Page 39 of Absolutely Pucked (Punk as Puck #3)

CHAPTER

TWENTY-FOUR

KILLIAN

I couldn’t bring myself to go back to California. Not after my accounts opened up. Not after Damir decided he wanted to see me, so he drove his ass all the way down to Turenne to pick up my car and bring it to the little vacation rental I’d procured for myself a few blocks away from Jonah’s place.

Not even when I was stable again.

It took less than a week for everything to turn upside down—or was it right side up now?

Whatever it was, I could breathe again. And yet, it still felt like I was choking on my own emotions.

Damir took one look at the sorry sack of shit I was and went back home, but only after making me promise that I would either get a real place to live and start applying for either the bar or reciprocity.

It was an easy promise to make, but I wasn’t sure it was an easy one to keep.

I loved my job—at least, I thought I had loved my job.

I wasn’t so sure anymore if that was true.

Law school had originally been the choice I’d made to compete with Tucker.

And I was good at it. But was it something I wanted to keep going in?

Corporate law was bullshit, but I had other options.

I had enough money to live on for a while—if I was careful—if I wanted to look at a new area.

Something to do with sports, maybe? To stay close to Jonah.

We were still friends, even after I’d moved out.

I still came over to hang with him and give Athena cuddles.

And while I missed Ford like breath in a room with no oxygen, I was starting to feel like this could be home.

But I was still floating in a void.

BAM BAM BAM!

The sound of a fist hitting my front door scared the absolute shit out of me, and it was that shock that had me throwing it open without looking to see who was there. I half expected Delia in some wild rage after taking everything back and cutting her off.

But no.

It wasn’t her. It was the only other person I did but didn’t want to see.

Tucker stood there on my doorstep, leaning heavily on his walking cane, his face a mask of fury. I took a breath, but before I could say anything, he socked me in the stomach. Hard. The force knocked the wind out of me, and I stumbled against the door as he let himself in.

“What the fuck?” I wheezed.

He spun to face me. “Tell me you didn’t deserve that.”

“I…” I couldn’t, of course. I’d been expecting that a lot earlier. Even before Vegas. “Come on in. Do you need me to show you around?”

“I can see fine in here,” he said. He breezed past me with a speed I still wasn’t used to him having.

In Vegas, most of the time we spent together was sitting.

Before that, the last time I’d seen him, he was still clutching parallel bars as he willed his prosthetic feet to move one in front of the other.

I followed, still trying to catch my breath as he dropped to the edge of an uncomfortable armchair and stared at me.

I had no idea what to say. I had no idea what he could possibly want.

“How did you find me?” Not the question I meant to ask.

He scoffed. “Jonah, obviously.” When I made a startled noise, he laughed. “Dude, come on. He might be your friend, but he’s my ride or die. And I bribed him with burrito delivery for a week.”

I finally lowered myself to the couch. “Okay. Well. I’m glad to know I’m worth something to him.”

“Is that all you have to say to me?”

“No, but do you want to hear another apology?”

He laughed again. The sound wasn’t as bitter as it was when he first found me and Ford together. “Not really. I’m not the one who needs it. I just want to know what the fuck is wrong with you.”

I sighed. “Look, I told you that it just happened, okay? I didn’t target Ford or anything. And I left.”

“Yeah. That’s the fucking problem. You’re always leaving .”

I blinked at him. “What?”

He passed a hand down his face, then attempted to sag backward in the chair but sat right back up. “Who the fuck made this? Russian torture specialists? ”

“I don’t think they make furniture,” I said dryly.

He grunted and shifted forward again. “You have this really bad habit of deciding what you think people need and making choices for them. Did you even ask Ford if he wanted you to go?”

“No. Because he’d have asked me to stay.”

“Uh-huh. Because his obnoxious, sorry ass is in love with you. You know that, right? Tell me you know that.”

I knew that. I swallowed heavily. “Does it matter? I’m not going to make him choose between you and me, Tucker. I’ve already made enough mistakes in my life.”

He burst into another fit of laughter. “Tell me about it. Do you know who called me yesterday?”

I frowned. “Mom and Dad?”

“What? Dude, no . They wouldn’t bother.” He took a beat, then with a grin said, “Fucking Delia.”

That felt like another punch to the gut. “What the hell? Why?”

“She was looking for you. Actually, she thought she was doing something by telling me you were in town—like she thought you were stalking me.”

“I kind of was. Sort of. At first.”

He scoffed. “Yeah. I mean, great job stalking a mostly blind man. Anyway, after I told her I knew everything, she tried to sell me on some bullshit about how leaving me for you was a mistake, blah blah. How you spent weeks while I was in the hospital convincing her that there was no point in being with a disabled man. That I’d never be whole again.

That I’d never be able to take care of her with no legs and half an eye. ”

I felt another rush of panic because damn it, even the tiny bit of progress I’d made with Tucker was about to go up in flames because of her. Again. “Tuck—er. Tucker. I swear to God, that did not happen?—”

“I know.”

“You have to believe—wait. What?”

He shrugged. “I know. I was always able to tell when she was bullshitting me. She wasn’t the one I couldn’t figure out, Kill. It was you who always threw me off.”

I had no idea what to say to that. “Um. If you want to know what actually happened?—”

“I don’t.”

I let out a frustrated groan.

“I know it’s killing you to not tell me,” he said, a tiny smile playing at his lips. He looked a bit like the boy he’d been when he was my high school bully. But then the sharpness softened. “You gotta let me have that for now, okay? But I believe you.”

“It wasn’t at the hospital,” I told him. “It was so long after. I would have never—God, I don’t know why I did it at all.”

“Clearly, you paid for it,” he said.

I had to laugh at that. “Yeah. The last few months have been a living hell. Actually, the last few years have been. I was too stuck in my own pride to get out earlier.”

Tucker drummed his fingers on the chair, then stood up and walked around the coffee table, dropping down next to me. For a moment, I thought he was coming in for a hug. Then he wound his arm back and hit me again .

“What the fuck! Stop it, or I’m going to hit you back.”

“That was for Ford.”

I raised my brows. “He would never hit me.”

“I’m aware, which is why I’m doing it for him. You walked out on him. You blocked him, you dick.”

“I was trying to make it easier on both of us!” Why wasn’t he getting that?

He shoved me. “Well, you made it worse. You were so busy convincing yourself that I’d make him choose between us that you didn’t take five minutes to ask if I actually would.”

It felt like all the air left the room. “You wouldn’t?”

He groaned. “Dude, no . I’m not going to make one of the best people in my life—a person I would literally kill for—unhappy because he has shitty taste in men.

I don’t want to be your friend right now, Kill, but I am your brother.

We literally shared a womb. Our genes are basically the same.

If he loves you, I might ask him why, but I’m not going to stand in his way.

If you make him happy, you make him happy. ”

The words felt like a punch to the temple. I felt dizzy and entirely off-center. I looked at him for a long moment. “God, what happened to us? How did we fall so far apart?”

He burst into laughter. “I’m one hundred thousand million percent blaming Mom and Dad for that.”

Yeah. So was I.

“So will you please get your head out of your ass and go fix this. He hasn’t eaten anything besides Saltines and orange Gatorade for over a week, and he’s called out almost every shift. I can’t take much more. I cannot watch him be in pain over something that can be fixed.”

My heart wanted to leap for joy, but everything else in me was terrified. “Would he even forgive me for walking out on him?”

God, what had I done? I knew all about him—all about what he’d gone through as a child. I knew that walking away like this would gut him. It was almost as bad as making him lose the family he’d created, and I was the jackass who hadn’t given my brother—once again—the benefit of the doubt.

“I hope you like rug burns on your knees because you’re gonna spend a lot of time there groveling.”

“I’ve had worse.”

“Gross,” Tucker said. “Never tell me about that. Ever.”

“Deal.” Something in my chest was settled. A big, gaping wound was healing. “Tucker?—”

“Look,” he said quickly, “I’m not super ready to get all deep and shit. I’m not saying it won’t happen. I also know I owe you an apology for when we were kids?—”

“Hey, no…”

“God, please shut up for five seconds and let me do this,” he growled.

My jaw snapped shut. “I was a giant dickhead, and you did not deserve to be emotionally tormented because Mom and Dad used us like game board pieces for their own amusement and I was insecure and angry about it. We should have teamed up against them, not each other.”

My throat felt hot and thick. “Yeah.”

“Don’t fuckin’ cry. Because I will cry,” he warned.

I swallowed it all back .

He took a breath. “I think we can fix it. I don’t know how. I need time to accept that everything that went down between us wasn’t what I thought.”

“I still did it,” I told him. “I still dated her. I still married her. I don’t know that I loved her, but I was going to try to spend my life with her.

She was off-limits, and when she told me—” I stopped.

He’d said he wasn’t ready for the details yet, and I wasn’t going to cross that line.

“I should have believed you. You’re right, Tuck… er .”

“It’s okay,” he said softly. “It’s Tuck.”

My stomach did a flip, and I took a moment to compose myself. “You were right, Tuck. I think in some fucked-up idea of self-preservation, I convince myself that I know better. That I’m right, no matter who it hurts. My friends were such dickheads to you in Vegas, and I let them get away with it.”

“Kind of deserved,” he said.

“No. Not after this many years. Not after everything.” I hung my head, my gaze locked on my bare feet, which stood out stark against the dark carpet. “I should have been better, and I wasn’t. And I really am sorry.”

“If you are, go fix it with Ford,” he told me.

“He opened up to you in ways he hadn’t even done with me and Boden yet.

And he’s a good man. He’s probably the best of us, okay?

Boden and I are really, truly epic assholes to most people, but Ford isn’t.

He gives way too much of a shit about other people’s happiness, and if you can give him peace from that…

if you can be the one that lets him breathe and let go, then show up. Be his person. ”

I wanted that. So fucking much.

“Where do I start?”

He lifted a brow.

“You know him better than I do. Where do I start?”

He snorted. “What does he love most?”

“Crusty french bread, olive oil, blanket forts, and his cat.”

Tucker burst into laughter. “God, you really do know him. That’s so disgusting.

Anyway, you have a car now. And money. Go shopping.

He’s finally at work today, and he’ll be done at ten.

” Lifting his hips, he dug into his pocket, then slammed a key down on the table.

“This is sacred, and I want it back when you two fix your shit.”

“Hey, Tuck?—”

“No,” Tucker said. “Not ready to be friends. But, uh…” He bit his lip for a second, and he was back to being the scared, confused middle school kid that trusted me.

For that beat of a second, he was my brother again.

“If you want to call me next week—after you two are done with the fuck-fest you’re most definitely going to have—we can, I don’t know, maybe do lunch. ”

I was a little too afraid to trust that the offer was real, but I knew right then I’d give up anything just for the hope that it was.