by Willa Okati
The man disengaged from Hannah and Megan to nod at them. He leaned against the counter as if he owned the damn place. “Tuck. Cade. It’s been a while.”
Cade’s limbs were like steel now, he’d gone so rigid. “Thomas,” he said. “I thought that was you.”
The breath escaped Tuck in a sucker punch to the gut. Fuck him, how had he not recognized the man before? All the lines, ten years older, fell squarely into place now he knew what he was looking for.
And he didn’t care for that, not one bit.
Thomas. Fucking Thomas, the groundskeeper’s son at St. Pius. He’d cost Tuck two broken knuckles before he left the home. They’d disagreed—strongly—over Tuck’s taking Cade back to the city with him when Thomas thought Cade should have stayed. With him.
Thomas never said as much, no. He hadn’t had to. Didn’t have to be dark as midnight for Tuck to see that kind of torch burning a mile away. Hell, he could see it now, a dark corona behind Thomas’s head when he gave Tuck a nod that encompassed both greeting and warning.
Well…hell. This was going to be fun, wasn’t it?
Chapter Six
The bathroom at the top of the old servants’ staircase rivaled those stairs in age and size. No shower, nothing but a john with one of those furry seat covers in pastel pink and a shelf with bits of makeup and perfume scattered about. Soap that smelled like grapefruit.
The sink: tiny, just big enough for a dainty wash, its basin shallow. Not made for this, but Tuck had stuck as much of his head as he could fit under the flow of cold water and scrubbed at his short hair with what felt like liquid ice.
He came up with his face dripping, staring at himself in the mirror. Reflected in the mirror, he looked hard. Tough as leather. He did have a gray hair. Three, actually.
Cade stood behind him, reflected in the mirror. “Calm down.”
“Sure, I’ll get right on that.” Tuck gave the spigot a savage twist to stop the flow of water. “‘I thought it might be you’? Bullshit. You knew who he was before he said a word. You want to tell me why you didn’t clue me in?”
“Because I knew you’d react like this,” Cade said. He took a deep breath, the kind that usually came before an apology with other people. From Cade? Nothing of the sort but a fall back into white-knuckled silence and a shake of his head.
Tuck planted his fists on the sink’s rim. “You know what the bitch of it is? Before I knew who he was, I kinda liked him.”
“I know,” Cade said, not to Tuck but to the mirror. “Keep your voice down. The girls will hear.”
Tuck gritted his teeth, but he took the warning. Not wanting them to see him lose his cool was why he’d made a beeline for the can and its relative privacy. Go figure that the one time he’d rather Cade not have followed him was the one time Cade dogged his heels.
“You knew, and you let me act like a fool regardless.”
“I’ve never let you do anything.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Tuck snatched a towel off the rack and wiped his face with rough, angry scrubs of the terry cloth.
“I’ll tell you if you tell me what you have against him,” Cade replied. He crossed his arms and leaned on the door frame, picking now of all times to meet Tuck’s gaze in the mirror. “Forget about me. What’s he ever done to you?”
And didn’t that just stop Tuck in his tracks? Tuck looked away first, using the need to dry his hair as an excuse.
See, he’d thought—hoped—had almost been sure, back in the day, that Cade hadn’t noticed Thomas’s crush. Call it a miracle if you wanted. Tuck sure as hell did, and he hadn’t been about to tell Cade. Sue him for being human. Then they’d left, ten years had passed, and he’d almost forgotten.
Should have known better. Pride, huh? Stupid, stubborn pride and fear. Tuck snorted. Irony was truly a bitch.
“I don’t like him being here. Leave it at that.”
“No. What’s your problem?” It didn’t show on his face, but a crackle of temper came through in his tempo and tone. “You’re thinking, what? The girls are suddenly going to love you less because he’s been a friend to them too?”
“They never said.”
“Should they have?”
Tuck ground his teeth, took a page out of Cade’s book, and said nothing.
Didn’t work. Cade stood up straight. “You are jealous of him.”
Way, way too close to the truth. “No,” Tuck lied. Right. Like Cade didn’t see straight through that right away.
“Fuck you,” Cade said without heat. “Thomas’s a good man. Leave him alone. I’m asking you this.”
He couldn’t have tightened the screws better if he’d tried, putting it that way. Tuck couldn’t say no, and it chafed, man. Chafed like a fucker. He propped himself on the sink, bracing his weight on his wrists. Either the spigot dripped or he’d broken the thing.
Tuck was a semilapsed Catholic. Not superstitious. The spigot was in no way an omen. Right.
“I’ll try,” Tuck said. “More, I can’t promise.”
Cade sighed. “I know. You lead with your heart. You always have.”
“And that’s a bad thing?”
Cade locked on with the eye contact. “Sometimes.” He drew in a deep breath. “He really bothers you that much?”
“You think?” Tuck wadded the towel into a ball and tossed it toward a skinny hamper, missing the shot.
“And you won’t tell me why.” Cade shook his head hard. Looked like an attempt—a failed one—to shrug off some unknown ties binding him to the past. It came out of just about nowhere, nothing to do with this particular fight, and Tuck did not like that.
Cade picked up the towel and folded it neatly. “Whether the girls told us or not, he’s been good to them.”
“I said I’d try. Don’t push me. Leave it. Please.” Tuck could turn the tables on Cade when it came to asking for things that mattered. Not always, but every now and then, he got lucky. St. Jude, do a guy a favor, would you? Let this be one of those times. Amen.
“The less this button gets pushed, the easier it’ll be to see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. Get me?” he grumbled under his breath, muffling it beneath another splash of water to cool his face. See? This was him, trying.
Cade didn’t believe a word out of Tuck’s mouth, that was clear, but would you look at that? He couldn’t say no either. For some reason—or maybe for a good reason—that restored a drop of hope. Enough to be getting on with.
Hey, St. Jude. I owe you one. Thanks.
He watched Cade in the mirror, thinking deep thoughts that weren’t making him happy. Tuck doubted he’d ever understand. He wanted and didn’t want to know at the same time.
Whatever it was going through Cade’s head, the results? Not what Tuck had expected. At all. Cade shook the neatly folded towel open and beckoned. “Come here. You missed some spots.”
Tuck wasn’t dumb enough not to recognize an olive branch when he saw one, nor slow-witted enough not to grasp anything he could that Cade offered. But be damned if it didn’t make his head spin, trying to keep up.
“Out in the hall. There’s not enough room in here. But be quiet.”
Tuck nodded without saying a word. So help him, he wanted to see if he could make Cade smile.
He came as close as made no difference. Good enough.
“Bend your head,” Cade instructed. He rubbed his own head, seeming sheepish for once. “This looks awful, doesn’t it?”
“I’ve seen you looking worse,” Tuck fibbed. He expected Cade would call him on that; hell, he hoped Cade would. Then they could rib each other about the worst of times in the way that made them seem not so bad after all.
Didn’t happen. “Bend your head,” was all Cade said. “And keep your voice down. We can’t stay up here much longer, or someone will come looking for us.”
Couldn’t be denied, that. Tuck bent his head and submitted to Cade’s ministrations. As he’d expected, Cade didn’t bother being gentle about helping Tu
ck dry off, but Tuck kept that to himself. Cade needed vents when he overloaded on stress, and Tuck figured he was tough enough to take a knuckle rub to the head if it helped. He thought it might. With each punishing scrub, something eased inside Cade.
“You were the one who got yourself into this,” Cade said after a pause. “And me. If it’s not what you expected, then that’s not my fault.”
“You agreed to come. This isn’t all on me.”
Cade’s rough strokes slowed. “Do you want to leave?”
Yes, Tuck thought right away. And—no. Not after his apartment. Not after the twelve-hour ride. The hugs that’d almost never ended.
That moment in the kitchen when Cade had held him close, the way they used to. The way they still should.
So be it. Not before he figured out what this was between him and Cade. “I’m staying. And you?”
Cade dropped his face into his hand and rubbed, thumb digging into the corner of his eye. “You know I am.”
That was good; that was bad. Tuck shook Cade’s hands off him. There was a first, huh? With the terry cloth out of his eyes, he caught a glimpse of a strange, wary look in Cade’s eyes that put him on high alert and fast. “You say he’s a good man. Okay. Then why are you so freaked out?”
The hardness aimed in Tuck’s direction would have left bruises on his flesh if it had been a physical strike. “Don’t ask me that. Don’t ever.”
That, Tuck would have a hard time agreeing with. “Forget asking what he ever did to me. Did he do something to you?”
“What? Don’t be stupid. No.”
“Balls.”
“It’s not your business.” Cade wadded the towel into a ball, not a neat square, and tossed it sharply at the hamper. “We need to get back downstairs. Come on if you’re coming.”
“Uh-uh.” Tuck caught Cade by the shirttail, forgetting his cares for the sake of Cade’s. “Something’s not right here.” Cade’s scoff didn’t fool him. “Don’t try and con me. I can see it plain as plain.”
Cade looked away. “It’s not your business.”
“You are my business.”
Cade’s sharp inhale made things hurt in Tuck’s chest.
He took a chance and moved to lay his palm flat on Cade’s chest. “I can’t fix it if you don’t tell me what’s broken.”
“No one ever asked you to.”
“You know me well enough to know I don’t wait to be asked.”
Cade laughed, and Tuck knew it would sound as bitchy to Cade as it did to him. “That’s you. Never asking. Just running ahead without checking a damn thing. You’d race across a railroad track even with the guardrails down.”
Probably, was what Tuck meant to say. What came out was something else completely. “I know. Maybe that’s why I still love you, and you can’t do a thing about it. No matter how you to try to change my mind.”
“You don’t know—” Cade stopped abruptly and shifted as if he wanted to step out of reach. He didn’t.
Tuck pushed his luck. Why not, if Cade thought of him what Cade thought of him? “Yeah, and that’s the problem. Tell me. Talk to me, fuck it. You know what it feels like to love someone and to have them freeze you out this way? Do you? You have a single clue how—”
Cade’s kiss silenced Tuck. Utterly. Oh God. This was…this was no ordinary kiss. Tuck could tell.
He’d kissed Cade for the first time under a ray of unexpected light when the clouds in a dark gray sky broke apart just far enough. Scared shitless, knowing what the church said about this, but wanting to too much to stop himself.
He’d kissed Cade for the second time in the shadows of the library, over homework shared and a birthday forgotten by all but the two of them.
Cade hadn’t smiled after the first two. He’d run. Bolted like a rabbit. First time around, Tuck figured he’d pegged Cade all wrong. Second time, he had his doubts.
But the third time, Cade kissed Tuck first. Scared shitless but not able to stop himself. Tuck knew one when he saw one. Always.
And what he saw in Cade was love, against all odds.
Memories like that could keep a man going for years.
And then…then there had been the fourth time. An ordinary night after an ordinary day, the only difference being soft rain thumping against his window and keeping him awake. That and the hardness Cade gave him, the one that never went away. All he had to do was think of Cade, and he wanted Cade.
He couldn’t sleep. There had to be a reason.
And when he climbed from the slippery ivy between his window and Cade’s, he understood. Because Cade had let him in. Drawn him into bed and kept him there. They’d had to be quiet, so quiet, but what they did…
Tuck had been with girls before he’d found Cade. Never was too thrilled, and even though he maintained his street cred with all the dirty stories he could scrounge up, sometimes he wondered what the big effing deal was.
After meeting Cade—and getting used to the idea—Tuck had known exactly what the problem had been. And kissing him like this, it never got old…
Cade broke away with a shock of breath. “Don’t ask me questions like the ones you just did,” he said, his lips reddened from heat and pressure. “I do know what it’s like to love without hope.”
That? That felt like being slapped. “And you called me cruel,” Tuck said.
Cade took a step back and lapsed into silence. But if he looked now with fresh eyes, Tuck could see the same kind of helpless tangle inside his chest behind the blank mask Cade wore.
He could still feel Cade’s warm skin ghosting next to his, and he burned for more.
Least he wasn’t alone. Cade’s breathing remained shallow, and he looked at Tuck’s lips as if he were starving for them.
“Why?” Tuck asked, all he could manage. “If it could be better, why’s it got to be like this between us now?” None of it made sense, not a bit, but it did make Tuck’s head ache to bursting. He rubbed his eyes, grimly pleased to see sparks burst through the blackness behind his lids when he pressed too hard.
When he looked up, Cade had turned away. “We can’t stay up here any longer. They’ll get suspicious. You know I’m right.”
“Even Thomas,” Tuck said.
Cade inclined his head once.
“Goddamnit, Cade…” Tuck gave in. Thomas could go fuck himself, but the girls were a different matter. They’d worry. Maybe even come after them, and he knew he couldn’t take the chance of being caught off guard.
What was a man supposed to do? Supposed to think?
But there was no more time. Tuck gave up the battle for the sake of the war. “Okay. I’m going. But just so you know? We’re not done with this.”
“Trust me,” Cade said, walking away. “I never doubted that for a second.”
* * *
“You okay?”
Shit. Startled, Tuck’s heart lolloped up into his throat. Hannah had intercepted them at the foot of the stairs, glancing past him to Cade and then back at him. She hadn’t changed. Still sun-and-freckle dusted, still plain and sweet-natured and dressed in gardener’s tee and jeans dirty at the knees.
“I forgot you don’t get along with Thomas,” she said, quiet and firm, “but this is my wedding. Try and get along with him for me. Okay?”
Just as he’d figured, but Tuck borrowed Cade’s stillness for his own to keep his cool, and trust him, it took all of that plus a tiny reserve he hadn’t even known he possessed. Even then, all he could do was nod and wonder if he was really choking from the pressure or just imagining that.
“Tuck?”
Damn it; now he’d gone and tripped her Spidey senses. Should have known she’d be smarter than him too. “I’m sorry. It’s been a long day.” That she’d have to believe, because it was true. “Puts a guy more on edge than usual, you know?” Among other things, but those she didn’t need to know about. That was the whole point.
She swatted him, but affectionately and with no small amount of relief. “Thank you. We’re
eating outside, on the veranda. Come get some before it’s too late. Megan decimates plums like you wouldn’t believe. Oh—was the bedroom okay?”
“The what now?”
She frowned. “Megan didn’t show you? Wait, no. She took Cade up there alone. I had you.” She linked her arm through Tuck’s. “It’s not the best-best, but I didn’t think you’d want the professor’s room. So I gave you the second-biggest guest room. It even has a bed big enough for two biggish men.”
Shit on a shingle. They’d be sharing a bed, he and Cade. He hadn’t thought of that before and wondered why the hell not.
Cade had known. And hadn’t said a word. Had he given Cade a chance to, though? Tuck couldn’t remember.
Talk fast. Think fast. “Second-best guest room in a place like this? How will we ever cope?” He put his arm around her shoulders in a loose hug. “We’ll be fine.”
“Are you sure?” Hannah peered up at him. “Cade?”
Christ on a cracker! Tuck had thought Cade would be long gone downstairs by now, but no, there he stood halfway down the steps, waiting. No doubt he’d heard it all, especially what hadn’t been spoken out loud.
“You’re good with the room?” Tuck asked, deliberately putting it out there. And yeah, he knew it was cruel this time. Regret sank her teeth in right away, and for more than one reason.
Hannah glanced from Tuck to Cade and back again, frowning the smallest bit. “Is everything all right?”
“What, with us?” Tuck spoke too loudly, and he knew it.
Cade stepped in to play salvage worker. “We’re just tired, Hannah. And hungry.”
Tuck butted in, trying to help, more relieved than he could say at Cade’s taking the initiative. “Go snatch some dinner for us before it’s all gone. And before I turn you over my knee for being a brat. Brat.”
“You never would.” Hannah poked him, then kissed him on the cheek. She reached over his to squeeze Cade’s shoulder. “I’ll do my best, but you’d still better hurry.”
“Be there in a sec.” Tuck’s stomach knotted and unknotted and knotted again as he watched her leave. Maybe she hadn’t noticed. He and Cade had bitched at each other back in the day. Every now and then. Rarely.