a good season last year.”

  “I admit nothing.”

  “Stubborn,” she muttered. As if she wasn’t equally as stubborn. She sighed and lightly punched his arm. “Night, Crawford.”

  He returned the gesture. “Night, Murph.”

  She turned to go, but then abruptly spun around and wrapped her arms around his waist. “I understand that your job is demanding, but don’t be a stranger.”

  He squeezed her back, noticing that her hair smelled fruity, like maybe strawberry or raspberry, or something berry, anyway.

  “At least with Shep getting married you’ve got another excuse to come down and spend more than a weekend,” she said, and something deep in his gut tugged.

  “Yeah, it’s good to have an excuse.” What he wanted was an excuse not to go back to his cold, generic apartment and mind-numbing job. Back to his serious life where he’d have to feel the loneliness he was doing his best t
o pretend didn’t exist.

  What he wanted more than anything was to return to his friends and the town he loved, and he wasn’t sure how he could possibly go back and be satisfied with his old life after tonight showed him everything that was missing from it.

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