Page 28

TUCKER

T hat evening, after the mess from the ice cream was cleaned up and everyone had slunk off to their corners of the Nest, I climbed the stairs to our room. I curled into bed but sleep never found me, it was like the clock was mocking me, flashing hour after hour with echoing ticks to remind me that Sunday was here and I had no options left.

I was out of time.

The floorboards creaked.

“Against the wall,” Josh said quietly, and I listened without argument, curling up against the far side so he could lie down. He left a gap between us, throwing his pillow down and rolling onto his side into the mess of blankets.

I didn’t say a word as I hugged my pillow and pressed my cheek into it, watching him as he got comfortable in silence. He turned his head away from me, and for some reason, I didn’t mind that he had. There was a tender comfort in how easily he had just found a place there, and even though he was still cagey about touch, he had sought out the closeness.

“Go to sleep, Tuck,” he grumbled after a few minutes, like he could feel me staring.

I hated how quickly my body obeyed him, every little request I caved to without conscious thought. I closed my eyes and his cinnamon cologne filled my nose, lulling me to sleep for the first time in three days. When I woke he was still there, fast asleep with his sweaty curls pressed to his freckled skin and all I wanted to do was touch him.

But I knew it had to be on his terms. He had to ask. He had to want it.

If I touched him without permission, I was no better than Ian in his mind, no better than his mom. So I’d wait for him to ask, or to kiss me first because that’s what he needed. I lay there for another hour until his breathing changed and his eyes fluttered open in the warm sunlight of Sunday morning.

“Are you staring at me?” He grumbled and closed his eyes again.

“No,” I lied.

“What time is it?” He asked, and I couldn’t help but smile at his grumpy, sleepy voice. The combination of him being in my bed and the husky tone he was using with me made my chest warm.

“Eleven,” I said, glancing quickly at the clock.

He tensed and looked up at the clock from his position in the bed.

Even I was surprised, I hadn’t slept in for years and never without worry the way I had last night. Sleeping in was reserved for hangovers and even then…the dependency was thick in the air and Josh slid from bed, throwing his pillow back to his bed.

“Don’t make it a habit,” he muttered, a small snarl at the edge of his voice before rifling through his duffle bag.

I wasn’t about to argue that he was the one who crawled into my bed, because pushing my luck meant it probably wouldn’t happen again, and I couldn’t have that.

“Practice in an hour,” I said, sitting up in bed.

“Yeah, I know the schedule, Tuck,” he said, pulling out a clean shirt. He stared at it in his hands, no doubt contemplating whether or not he felt comfortable enough to change in front of me. “I’m going to shower,” he lied and left the room without another word.

“Right.” I clicked my teeth together and pushed off the bed.

I spent ten minutes stretching out my muscles on the floor before I pulled on clean shorts and a t-shirt. I had a quick meeting with Riona before practice and was already running late when I pushed into the stadium and took the stairs up to her office.

“Mr. Tucker,” she said, handing me a cup of coffee as she settled behind her desk with a folder and a knowing look on her face. “You look more rested than the last time we spoke,” she said.

I had stumbled into her office the day after we got home from spring camp, running on two hours of sleep and a protein shake sloshing around in my stomach.

“Yeah, I’m sleeping better, I guess.” I sank down into the chair and lifted the coffee to my lips to find out that it was tea and scowled.

“Caffeine isn’t good on an empty stomach,” she raised her eyebrow at me and set down her mug.

“I ate today,” I lied, and she saw right through it. “I woke up late, I’ll eat after practice.”

“Mmm,” she looked down at her desk, reaching for something in a drawer and then back up at me as she tossed a container of fruit through the air. “Eat.” She commanded, and I was going to argue that I couldn’t eat her lunch, but she glared at me. “You’re a smart man, Mr. Tucker, but you’re valuing your worth over your well-being.”

“I’m not great with riddles,” I muttered, setting the tea down on the desk in front of me.

“You would rather run yourself into the ground to be worthy of captain and son than take care of yourself with things like eating and slowing down.”

That hit home, and I swallowed tightly as she stared me down.

“Do you understand now?” She asked.

“Sort of.” I fought with the urge to scream.

“You’re a very busy man this season, there’s a lot more riding on your shoulders than ever before, Mr. Tucker, but you cannot survive what's to come if you continue to neglect yourself,” she warned. "I know that it’s hard, and that you aren’t doing it on purpose. That your appetite is minimal, but it’s the stress, your body needs fuel, and your brain is tricking you.”

“I’m eating,” I lied.

“If you were eating, I wouldn’t have been fielding phone calls from Shore. This meeting has to be quick because if I keep you from practice, Ryan will be in my office throwing a hissy fit, and I can’t deal with him or his manchild attitude today, so I have a challenge for you,” she said.

“Great. More responsibilities,” I muttered.

“Think of it as one you already had—but neglected ,” she said. “I want you to start eating lunch,” she said.

“That’s not a challenge…”

She cocked her head sideways and waited for me to surrender.

“Don’t interrupt me,” she commanded.

“Fine, lunch.” I shrugged and stood from the chair.

“I want you to start eating lunch with me,” she said as I backed away, causing me to stop.

I knew what she was doing and I hated it.

“I’m so busy lately that I don’t ever get to talk to any of you outside of this room, so I’d like you to keep me company.” She tapped her fingers against her mug and smiled at me. “I take my lunch at eleven,” she said with a smile.

“This is manipulative,” I grumbled.

“Unfortunately, Mr. Tucker, I know you better than most of the players because of your activities with my nephew, and there’s one thing I know about you… That’s your love language,” she said. “You take care of me, I’ll take care of you. Simple as that.”

I stared at her and her stern green eyes never faltered as I tried to come up with reasons why she was wrong. I picked at my fingernails nervously, just wanting this to be over.

“Has anyone ever told a Cody no in their lives?” I asked with a defeated sigh.

“Eleven.” She reminded me instead of giving me an answer.

“Eleven…” I shook my head and left the room.

I walked the hallways down back to the locker room and changed into my cleats before jogging out to meet the guys on the field. Coach gave me a dirty look but I wasn’t focused on him as I joined the team jogging around the diamond. I was too busy being overwhelmed that Silas was pushing me around and that Riona agreed. I was fine, I was eating…

Okay, maybe I had skipped breakfast this morning, but I had slept in.

“Tucker?” Coach called to me and I turned to look at him, pushing the eating issue aside to deal with another day. He nodded his head for me to come over, and I broke from the group, sauntering over to where he leaned against the padded banister of the dugout.

“Yeah, Coach?” I crossed my arms.

“How are you feeling?” He asked me.

Those same Cody green eyes, always judging, rolled over me. He was gauging my reaction, trying to figure out if I was going to lie to him or tell him the truth. But the truth would only have more people worried about me for reasons that didn’t matter. The season mattered, the win. Why didn’t they understand that? If I were Arlo, they wouldn’t care; they would just trust me to handle it, but I’m being babied and manhandled by people who think they know better.

“I’m fine,” I said.

“You’re fine?” He chuckled, his head bobbing as he looked down between us. “Alright, kid, what is it gonna take to get you to talk to me?”

“I mean it, Coach. I’m alright,” I tried to insist.

“I wish I believed that,” he said, pushing up from his leaning position. “Dealing with problems off the field is the only way to keep your head straight, and if you can’t do that, you block it out while you’re here.”

“Right,” I said, just needing the ping pong effect to stop. I was being slammed around by both him and Riona emotionally and I was ready to explode. “I just need to get through dinner tonight and I’ll get straight Coach, promise.”

He studied me for a second longer, no doubt trying to figure out if I was still lying, but that was the truth. My life outside of baseball was practically over. My skin was itchy thinking about stepping into that house for dinner later because I knew what was coming.

“Alright, back on the field.” Coach waved me off, but I could tell that he wasn’t convinced.

I had played the argument over and over again in my head. When I couldn’t sleep I thought about it, when I did sleep, I had nightmares about it. I couldn’t figure out why I cared so much about what they thought, but no matter how hard I tried to shove back those feelings of disappointment that my family would rather ignore who I am, then have me in their lives, they seemed to embed themselves into the fibre of who I was.

They weighed me down, and every step back onto the diamond felt like quicksand.

Coach ran us harder than usual, but with the season opener right around the corner, he didn’t have much of a choice. We needed to get our shit together. The burn in my lungs and the sting of my muscles felt good and combated all the dark thoughts swirling around in my mind. Focusing on the ball, the smell of the grass, the feel of the leather. It helped center me.

Each thrown ball, each perfected play was a breath taken without the aftertaste of failure and disgust. I could do this.

“There’s a party at Hilly’s tomorrow for Todd,” Jensen said as we started off the field.

“I don’t know if I’m in the mood for that man.” I shook him off and kept walking toward the lockers.

“Since when?” Jensen questioned, his hair pushed back off his face in damp, sweaty bundles.

“Is this because of camp?” Todd huffed. “We were just hazing him, he’s fine. It’s not like he hasn’t taken a few shots before!”

I whirled on him in the tunnel, my hand coming up to his chest as I shoved him against the wall.

“Hey, man!” He clawed at my arm, but I was twice his size.

“I don’t care about what you were doing, we don’t haze our own. You were being assholes,” I snapped.

“We were just joking around, no need to flip out!” A crowd of players formed in the tunnel, watching us as Todd tried to get out of my hold.

“You broke his nose,” I snapped. "You weren’t joking around and I’m sick of you all fucking around behind my back.” I dropped my hold and turned to the crowd that formed.

“I know what the hell you’re all thinking,” I said in a huff, opening my mouth to say something more but couldn’t find the words to express my frustration. I pushed through them all into the locker room and grabbed my duffle bag from the bench.

I would shower at the Nest because I couldn’t stand being around any of them. It felt like the entire world was nipping at my heels. Like all of a sudden, their opinion of me had changed simply because of one news article.

I threw my shit into the jeep and slammed the door.

“Fuck!” I screamed and rested my hands on the side of the vehicle. My chest was falling in rapid time, and it felt like my heart might claw its way out of me. It didn’t even want to be around me at that moment. I tried to work myself up, to bring the rage to a head, but the problem was I wasn’t Arlo, deep down I’d never be him. And that’s what the guys wanted, tough guidance with a strong hand and wise advice.

Meanwhile, I couldn’t even get mad properly, I didn’t even want to be mad. I just wanted everything to stop feeling so overwhelming all the time. I felt like I was drowning on dry land.

“Just get angry, you pussy,” I whispered to myself. I had every right to be. The world was crashing in around me, and within the next few hours, I’d basically be an emotional orphan. But still, even with the looming threat of my parents disowning me, the anger was absent and only guilt lingered.

“What the hell am I even feeling guilty for?” I rolled my eyes and tapped my fingers over the Jeep just trying to find a calm rhythm that would help me think, or at least slow down my thoughts enough to drive back to the Nest and panic in private.

“Alright Tucker, get your shit together. We can do this, face your parents, deal with the emotional torment and inevitable fall out, come home, do it all again in the morning when the press rides your ass for your sexual preferences…” I sighed. “Go to class, be ridiculed, go to games, avoid having tomatoes thrown at me…”

“Do they even throw tomatoes anymore?” Josh’s voice broke through the very private outside thoughts I was having as he rounded the Jeep. “I’d think they’d get more violent.”

“Announce yourself when you sneak up on people!” I scoffed.

“I did,” he said dryly. “You were in the middle of your monologue.” He shifted with his bag, and it was clear he hadn’t showered either. I could smell the sweet sweat and sticky remnants of pine tar from practice that rolled off him as he got closer.

“I’ll deal with Jensen’s attitude tomorrow.” I waved Josh off.

“Cool,” he said with a tight smile, clearly he didn’t give a shit what had happened in the hallway minutes before. “I need to shower before dinner.”

Before I could argue what that meant he was moving around to the passenger side and slamming the door behind him.