by Willa Okati
“Jeez, nice.” Megan snuggled closer. “I kind of have to admire his balls for showing up when you would. Even for Cade.”
“You would.”
Silence for a moment.
“I keep asking myself,” Tuck mused aloud, “do I want to know the truth, really the truth? Or do I just want to backtrack to before any of this happened and do it all differently? To not know there was some kind of ‘worst thing ever’ he won’t talk about?”
She regarded him thoughtfully. “Come to any answers yet?”
“I’d like for it to be easy.”
“Name me someone who wouldn’t.” She tapped his knee. “I’m guessing you’ve tried asking him.”
“Until I was blue in the face and blue in the—”
“Yeah, I don’t think you need to finish that one.” Megan wrinkled her nose. “Men! The ones who don’t want to watch me and Hannah ‘in action’ ask me, totally serious, why I fell for a girl instead of one of them. XY’s don’t talk.”
“Girlie, all I’ve done is talk.”
“I bet. You talked at him, he talked at you. I should have used the word communicate.”
“No, it was more than that,” Tuck protested. “I thought. The guy won’t, though—look, Megan. You want to know where we are now? I have no fucking clue, except that every time I get close, something happens to push us further apart.”
Her tapping grew slower. He could feel the uneasiness in her, the unhappiness he’d started weaving this whole messy tangle to try to avoid. “And?”
Tuck didn’t want to say this. Hell, he didn’t even want to think it. It was a poison that’d sneaked in somewhere and tainted him, but… There you had it, the truth he’d been keeping locked down.
“Tuck?”
He plucked a blade of grass for himself and bit too hard, sinking his teeth into his lip and tasting blood. “And even for him, I don’t know how much more of this I can take.”
“Damn it. I was afraid you’d say that.”
“You suspected?”
She shrugged.
“I really am the stupid one.”
“Not really. You just lead with your heart. It’s not a bad thing. It’s just a hard thing with Cade.”
Tuck grunted.
The warmth of her sigh tickled his neck. “I wish I knew what to say, I do, but I know math. None of this adds up. Him keeping something from you, for this long… There’s no equation.”
“I know,” Tuck said, as quietly as he’d ever said anything. “Would it help if I added some variables? It all started when I started working a second job to save some money for a house.”
She lifted her head. “Doing what?”
“Driving a limo for an escort service. No touchy, no feely. I would never cheat on him.”
“He knows that. He has to.” She laid her hand on his knee. “And he would never cheat on you. I think that hurt him, you know? Your zeroing in on Thomas and thinking the worst.”
That’d never occurred to Tuck. Fuck. If he’d felt dumb before…
Megan stopped him from thumping his head on the veranda. “Careful, okay? Jeez.”
“Does everyone know that too?”
“No. Maybe Hannah. Probably Thomas.”
Tuck shot her a sideways glare.
“I am trying to help.” Megan sat up, turning about to face him, and wrapped her arms around her knees. “The variables don’t help. Driving for an escort agency? Not really classy, but it still doesn’t add up.”
“Nope. Just driving. Trying to do something nice for us. Uh…” Tuck scratched the back of his neck. Well, why not? Maybe she’d see some pattern emerging if he told her the rest. “I kept it a secret. I wanted to surprise him.”
“Hmm.” Megan chose another blade of grass.
“Would you eat a salad or something if you’re that crazy for greens?”
She poked him in the knee. “Speak for yourself. You ate yours and swallowed it down.”
Had he? Great. Maybe he’d develop superpowers.
“You’ve surprised him with gifts before?” Megan prodded.
“Birthdays, holidays, yeah. It’s always been okay. This time, he flipped.” Tuck raised his hands. “Everything else came toppling down like dominoes after that. Now I find out there’s this ‘worst thing ever’? I’m trying, Megs. I am. But how much is one guy supposed to take?”
“You promised him, though.”
Tuck took the grass from her. “I did. He keeps breaking them for me. I lied to him before, when I said I wasn’t pissed over the priest thing. Did you know that too, Wise One?”
Her silence told him that no, she hadn’t picked up on the unspoken for once. Mostly because no one expected it of him, he guessed.
“I was mad. I still am. If that’s not the ‘worst thing,’ then what the hell is?”
“Ask him, Tuck. Just ask him. Why not?”
Tuck pinched his nose. “Because.”
“Not good enough.” She discarded her blade of grass. “Why not?”
“Because…” Hell. “Because I’m scared that when I find out whatever it is, I won’t be able to keep my promise. But I need to know, and it’s making me crazy. That’s all. What more could there be?”
Megan shook her head. “When you two screw up, you don’t do it halfway, do you?”
Tuck shrugged, leading the way into more silence. At least he wasn’t alone for it now. He’d forgotten how much that meant, just not being alone. He wondered where Suzie-Q was.
It was because of that hush that he heard it. Them. Two voices, male, murmuring to one another on the veranda. Not knowing Tuck sat around the corner, with Megan as witness.
Cade. Thomas.
Megan sat upright, pointing a sharp warning at him. “Uh-uh. Not like this. You know better.”
“Yeah. I do.” Tuck refused to be moved. “But if this is the only way I ever get to find out, come what may, then are you really going to stop me?”
She hesitated.
“Tell me you’d do it different if this was Hannah talking to me about you.”
Megan shook her head. “No. I wouldn’t. And that’s not fair to ask.” She stood, brushing off the dirt. “But that doesn’t mean either of us should. Eavesdroppers—”
“Never hear anything good, I know. But I’d rather hear the bad and just get it over with.” He raised his hands far apart. “Whatever happens, I’d rather hear it. I’ll pay the price.”
Megan regarded him skeptically. “Are you sure it’s worth any cost?”
“It has to be.”
She surprised him by bending at the waist to kiss him on top of his head. “Whatever it is, Tuck…just…hell, I don’t know. Just ‘just.’”
He took her hand in a brief clasp. “I hear you, Megs.”
That was as good as she’d get out of him, and she knew it. She beat it, almost silently. Girls were as good as cats that way.
Tuck wished Suzie-Q hadn’t taken to everyone quite as eagerly. He could have used some warmth and comfort right now who wouldn’t riddle him this or riddle him that, but them was the breaks, eh?
Tuck watched her go, then bent his head, and he listened. Listened for all he was worth and for the very last that he had to give. Otherwise? Tapped out, that’s what I am.
Just like I blew all that cash because I couldn’t behave. That’s what I did with Cade.
If there’s a price… I can’t pay. Cade’s demons win after all.
Happy wedding to my sisters, huh?
So be it.
Thomas and Cade were still talking, so that meant now or never. Tuck crawled slowly, as silently as he could to his knees and edged out, giving him just enough room to see around the corner of the house. From there he had a clear view of Cade on the near end of the veranda, but with the lamp on and himself in the shadows beyond its reach, they wouldn’t be able to see him. Cade leaned on his arms on the railing, letting it bear his weight.
“Are you all right?” Thomas asked.
Him, Tuck
couldn’t see, but it made things tighten in his gut to know Thomas was there, Cade listening, when Cade had pushed him down and turned his back.
“Yes. No.” Cade rubbed at his face. “I don’t know. I’m trying to work it out. Things were going well.”
“I’d noticed. Everyone did. And then they weren’t.”
Cade made a “you see?” gesture. “God. I can’t help myself, even when I try. Why is that?”
Silence. Tuck imagined Thomas shrugging, holding his peace to nudge Cade into going on. That worked more than it didn’t, but it was a trick Tuck never had caught the knack of. Mostly.
“What am I supposed to do?” Cade turned to lean against a veranda post. He looked beyond exhausted. “There’s no easy way out.”
Tuck’s chest ached where his heart banged tommyknocker fast against his ribs. You’re looking for a way out? He held still, but only just.
“You should tell him,” Thomas said. Hell, apparently that was going around.
“I’ve tried. I keep trying. I can’t get there. And while I’m working, doing the best I can, he keeps rooting for it like some damned bulldog. That’s Tuck. He sinks his teeth in and never lets go.”
Thomas made a small rumbling noise.
“I know it’s not a bad thing. I should be grateful. If he’d only let things go… Why can’t I let things go?”
Silence from Thomas.
“I’m trying to make him leave. Whether I do it on purpose or not.”
Cade sounded despairing. Thomas held his tongue.
“I keep wanting to think it’d be better if he did go. He’d be better off, not dealing with a fuckup like me.” Cade straightened, hands behind his back now, arms no longer crossed over his chest. “But that’s a lie. I don’t know what I’d do without him. If I’d even be here, or if I’d have finished the job years ago.”
“You don’t mean that.”
“No?” Cade made a small, hurtful sound aimed at himself. “I love him. I’m sorry it couldn’t be you. Sometimes I am. It would have been easier. But…”
“I’m not Tuck. Don’t remind me.”
“I don’t mean to hurt you.”
“No one ever does,” Thomas said. He sounded equally worn out. “I came here to try and help. That’s all.”
“Liar,” Cade said quietly.
“Don’t ever blame a man for hope, Cade.”
Cade laughed without a drop of amusement. “You know what’s funny? That’s exactly what Tuck has told me since the day we met, almost. No matter what I tell him. Or myself. I don’t deserve him. Don’t—don’t interrupt me. It’s true. All these years, I’ve lied to him. Lied right to his face, until…” He exhaled slowly. “If he knew, that would be the true ‘worst thing ever.’”
More than one ‘worst thing’? Tuck had to brace himself with one arm to keep upright. Tired, God. So fucking tired. I can join the club.
“If he knew,” Cade went on, merciless to all of them seen and unseen, “the world would end. And yet that’s what he keeps pushing me to know.”
Grass rustled beneath Tuck’s knee; he only just managed to keep still and hidden.
Cade leaned his head back, gazing up at the ceiling of the veranda. “I would go back to tell the truth, if I could. So he’d understand why I did what I did, when I found out about that damned job.”
“I knew you back then. You never would have managed it.”
Harsh words that Cade nodded to, accepting them as true. Tuck didn’t know that they didn’t hit him deeper. Something that bad, and Cade had tried to—what? Protect Tuck from it? Not want protection from it? Would rather have held that pain close like a blanket or a shield to keep the world away?
Thought about becoming a priest so he could avoid the temptation for the rest of his life?
“Irony,” Cade said, as if he were kissing the word the way a lover would. “Irony is a cold, cruel bitch.”
Silence. Then: “You never told me what that second job was. I didn’t think it was my business,” Thomas said. “It occurs to me that minding my own business hasn’t gotten me much of anywhere. If I’d really tried, who knows what I’d have won?”
“Not me,” Cade said. “I’m sorry. I am. But it’s always been Tuck.”
That should have made Tuck’s spirits lift. Should have, could have, would have…
Thomas didn’t directly answer Cade. “I want to know,” he said instead. “If you can’t love me, ever, then tell me why you can’t give yourself to anyone. Tell me what Tuck did.” He laughed drily. “I could use an excuse to pay him back for that fistfight a while ago.”
Tuck thought he wouldn’t answer. Prayed he wouldn’t. If Thomas gained this knowledge too…
Cade spoke. Tuck figured he should have known better than to hope. “Driving a limo for call girls. Escorts, he said. A whore by any other name is still…”
Not a word Tuck had thought Cade would use. He frowned. Come to think of it… A word Cade had never used, no matter how they fought about that job. Why?
And then there was Thomas’s reaction, to confuse him all the more. Not a rumble, more silence, nor a grunt that equaled a frown, or even a question, but a soft hiss of—surprise and sympathy both? “Damn it, Cade,” Thomas said.
“Now you see what I mean.”
Maybe he did. Tuck didn’t. But all the same, he knew he was about to find out, and now that the moment had arrived, his stomach twisted into sour knots that promised he’d end up spitting bile into a sink somewhere.
He didn’t want to hear.
He had to hear.
He stayed where he was and listened. Some things that a guy never wanted were the most needful things for him.
Thomas sighed. A small one, but it had a big effect. Cade kept going. Spilling it all out. “And you didn’t tell him. Not even then. No, I know that’s a dumb question. We wouldn’t be here now if you had.”
“I want to now. I do. To be enough for him.” Cade drew the iron key Tuck had bought him from where it hung on a leather cord around his neck. “He gave me that a day ago. He never gives up, not even when he should. Not even when you try to make him. He can’t be led. He goes where he pleases.”
“Not that I like giving him any credit, but he wouldn’t have gone near that job if he’d known.”
Cade directed a narrow-eyed glare and a baring of his teeth at where Thomas must be sitting. “Go nail yourself to a cross already, would you?”
“Don’t vent your temper on me,” Thomas snapped. “And you have no room to talk about martyrdom. None.” Each word came out like a gunshot.
Cade took that scolding without a word of protest. Just let out his air and tightened his stance. “I’d rather make him hate me than him make that decision all on his own. All those lies. All those years, when the only other person who knew the truth was you.” He paused, his jaw working. “I lied to him the first time he asked, because if he thought less of me because of… And when he stopped asking, I thought I was safe. I let myself think it really was over, and…”
“Then go back. Tell him the truth. If he’s the one you love—”
“Don’t.”
“I offered,” Thomas said. “I asked. You told me no, time and time again. ‘You’re the one who picks up the pieces,’ you’d say. ‘But Tuck, I love him.’ You’d say that too.”
“God. Don’t.” Cade shut his eyes tight and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I know all this. It was true then. It’s true now. I’ve told him that much, more than once.”
The bench squeaked beneath Thomas’s weight. There was an unaccustomed hardness to his voice when he said, “Then I think you should tell me too, one more time.”
“Why?”
Thomas was merciless. “Because I need to hear it again before I take you over my shoulder and carry you out of here and give you a life where there’s no lies. Just peace. If that’s what you want, then you know I’m your man. But this is your last chance. I’m human too.”
Tuck’s throat closed. An
y second now, something inside him would tear loose; he could feel everything inside him twisting and tightening far too tense for a man to survive their breaking under pressure.
Silence from Cade this time. “No. I’m sorry.”
Thomas sighed long, low, and deep. “Then tell him the truth. Stand up like a man, because all three of us know you can.”
Cade bit his lips. Strong shoulders, tall man’s body, and a boy’s fear in his eyes. “He’ll hate me, when he knows.”
“If he hates you, he hates you. Just get it done with instead of spending the rest of your life driving yourself mad—or getting what you want and making him loathe the sight of you.”
The day had come when Tuck agreed with Thomas. Hell just froze over, and Satan was ice-skating to work. Go fucking figure.
“Mostly, Thomas? Mostly, I’d rather that than let him see how much I’m ashamed of myself. I think back, and I freeze so I don’t get sick. I’d rather he left me than know who I was.”
Cade, baby, please… Tuck couldn’t have moved if he were on fire. Not even to be sick to his stomach from listening to all this. He should have heeded Megan. Too late, though.
“I can still remember the way each one of them sounded. The way they tasted and how I puked every time until I learned how to keep it down.” Cade changed position, shifting into a pose and acquiring a demeanor that almost turned him into a different man, someone Tuck didn’t know at all. Someone cold, sinuous, almost snakelike, his eyes slitted and his tongue wicked with cruelty, not humor, not pleasure. “Twenty-five for a handjob, mister. Fifty to suck you off. A hundred for handcuffs. Two hundred to fuck me. Five if you don’t wear a—”
Tuck’s arm gave way, and so did his stomach.
Cade stopped. “Did you hear that? Shit. Thomas, shit—”
He stopped again, locked onto Tuck, who’d stumbled to his feet and into the light.
Tuck knotted his hands into tight fists at some point along the way, and they shook. “Thomas? Get out.”
Chapter Twenty-two
Thomas left without a word. Tuck wasn’t surprised, and he didn’t have the energy to be glad.
They held each other’s stare, he and Cade, for an endless space in time or maybe less than a minute. If Tuck moved, his knees would give out from beneath him. Again.