by Amy Andrews
Tucker should have let him go to wallow in his misery and lose all his money. It would have saved him this ass-kicking.
Arlo glanced at Drew. “Did he just accuse the chief of po-lice of cheating at poker?” he asked mildly.
Drew, who was sucking on a toothpick, responded just as mildly. “I believe he did.”
Tucker rolled his eyes. “What? You going to throw me in jail for telling the truth?”
“Nah. I’m thinking…” He quirked an eyebrow at Drew. “Shoving his head down the john?”
“It’d sure help him get it out of his ass,” Drew drawled.
Arlo and Drew laughed. Tucker flipped them the bird. “Fuck you both.”
“What bug crawled up your butt tonight?” Arlo asked when he finally stopped laughing.
“I’m fine. Jesus. Can I just have five fucking cards, please?”
The evening didn’t really get any better. Arlo and Drew delighted in Tucker’s losses as they slowly sent him bankrupt. Not that he cared much or that his mind was even on the game. His thoughts kept drifting to Della and Bo’s date. Had she enjoyed it? Was it a success? Was it over yet, or were they going to party on at Jack’s until close? Had she taken him back to her place for some coffee? Would she?
Would he try and kiss her? Hell, why wouldn’t he try and kiss her? And who was he fucking kidding? She’d probably made the first move. He wasn’t messing around when he said she was an A-plus student. Della had gotten bold.
That thought made him burn his finger on the tray of garlic bread he’d just removed from the oven, and he dropped it. The bread landed butter side down—of course. “Shit.” He kicked the nearest cupboard door out of pure frustration and watched in dismay as it fell off, landing on the floor on top of the garlic-bread mess.
God fucking damn it.
Arlo and Drew swaggered unhurriedly into the kitchen with their bottles of Bud. Leaning their asses against the closest countertop, they surveyed the damage. “What’d the door ever do to you?” Arlo inquired.
Tucker didn’t bother to answer. He just picked it up, set it against the nearest cupboard, and scooped the bread off the floor, dumping it on the plate he’d already put out on the counter.
“Thirty-second rule,” he said, shoving it at Drew’s chest.
Next he grabbed the oven tray off the floor, cursing as it burned him again, automatically tossing it in the direction of the sink, where it landed with a metallic clang. “Christ, does everything in your kitchen want to kill me?” Tucker demanded, glaring at Arlo as he shoved his burnt finger in his mouth.
Arlo side-eyed Drew, then took a long pull of his beer. “Okay…” He folded his arms. “How about you tell me what the fuck is going on with you?”
“I said I’m fine, damn it.”
“Mmm.” Arlo nodded. “Clearly.”
Tucker ignored both the comment and the sarcasm in it as he strode to the sink and turned on the faucet, shoving his finger beneath the stream of cool water. Relief was instant. It was only a tiny area, less than a pea, but it hurt like a bitch. Nobody said anything while the water ran, and Tucker was tempted to keep it under the stream all damn night, but eventually he flicked the faucet off and reached for a paper towel.
“At the risk of having my head bit off,” Arlo said after Tucker had finished drying up, “is it possible you might need to get laid?”
Drew made a strangled kind of noise in the back of his throat, and Tucker glared at him. Jesus, the last thing he needed was Arlo asking these kinds of questions.
“It’s been a while, by my calculations,” Arlo added.
The fact Arlo could calculate how long it had been for Tucker was clearly a sad indictment of his sex life. Except Arlo didn’t know he and Della had been taking care of the sex thing more than adequately. Nor was he going to. He and Della were over—they’d gotten away with it, as she’d so crudely pointed out. There was no need for Arlo to know.
“No,” he growled.
“Then what?” Arlo asked, clearly exasperated. “Are you having financial problems with the bar? Are you in some kind of legal trouble? Are you sick? Do you…I don’t know…have cancer?”
“What?” Tucker’s brows drew together. “Jesus, no. I told you I’m fine.”
“Yeah. Except—” Arlo put his beer down on the counter behind him with an ominously quiet tink. There was a hard note in his voice now, indicating the implacable chief of police had taken the con. “You’re not. Obviously. And now all my cop senses are pinging like crazy.”
“Oh, for the love of—” Tucker muttered under his breath.
“Dude, you know you can tell me, right?” Arlo straightened. “If you’re in any kind of trouble…if you’ve made some kind of mistake. We’ve been friends since I was three. Let me help you.”
A heavy sigh escaped Tucker’s mouth. He couldn’t believe where this was going. He opened his mouth to assure Arlo again, but it was Drew who spoke. “Enough now, Tucker,” he said, giving him a hard stare.
Tucker shook his head at the obvious message in Drew’s eyes. “No.”
“Dude, he thinks you’ve robbed a bank or have cancer.”
Arlo frowned, flicking his attention between Drew and Tucker before settling on Drew. “Okay? What’s going on here?”
Tucker held Drew’s gaze. “No.”
“Drew?” Arlo pushed, his frown deepening.
“It’s time,” Drew insisted.
Tucker regarded Drew for long moments, hating it when he was right. He loved Della, and while he couldn’t shout that to the world, he could at least be honest with his best friend. If it had been anybody else he’d fallen for, Arlo would have known since the beginning. Tucker wasn’t ashamed of what they’d done. She wasn’t his dirty secret, damn it.
And Arlo could fuck right off with his disapproving bullshit if that’s the way it played out. Taking a swallow of his beer, he turned to his best friend. “I’m in love with your sister. I’m not asking for your approval or your permission. I’m just stating the facts.”
Arlo’s swift intake of breath was loud as a hurricane, and Tucker’s gut dropped to his knees. Drew broke into a broad grin. “Attaboy. Doesn’t it feel better to get it off your chest? You’ll thank me for it one day.”
Tucker sincerely fucking doubted it right now. Arlo had gone very still, which was not good. Like a venomous snake poised to strike. His jaw clenched, the angle blanching a terrible, bloodless white.
“By in love do you mean a courtly kind of thing where you pick her flowers and write poems about her hair and if there happens to be a dragon around you’ll slay it for her, but otherwise it’s all very platonic and sweet and absolutely nothing at all whatsoever to do with getting naked together?”
Tucker shook his head. “No.” It may have been courtly to start with, but it was definitely the latter now, and goddamn it, this was his moment of truth.
“So…you’re sleeping with her?”
“Well, not anymore, no. It was more of a short-term arrangement. But…yes. I was.”
The knuckles on both of Arlo’s hands, which were gripping the counter, went white now, too. “You were sleeping with my sister.”
“Yes.”
“My sister, who has been through the psychological wringer and who I trusted you with?”
“Oh, quit being so fucking melodramatic,” Drew said. “Della’s a grown woman with her own agency who doesn’t need anyone’s protection anymore, and you know it.”
Arlo turned his laser focus on Drew. “And you’ve known about this for how long, exactly?”
Tucker, relieved to be out of Arlo’s crosshairs for a moment, sniggered at Drew, sending him a suck shit look.
Drew shrugged. “A few weeks.”
“And you didn’t think it was worth mentioning to me?”
“No. Because it’s none of your go
ddamn business who Della sleeps with, even if it is with this bozo.”
Arlo’s puffed up chest seemed to deflate at Drew’s home truth. “So when I asked you that day you were whistling whether you were getting laid or not, you lied to me?”
“No.” Tucker shook his head. “Technically we weren’t…we hadn’t—”
“Oh God.” Arlo slashed his hand through the air to halt Tucker. “Thanks. I get the picture.” He sucked in a breath. “When did this all happen?” he asked. “No, wait…how did this happen?”
“Well, when a boy and a girl like each other,” Drew explained with exaggerated patience, “sometimes they share a special hug.”
“Drew!” Arlo snapped. “Not the time.”
“It started with the whole…teaching her how to drive/wingman thing and kinda escalated from there. Like I said, it was just a temporary thing, to help her get her groove back. But—” Tucker paused for a moment, wondering if he should tell all. Tell the truth and get it all out. He and Arlo had been through a lot together, but could he handle this? He took a steadying breath. “Truth is, I’ve had feelings for Della for a very long time.”
Arlo shoved a hand through his hair. “How long?”
“This past year for sure. Probably longer than that, in reality. I don’t know if there was any one moment because I didn’t…let myself go there. It’s only been recently I’ve realized how much a part of my life she’s become. She’s the last person I think about when I go to sleep and the first person I think about when I wake up. I can’t remember a time when I’ve thought about myself not in relation to her.”
Tucker breathed slowly out. He wasn’t sure any of that had made sense. It sounded as jumbled coming out as it did swirling around in his brain.
“I love her, Arlo, and I’m sorry I snuck around behind your back, but I’m not sorry for being in love with your sister.”
“Well…fuck.”
“Yeah.” Tucker nodded. He couldn’t have put it better.
“Has she told Selena about you?” Arlo asked.
“Yes.”
“Really?” His face registered surprised before he continued. “Has she told anybody else?”
For a crazy moment, Tucker was wondering if Arlo was trying to ascertain a potential pool of witnesses who may testify against Arlo should Tucker mysteriously disappear. He seemed a little too calm. Drew had said that Arlo would be reasonable once he got over the shock, but this seemed too easy.
“She hasn’t told anyone else, no, but Rosemary Forbes knows something is going on. So do Molly and Marley and Ruth from her work. And Winona.”
Arlo grimaced. “Of course she does.”
Drew laughed at the long-suffering note in Arlo’s voice, but Tucker continued. “Also, Mrs. Doyle, who lives across the road from Della, definitely knows.”
“How do you know?”
“She’s been blackmailing me for weeks. There’s a couple dozen diner boxes and really expensive birdseed packets in her recycling to prove it.”
That surprised a laugh out of Arlo. “Good,” he said with a little too much satisfaction.
Tucker smiled, but it didn’t last long.
An odd kind of silence fell over the kitchen for long, drawn-out moments before Drew lightened the mood. “See? There you go,” he said, crossing the kitchen to give Tucker a slap on the back. “I told you you’d feel better.”
Better? A huge weight might have been lifted from his shoulders, but Tucker wasn’t sure he felt better. If anything, he felt worse, his gut tied in knots. Della was still out with Bo, and now Arlo knew he and Della had been sneaking around.
This night has been crappy enough without that particular revelation.
“Screw you, Drew,” Tucker said. “I’m going to make sure my next of kin know that when I die they’re supposed to get my coffin from Costco and use that budget funeral chain from Denver.”
Drew slapped him on the back again. “Good luck fitting into one of those things, buddy,” he said with a laugh before glancing across at Arlo. “So…I take it if you were going to shoot him, you’d have done it by now.”
Arlo grunted. “Yep.”
“Right, then, so can we agree that Tucker should at least tell your sister how he feels and see if she might feel the same?”
Tucker frowned. What? “No. We’ve gone our separate ways, as per our original agreement. She’s out on a date with Bo Forbes, who’s a really good guy who likes her. I’m not going to mess that up.”
“That’s bullshit,” Arlo said. “Bo Forbes may well be a good guy, but he’s not better than you. You’re the best goddamn guy I know.”
“Hey,” Drew protested.
“One of the best goddamn guys I know,” Arlo corrected.
“Thank you.” Drew nodded.
“And Della deserves the best.”
Tucker blinked, humbled by his friend’s praise, and for a beat or two he let himself believe that he and Della were a possibility.
“Arlo. She’s missed out on a bunch of stuff because of her circumstances, and she wants to make up for lost time. I’m not messing with that,” he repeated.
“Sure, I get that. But what if what she wants is to make up lost time with you? Don’t you think Della has the right to make that decision on her own? Not have you make it for her?”
Drew cocked an eyebrow at Arlo. “Welcome to the new century, dude. We were wondering when you were going to join us.”
Arlo smiled sheepishly. “Yeah, yeah. You were right. When she first came to Credence, I was so desperately afraid for her. She was so…fragile. But she’s grown and changed. She’s independent now. So, it’s up to her. Bo, you, or somebody else—or nobody else—but it should be her choice.”
Tucker nodded. He agreed with that—wholeheartedly. But he didn’t know if he was even on her radar like that. Yeah, she’d admitted to having a crush on him, and they’d had a good time together, and she clearly hadn’t been happy about him pushing Bo at her, but…did she love him? He couldn’t just be her guy for now. Or one of many in her field. That would destroy him. He needed all or he wanted nothing. There weren’t any half measures for him.
“Look, dude.” Arlo folded his arms. “Do you want to be with her?”
Tucker nodded. “Yeah.”
“And you’d treat her right? You’d love and cherish and protect and all that jazz? You’d put her first and support her in all the things she still wants to do with her life?”
“Of course.”
“And have you told her that?”
“No.” God, no.
“Then tell her. And let her decide.”
Tucker’s pulse washed loudly through his ears. Could he put himself on the line like that? What if she rejected him? Tucker had been guarding his heart around her so long it had become his default position. Loving her secretly seemed far less fraught than saying it out loud and maybe losing. “I think it’s too late. I screwed up. She’s probably decided I’m not worth the hassle.”
Hell, she was probably sticking pins in a voodoo doll made in his image.
“Yeah, but…what if she decides you are?”
“Hey,” Drew said. “I saw her panties in that glass on the bar last week. I have a feeling she just might be into you, too.”
“Drew. Jesus.” Arlo’s face scrunched up. “I don’t want to know shit like that.”
Drew shrugged. “He washed it.”
Arlo grimaced again but turned his gaze on Tucker. “Well?” he prompted. “Are you in or not?”
A surge of adrenaline hit Tucker’s system. This was it—fight or flight. In or out. Yes or no. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been this petrified, when something had meant this much. But Arlo and Drew were right. He had to at least be honest with Della and let the cards fall where they may. If it was a no, then he’d bow out graciously and d
o his damnedest to make sure they got back to being friends. Even if it killed him.
“In.”
Drew whooped and pumped his fist as he grabbed Tucker around the shoulder for a quick guy hug. “Yes!”
Arlo stepped forward and shook Tucker’s hand, which was oddly formal, considering how long they’d known each other, but also oddly right. “Okay then. No time like the present.”
Drew agreed wholeheartedly. “Call her. Tell her you want to see her.”
Tucker checked his watch. It wasn’t even eight thirty. “She’s probably still on her date with Bo.”
“No time to waste, then.”
“I can’t interrupt her date. I won’t.” He refused to be a douche and make an enjoyable evening for her all about him and his needs and demands. Even if the thought of her and Bo getting friendly was like an ax in the back of his head.
“Text her or leave a voice message,” Arlo suggested.
“No—you know what you need?” Drew said. “A grand gesture. That’s what Winona always talks about. Something big and showy to declare your love. Like a blimp. Or a flash mob.”
Tucker gaped at Drew. “Where am I going to get a flash mob in Credence?” He liked the idea of going big, and blimps were the kind of phallic a man could appreciate, but they weren’t exactly flush with them around here, either.
“Maybe we could get the old folks from the home involved? They love Della, and I know the ones who do the yoga class are pretty limber?”
“Bob Downey in spandex?” Arlo shudder. “Nobody needs to see that.”
“Okay, what about…getting Annie to bake an I love you message into one of her pies? Or writing a love letter and tying it around Betty’s neck. Or spreading rose petals from the front door of her house all the way to the bedroom and spelling I love you on the bedspread?”
Tucker and Arlo stared at Drew. “I’d have to sling his ass in jail for being a creepy fuck.”