Page 21 of Fierce Love (Tucker Billionaires)

Chapter Seventeen

Hollyn

A fter I gather myself in the locker room, I head to the outdoor pool, hoping some fresh air might restore my balance. There, I find Posey sipping a blue cocktail on a lounger.

“I wondered where you were,” she says, and she presses a button on the side table where her drink rests. There’s no sign of her phone, which might explain why she didn’t text me back.

A waiter dressed in black-and-white emerges from the double doors farther down the patio. He comes straight for us as I settle into a lounger beside Posey.

“Would you like a drink, Ms. Davis?” he asks with a polite smile.

“Bellerive sweet tea?” I ask with a hopeful note in my voice. Most places on the island don’t make it the way my Aunt Verna used to, but if anyone is capable of a superior version, I figure this place will be it.

“Of course,” he says with a nod. “Anything for you, Ms. Jensen?”

“I might as well order another one—save you a second trip.” She raises her Bellerive Blue.

After he leaves, I let out a sigh. “I used to miss all the Bellerive-branded things when I was in New York. Some places try to imitate our more popular stuff, but it’s never the same.”

“Agreed,” Posey says, sliding her glass back on the table. “I had one good restaurant near Northern University that I could go to that had authentic stuff, but that was it. Homesickness was real.” She eyes me for a beat. “But I heard you didn’t come home much at all.”

“I didn’t,” I agree with a tight smile. “Just to get my sister, that’s it. My aunt visited me in New York a few times. We’d go around the state, exploring little towns. I always told myself I’d outgrown Bellerive.”

“I guess it’s possible to outgrow a place,” Posey muses.

“When I left Northern University, I knew I was done. Satisfied with the experience but ready to move on.” She shoots me a grin.

“Or move home. Brent’s ready to be done with the Olympics too.

The next one is his last. His schedule is… it’s a lot.”

“You two have been together a long time?”

“Longer than I ever thought possible,” she says with a laugh.

“I was not a relationship person before I met him. But we just—I don’t know—we work.

We have a lot of respect for each other’s hopes and dreams. We’re proud of each other, and I’d never had a real partner before.

But he is—he’s my partner. He’s the first and last person I want to talk to, every day. ”

It’s been years since I’ve let myself think of Nate, of what we had, when someone mentions how great their relationship is, but that’s where my mind goes now.

The ache that blooms across my chest and zips down into my stomach is a reminder of why I’ve kept such careful control over any thoughts of him.

When you throw away the best thing that’s ever happened to you, it’s hard to face that day in and day out.

Posey and Brent’s relationship is exactly what I think I would have had with Nate if it had been allowed to flourish, if we’d been able to keep growing together in the same direction.

Maybe we wouldn’t have, though. Maybe we’d have grown apart. How many people actually make it all the way with their high school love? There were a lot of obstacles back then, even if Nate brushed them aside like they were a mirage only I could see.

But what happened in the steam room earlier has me spiraling with deep, introspective thoughts that’ll probably never have a concrete answer.

I made choices, and this is where we’ve landed.

“We’re getting married at the end of production in September. Everything is all planned, so make sure you stick around for that. You’re invited,” Posey says. “What about you? Do you have a plus-one for the invite?”

“Not for a long time,” I say with a shrug.

“Relationships haven’t really been my thing either.

” In fact, I got quite good at playing games and avoiding commitment in New York.

Work and Kinsley kept me as busy as I could handle, and any man who managed to wiggle into the cracks was squished out without much fanfare.

“My priority has been taking care of my sister.”

“Hopefully your time here will be good for the two of you,” she says as our drinks arrive, and the waiter sets them on the tables.

“Should we tip him?” I ask as he leaves us.

“All taken care of,” she says with a wave of her hand. “Nathaniel made sure everything was included.”

“Right,” I say with a nod, and then I take a tentative sip of the drink.

Immediately, I’m transported back to my childhood, to sitting at my aunt’s worn kitchen table, anticipation bubbling in me for my favorite drink.

The tea always had to rest long enough to finally be drinkable, but I could never get a straight answer on how long was long enough, which might be part of the reason I could never replicate the taste.

The drink in my hand is as close as I’ve ever had anyone else come to my aunt’s blend. It fills me with sad nostalgia.

“I worry about my sister being here,” I say without thinking, the words tumbling out at the visceral reminder of my childhood.

“Why?” Posey finishes her first drink with a long gulp.

“My parents are master manipulators. They had my aunt wrapped around their finger. They were always trying to lead my aunt down the wrong path.”

“You haven’t had much to do with your parents while in New York?”

“Nothing,” I say. “Kin hasn’t seen them, other than the other week at the funeral, since she was really little. She was in foster care for a few years before I could get custody.”

“Your aunt couldn’t take her in?”

“No.” Kin’s foster parents were friends of my aunt’s, so that part wasn’t so bad, I don’t think.

I hope . Kin doesn’t remember much about any of that.

I didn’t want my sister to have the upbringing I had.

A tie between my aunt and my parents, as well as a source of guilt and stress.

I didn’t want Aunt Verna to take Kin out of the system because I knew I’d do it as soon as I was done with school.

And that’s what I did. “I took over responsibility for her when I could,” I say, “and I ran far away from my parents.”

“I would say it’s only for a few months and how much damage could they do, but I don’t tempt fate like that.” She lays back in the lounger and closes her eyes to the sun. “My family is pretty chill, mostly, and so is Brent’s.”

That reminds me of how not chill Nate’s family is. His siblings were often okay, but his parents… they were a much different story.

“I don’t know how I would have turned out if I’d been raised in the Tucker family.

It’s a miracle Nathaniel and most of his siblings are good people.

My mother is a force to be reckoned with,” Posey says, splaying her hand across her chest, “but Celia Tucker is in her own realm. When that woman wants something—look out.”

Truer words have never been spoken.

“Still,” Posey says, “it’s a shame about what’s happening to her now.”

“What do you mean?” Tension rises across my shoulders. My feelings about Celia Tucker are incredibly complicated.

“She has some sort of kidney disease or sickness? It’s not cancer, but I don’t know what it is. Basically, she might need a kidney transplant.”

I digest the news slowly while I sip my drink, trying not to appear overly invested even though my heart is pounding and my brain is rapidly firing questions that I haven’t let leave my mouth. “A transplant is serious.”

“Very,” Posey agrees. “Luckily, Ava and Nathaniel are a match, so the family has options. She’s not going to die from whatever this is.”

“Nathaniel would give her his kidney.” It’s a statement of fact. There’s no world in which he’d let his mom die, let anyone die.

“Ava would too—though she didn’t get the martyr gene.” She grins over at me. “Despite their upbringing, they’re all pretty close now, I think. The kids and the parents.”

“Nate—Nathaniel and his mom are close?” When we dated, I got the impression that I was part of the wedge between them, so maybe it makes sense that after I was gone, they returned to normal—whatever that was.

“The siblings are taking her to her treatment appointments, and they’ve all rallied around her.” She presses the button for another drink and then angles her body on the lounger to get a better look at me. “Is it weird being around Nathaniel now? Did Celia know you two dated?”

“She knew,” I say, trying to make the words sound normal instead of strained.

“Went about as well as you can imagine.” I close my eyes to the sun and rest my head back on the lounger, pretending nonchalance.

“And no, being around him now isn’t weird.

” An absolutely massive lie. I’ve pushed what happened in the steam room to the back of my mind, but I know later tonight, after Kin is asleep, when I’m alone, I’ll replay that scene with a very different outcome.

I can’t even remember the last time I was that turned on by so little.

Just then, as though to mock me, Nate and Brent wander out of the double doors.

Every single muscle in Brent’s body seems to pop, as though someone carved them out.

Nate, by comparison, seems softer. Athletic and fit, and I find I’m genuinely attracted to that softness more.

Brent’s level of fitness doesn’t seem real, whereas I can imagine myself leaning into Nate, resting my head against his chest, sliding my hand along his flat stomach, placing open-mouthed kisses in the hollow of his neck, which used to make goosebumps rise across his flesh…

and then I realize my gaze is trailing over him as though he’s a snack I’d like to devour, and I avoid meeting his eyes before lying back on the lounger again.

I really hope he wasn’t watching me the way I was watching him.

“Not weird at all,” Posey murmurs beside me. “We’ll have to get into how not weird it is later.” Her tone is teasing, as though I’ve just opened the story of Nate and me, placed it in her hands, and asked her to read every page.