Page 42

TUCKER

A three game suspension, a week of exhausting classes later, and lunch everyday that week with Riona had worn me out. She watched my every move and I hated every second of it but I’d been taking the time to get in one meal and she enjoyed watching old baseball tapes with me so it wasn’t awful. She never asked me invasive questions, she let me lead the conversation and I usually felt better after.

But the week had been a lot, and now Jensen was dragging me up the steps of Delta. “Man, I don't wanna be here.” I shook my head.

“Yeah, well, you’ve spent way, way , too much time in your bed lately, it’s time to have some fun.” He argued, slapping his hand against my shoulder.

It wasn’t the bed keeping me in my room, it was Josh. I wanted to say but kept my mouth shut. After the talk with Silas, I had been keeping him close. I didn’t care that I looked like a lost dog following him around. I didn’t want him out of my sight, not even for a second.

It had become increasingly apparent that my feelings for Josh were snowballing into something bigger. Every time I saw him, it bettered my mood. I had caught myself complaining that his sweaters were too small, I just wanted to tuck down inside and lose myself in the smell. The next morning, he left his bottle of cologne out in the open, clearly on purpose, and I sprayed my favorite sweater with it before tugging it on and leaving for class.

My feelings for Josh weren’t like the ones I’d had for Cael—those burned hot when we were together, but cooled easily when we were apart. Being apart from Josh felt like torture.

“Surprise!” Delta erupted into cheers and hollering as the lights flickered on and my eyes adjusted to the darkness. What the hell ?

Everyone was standing in front of me in an assortment of jerseys, sweaters and t-shirts, their hats backwards on their heads and big smiles on their faces. Every single person in the room was dressed like…me.

“We wanted to congratulate you!” Zoey squealed. I should have known that she was behind the party. Anytime there was a theme to be had, Zoey made sure it happened.

“And the theme is?…” I looked around at everyone with an awkward smile on my face.

“You!” Ella laughed, she was tucked into Arlo’s side, wearing a home jersey to match his away one.

“Wow,” I looked around again, I couldn’t believe they had gone out of their way to do something so grand for me. My cheeks hurt from smiling as Zoey dragged me through the house toward the kitchen. Everyone convened around the island as Van lifted Zoey to the counter behind him.

Cael appeared on my left with Clementine—wearing my Halloween costume… I looked him up and down, scowling. “Is that my toga?”

“It’s a blanket and you left it in my room,” he shrugged. Clementine was wearing a sweater and sweats with her hair tucked behind her ears and a hat over her hair. She scrunched up her nose when I winked at her.

“Congratulations,” she whispered as Cael went to get her a drink. “You did good the other day, with the press. The whispers and gossip have subsided, at least in my neck of the woods.”

“Thank you for asking questions that didn’t involve my… well, you know,” I said at a loss for words.

“You didn’t need my help, Dean. You just need a little more faith in yourself, and pride… definitely more pride.” She took the glass from Cael as he returned, kissing her on the cheek in passing before he grabbed me by the face and kissed me without consent or warning.

“Cael, come on!” I shoved him off, laughing.

“Congrats, big boy.” He backed off, scooping Clem up in his arms and whispering something in her ear before setting her back on her feet. “Dancing, we should all be dancing!”

“How is it possible that you’re more obnoxious, sober?” Arlo groaned but conceded when Ella pouted.

“Two against one!” Cael pointed to Ella’s sad bottom lip with a wicked grin.

Van helped Zoey from the counter, kissing her gently before the five of them disappeared into the crowd, leaving Van and me to field nonsense from the team. But something felt off, missing.

“Did Logan come?” I asked Van.

He pulled off his hat and smoothed out his hair with his hands as he shook his head. "I tried to get him to, but he said he had too much studying to do.”

“Studying?” I scowled. “He did that all morning…”

“How’s he doing?” Van asked me, his voice so quiet in comparison to the sounds of the party as Cael took over the sound system and started blasting TLC.

“It’s Josh, he’s fine, I think… I don’t think he would tell me even if I asked.” I took the cup that Van held out for me and sniffed it before scowling at the warm whiskey scent. I set it on the counter, and he eyed me uncomfortably.

“So why are you so on edge?” Van asked and took a swig of his beer.

“Me? I’m not, I’m fine—” I said and was cut off by laughter.

“You’re not fine, the second you realized he wasn’t here you clammed up and now you’re being weird,” Van said, pointing at my drink. “You never say no to whiskey,” he noted.

“Don’t therapist me, we’re at a party,” I said to him and rolled my eyes.

“Be honest, then, what’s got you so wound up?” He asked, leaning across the shitty island on his elbows. He stared at me for a long while, I knew he wanted answers about everything: baseball, Riona, my parents…

“I haven’t heard from them.” I shrugged.

Van’s face scrunched up momentarily as he tried to figure out who I meant, but it wasn’t long before he nodded softly. "Your parents.”

“Yeah, I expected some blow up but it’s just silence and it feels like I’m walking on glass, especially at school when I could run into Dad anywhere,” I said. “I googled other schools' baseball programs, Van,” I added and he grimaced.

“Bad, bad.” Van swallowed down the rest of his beer and circled the island. “If you haven’t seen your dad in a week, good chance he's avoiding you too. You take three classes in his building,” he said.

“Is that supposed to be advice?” I said, with a defeated huff.

“No, it’s just the reality of the situation, your parents never understood your value, Tucker. They saw you as a trophy, maybe it’s a good thing to be free of them, of that.” Van smiled at me, his brown eyes soft and understanding.

“It doesn’t feel like a good thing, I feel guilty,” I confessed.

“For what?” Van asked, and I knew I had walked into a trap.

I stared at him, all the answers on the tip of my tongue and knowing that he had a rebuttal for every single one of them. I was acutely aware of how stupid I sounded, but I just couldn’t get my brain to follow my heart. Logically, everything I had done was warfare in their eyes, refusing their help, turning my back on my blood because I was sick. Emotionally, I felt free, like I could finally just be who I wanted without the fear of upsetting my family. But the guilt sat between those things, eating away at my logic and happiness until all that was left was shame and guilt.

“I see the gears turning, Tucker, but you aren’t going to come up with something that outweighs your heart. There’s pure stupidity in letting them make you feel guilty for who you are. You’re not hurting anyone by loving men. And Dean—you’re not hurting Cael…” Van said, his hand cupping my shoulder and his fingers digging into the muscle. “…By loving Logan, if that’s what you need, what you want…” he added quietly, and before I could argue, Zoey barreled into the kitchen.

“Come dance!” She screamed at the two of us over the music and dragged us from the kitchen. Her tiny hand pulled me along, but all I could think about was Van’s last words. Loving Logan. Did I? Was that what this was? Maybe I didn’t argue because there was nothing to disagree about…

I had always thought I loved Cael, and maybe I did, for what our love could be; but it was never whatever this was. When Cael was out of sight, he was almost always out of mind. But without Josh here, by my side, it felt cold. Like I was exposed to the elements, to the rumors and gossip.

Cael loved me in the dark, where the shadows couldn’t reach.

And at the time, that was what I needed, what I demanded of him, but eventually the darkness just became the shadows. The darkness became toxic, suffocating. It was a box of my own design, and I had nearly killed Cael by locking him inside with me.

Josh had taken a stand, he wasn’t going to be pushed around. Not by me, not by anyone.

He loved me in the light.

Not caring about the shadows that bit into his skin as he stood by my side, protecting me with his own flesh and blood. The music was so loud, but somehow I could still hear my heartbeat in my ears as I thought about him. All the times he had stepped in front of me, taken care of me at the expense of himself.

What the hell was I doing?

“I’ll be back,” I yelled at the group over the music and darted from the house. I jogged all the way up the hill, my feet digging into the path and my muscles aching from the unexpected activity. I’d never run so fast, and my lungs begged for reprieve as I leapt up the backstairs into the nest.

“Josh!” I called out to him a few times as I searched the main floor. I barely made it up the stairs to our room, finding him with his headphones on sitting in our bed staring at his textbook with a concentrated look on his dumb, handsome face.

“Why the hell are you so out of breath?” He pulled off his headphones and gave me a dirty look as I dropped to my knees beside the bed. “Tuck, I have too much work to do for you to have one of your dramatic hissy fits.”

“Not a hissy fit,” I said, pressing my hands flat against the messy comforter inches from his leg. My fingers itched to feel him, but this would have to do. “Van said something to me tonight,” I said, and Josh raised an eyebrow.

“He gets too much air to his brain being that tall. Whatever he said is either a lie or altitude sickness.” Josh shut his textbook at his feet and gave me his full attention.

“He said I’m not hurting anyone by loving men, that…” I stumbled over my words, not sure if I wanted to confess everything. I clenched my fingers in the fabric, and his eyes darted down to them. “That I shouldn’t feel guilty about who I am and… I just,” I stopped again.

That time Josh reached out as I dropped my gaze from his, and I could feel him counting in his head as he wrapped his fingers into my hair and tugged my head back, our eyes meeting.

“Spit it out,” he ordered, but it was encouraging and warm. Wanting .

“I like you, I like this… I like us.”

Josh laughed, his eyebrow raising. "What the hell are you talking about?”

“I want this, I want…us.” I waved my hand between the two of us, and Josh stared at me like I was an idiot.

“One make out and you’re on your knees, Tuck?” He teased.

“Begging,” I said without hesitation.

“Begging for what exactly?” Josh smiled, his sharp teeth exposed at the corners of his pretty mouth. When he smiled at me like that, it made me feel alive, like being struck by lightning.

“I want to be your boyfriend, you insufferable asshole!” I blurted out in the most unromantic way I could think of.

“Correction, one make out and you want monogamy,” Josh hummed, his smile never budging.

“Can you stop teasing me for two minutes?” I pleaded with him.

“There’s no fun in that, Tuck. I kind of enjoy you being the nervous one for once,” Josh said. His dark curls licked at his tan neck, and I wanted to memorize the way each one twisted with the pad of my fingers.

“I just want a label,” I practically whined. I had spent the better half of my teenage years until now just hiding, not wanting labels or to have the attention on me. But with Josh, I wanted it, I wanted everyone to know what he meant to me.

“You want a label?” He smiled, still perched so gently on the bed as he watched me with his sable eyes. “Tell me why?” He insisted.

“Because…” I stopped, inhaling as much air as I could to slow down my racing heart. “I don’t want to hide us, to hide this.”

“And what’s this?” Josh waved his hand between us.

“You just want me to say it, to embarrass myself some more.”

“Maybe,” Josh smirked. “Maybe I like the look of Dean Tucker on his knees, begging me to be his.”

“See!” I raised my voice. “You know what I want.”

“Of course I do, you’re not subtle, Tuck.” He let go of a soft, quiet laugh that I wanted to chase around like a dog after a bone. “But what I want is to hear you say it. What do you want?”

“I want you to be my boyfriend, I want to hold your hand in public if you’ll let me, and I want to tell the guys,” I confessed. I wanted what Cael described that day at the cabin: I wanted someone to celebrate with, to come back to the Nest with. I wanted an Ella, a Clementine… “I want you to be mine.”

“That’s all?” Josh’s eyebrow arched.

“That’s all,” I confirmed, and he nodded his head softly at me.

“If that’s what you want,” he said quietly. “It’s what I want.”

I wasn’t expecting him to give in that way; so easily and without conditions.

“Will you kiss me?” I asked him. He blinked softly, almost as if he had missed it. “It’s necessary,” I added when he didn’t move.

“Yeah, Tuck,” Josh said, slipping from the bed and settling so our knees were touching the floor. “I’ll kiss you.”

I watched as he breathed in, pushing away every single nightmare and letting me surround him as our lips pressed together. I kept my hands back, hovering but never touching as the thudding of our combined heartbeat grew louder with every shared breath.

Josh’s lips were soft, pillowy against mine and for a split second, just like every time before, it was just us. The way his hair tickled my forehead and the smell of his body wash filled my nose. My fingers itched for contact, and despite the way my body fought against it, I tensed as he lifted his hand and brushed into my hair. The curls tangled in his grip as he twisted to keep himself from losing control.

Everything about Joshua Logan had a dizzying effect that I couldn’t shake.

He cleared his throat as he pulled away to look at me. “Feel better?” He asked me.

“I like that,” I said gently, and raised my hand to hover over his as he untangled his fingers from my hair. “Feels good.”

“You like having your hair pulled?” Josh chuckled, the feeling less overwhelming than every second of the conversation we had just had. It felt almost silly to be discussing my turn-ons.

“I guess so.” I opened my eyes and sighed, still so out of breath but now for a different reason.

“You never answered me earlier. Why were you out of breath?” Josh asked me, falling back against the bed frame, his legs stretching out around mine.

“I ran here,” I said.

I could hear the word roll off his tongue, ‘ dramatic.’

“Where did you run from?” Josh scowled at me.

“Delta.” I shrugged, drinking Josh in, his lips were red from our kiss and his pupils were massive.

“You ran all the way up that hill to tell me that?” He scoffed.

“I did.”

“That’s a steep hill.”

“It is.”

“That’s your most impressive hissy fit to date,” Josh teased and offered me a small smile.

“Why aren’t you at Delta, anyway?” I asked. “Would have made this all a lot less sweaty if I didn’t have to go for a jog,” I slid back on the floor and stripped from the damp sweater and shirt. It stuck to my skin and made me feel suffocated.

Josh traced his eyes up from the floor as I stood, the soft expanse of my stomach hardened only with each breath I took. I turned away from him and shoved my hand into the closet, tossing the dirty fabric in the bin and grabbing a clean shirt.

“Walking into Delta is a death sentence, Tuck,” Josh said as I pulled it over my head.

“How?” I asked.

Josh scowled. “You’re handsome, but sometimes you’re an idiot. They don’t want me there, they still see the enemy,” he said, running his hands through his hair just to give them something to do.

“Because you act like you’re the enemy. You tell them constantly how much you don’t want to be here,” I reminded him.

“Well, it’s true,” he said.

I walked over to Josh and squatted down on the balls of my feet. “If you want the guys to see you as a teammate, you need to start acting like one.”

“By attending frat parties?” Josh scoffed. "No.”

“Is it a recovery thing? If it is, say it and I’ll drop it,” I asked, my fingers digging into the fabric of my jeans. I was resisting the urge to make contact, I just wanted to touch him all the time but was constantly waiting for his go ahead.

“It’s not that. I can be around drunk people, Tuck.” Josh made the mistake of looking away from me, and he grumbled something under his breath like a little kid. “There’s just a lot of people…and not a lot of space.”

I smiled at him.

“What, Tuck…” Josh sighed.

“Coach tells me all the time the reason I play first base is because I take up space,” I said.

“Yeah, because you’re the size of a Mack truck, it’s unnatural.” Josh rolled his eyes, but I watched as they raked over my form.

“Why don’t you let me make the space? all you have to do is stay close.” I held out my hand to him and he stared at it. “I used to love those parties, but I was going out of my mind down there without you. Don’t make me go back alone.”

He met my hopeful gaze while I quietly begged him not to say no to me.

“Fine,” he said begrudgingly and pressed his hand into mine.