Page 48

TUCKER

“Y ou don’t need to come today,” Josh said, pulling on a clean dress shirt.

“I’m not letting you go alone…” I stepped forward and shook my head. “Not that one,” I said, eyeing the deep red. “Wear the navy…”

Hornets colors.

He paused, looking down at it and conceded easier than expected. I watched as he buttoned it up with shaky hands while I resisted the urge to do it for him. Josh had decided to go forward with Silas and present the evidence of the assault to the NCAA committee and within days they had called a meeting with the two of them.

Josh said he would do it, and despite the resounding fear in his expression when he agreed, he tried to leave me behind.

“They won't let you in that room, Dean, and after your defiance the other day toward Coach and Silas, I don’t think they’d allow it even if the committee did,” Josh grumbled as he got the last button done.

“I know,” I sighed. "I know… I just want to be there.”

Josh looked up from tucking in the shirt and nodded. “Fine.”

Silas was waiting at the bottom of the stairs for us when Josh finally found the courage to leave our room. His shoulders tight, his muscles straining against the shirt tensely. His entire body radiated stress with every step he took.

“Nope.” Silas pointed at me. “Absolutely not.”

“You aren’t leaving him here.” Unexpectedly, Josh was quick to argue in my defense. “He’ll go insane and do something stupid if he’s left alone. Just let him sit outside the room.”

“You’re starting to get on my nerves, Tucker,” Silas grumbled.

“We’re going to be late,” Josh said, walking past him without another word.

Coach met us at the building, an annoyed expression on his face when he saw I was following close behind them.

“Who the hell let this happen?” He glared at me. “Sit,” he barked to the flimsy chairs outside the conference room. I listened, planting myself firmly on the rickety plastic. “Logan,” he turned to Josh, putting his hand up to stop him from entering right away. “Take it slow, keep your composure and let Silas present the case.”

“I’m not a loose cannon,” Josh said, his jaw clenching.

“No, you’re a kid about to walk into a room of wolves. They don’t want a scandal, and it means one of two things,” Coach warned. “Either they believe you and deal with Ian, or they dismiss this entire case, and you keep the title of problem child in the NCAA. Do you understand?” Coach asked.

Josh swallowed, his throat bobbing roughly as he nodded.

“Good,” Coach said, letting him turn the knob. “Don’t move,” he snapped at me before the door shut in my face. On top of everything, sitting outside a conference room with my head between my knees, out of breath and more anxious than I’d ever been wasn’t on my list.

It felt like hours had passed, I wore out the tile in front of the room as I paced back and forth, just waiting and worrying. But when the door opened, I couldn’t tell if it was for the better.

“What happened?” I asked.

Coach and Silas looked over at Josh, who was the last to exit with grim expressions on their faces. Josh shoved passed them and down the hall before I could stop him and get more answers. I whirled on Silas and waited.

“That was…” he rubbed the back of his neck, his complexion pale like he might be sick.

“Rough,” Coach answered for him. "He did good, Tucker.”

“Good enough for them to expel Ian?” I asked, my chest constricted tightly and it felt like the air had been sucked out of the cramped, beige brick hallway.

“He was honest and detailed,” Silas croaked, clearly disturbed before he headed in the same direction as Josh.

“Josh is going to need you,” Coach said, patting my arm. “Keep him close.”

I watched as Coach left me standing in the hallway, still completely in the dark about what happened in that room. My skin itched like it was on fire as I headed toward the parking lot, finding Coach and Silas, but Josh was nowhere to be seen.

“He probably just needed some space, come on.” Coach opened the door of the truck for me. “We have a game to get ready for.”

“Fuck,” I came off the field rolling my arm over my head. Ella was on me the second I stepped into the dugout. Her delicate fingers work the muscle around the rotator cuff with precision and caution.

I had been so distracted with everything surrounding Josh and the Shores that I had been slacking off in practice and missing appointments to follow him around like a puppy. I knew that I was being ridiculous, and I was aware that Josh also thought that, but I couldn’t help myself.

Every game that week had been hell; we were all walking around on eggshells, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Nothing had been released on the Shore’s, but it was only a matter of time.

“You’re pushing too hard, Dean,” Ella said quietly, her eyes tracing the round of my shoulder as she worked. “Your body is struggling because you are, it can’t keep up with this grueling pace.”

“El,” I grimaced when her fingers found the knot in my muscle, and she grinned like a happy cat.

“Unless you want to add two appointments with me a week to your schedule, you’ll slow down and take care of yourself,” she warned me, and I groaned under the pressure of her hands, but the knot came loose, and instant relief flooded my shoulder.

“Alright,” I conceded to her when she didn’t let go of my sleeve. “I promise.”

The conversation was short as we were funneled back out on the field for the last inning. Everything else was a blur as the game was called, with three losses we were officially on a streak and Coach was pissed.

“I am well aware that the noise buzzing in your ears is loud, its obnoxious and makes it hard to focus but you have one job when you step onto that field and it isn’t to worry about the press or your families,” he stood with his hat hanging at his side as he yelled at us. “They will scratch and dig until they take every ounce of your courage and your pride, do not let them take the game from you,” he looked around the locker room.

“Yes, Coach,” we said after a moment of silence, letting his words evaporate into our exhausted minds and hearts.

“Get cleaned up, get some rest,” he ordered, and everyone started moving again.

Everything else around me became a haze of bodies and noise. I focused on getting out of my dirty gear, not bothering to shower because my body had the potential to fall asleep standing up. I climbed into the jeep on auto pilot not even remembering the drive back to the Nest but Josh walked step for step with me in silence as we went through the motions.

We showered and sat in bed, flipping through pages and binders of homework that I didn’t want to do. I had dropped the class my father taught in favor of another with a professor who didn’t care how far behind I was. Being stuck with six papers hadn’t been in the plans, but I didn’t have an option. It was that or be ostracized publicly by my father in front of a room of students that would very easily turn on me with a few well-placed dirty looks and off-handed comments that could snowball into rumors. It was simultaneously a good thing and a bad thing, but I had to suffer through my decision if I wanted to stay on track.

I chewed on the end of my pen, staring at him while he worked on his paper quietly. The way his hair curled around his ears and tickled the back of his neck was distracting and made the tips of my fingers itch for contact.

“Your eyes should be on your paper, Tuck,” Josh grumbled without looking up from his own.

“Yeah, well, they’re not,” I argued gently. “How much work do you have to do?” I asked him, mindlessly flipping through my binder.

“Too much, but not as much as you,” he snapped, finally looking up at me. “You need to focus,” he said, tapping my papers with his finger.

“I don’t want to focus. I want to win games and I want to spend the rest of my free time kissing you.” I let my head fall back and groaned but Josh wasn’t having my shit.

“Too bad you aren’t winning games, you dropped two balls today, recorded four outs in the first half of the game and almost put your shoulder out,” he replied without pulling his punches. “Do you want to go over the last five games? We can,” he stared at me.

“We only lost three,” I reminded him.

“We didn’t win the first two with your help, Captain. ” He dropped his pen. “You think they don’t notice when you start to buckle under the pressure? They do, you’re failing them,” he said, his voice was lower and mean, more mean than usual.

Guilt scattered through my nervous system, and I pushed my books aside. "I’m sorry.”

His whole body tensed at the apology, like he had never heard the words before. I laid my hands on the bed, palms up and waited for him to process it. He stared down at my hands, his heavy brows coming together in confusion before he looked up at me again. There was a storm behind his brown eyes, one I couldn’t calm but one I could help him brace for.

“Are you okay?” I asked him, shoving down my own anxiety to check in on him. His life was falling apart too. I was just quicker to admit it and even quicker to crumble beneath the pressure. The problem was Josh was made of diamonds, not a scratch on his confidence that anyone could see in passing.

Only when I slowed down could I see his crumbling walls.

“I’m fine,” he deflected.

“No, you’re not,” I argued. "You’re mean, tough guy, more often than not, but you’re only cruel when you’re lashing out.”

He huffed, a tiny, defeated laugh that bubbled painfully from his chest.

“It feels like I’m walking on glass,” he said after a moment of silence, he pushed from the bed and I sat back watching as he walked to the other side of the room. He was stretched tight like an elastic band, every movement looked painful. “Part of me wishes that they would just let the news break so that I can stop holding my breath. Every class, every game, I’m just constantly waiting for my phone to blow up.”

“Give me it,” I put my hand out and he narrowed his eyes on the motion but it interrupted his pacing long enough for him to give me the phone.

I looked down at it, the screen flashing on to show a picture of the lake at spring camp. I smiled down at it. “Do you wanna go for a drive?” I asked him before I turned the phone off and slipped it into my pocket.

“Right now?” He looked at the clock. “It’s ten o’clock, Tuck,” he scowled.

“So?” I slid from the bed to grab a hoodie. "Indulge me.”

“Are you going to give me my phone back?” He asked me and I shook my head.

“Mine's on, if there’s an emergency, someone will call,” I said softly and pulled the hoodie over my head before opening the door.

He was apprehensive until we finally got on the road. The highway pushed back the defensive feelings and soon enough he had actually fallen asleep. Three hours later I pulled down into the gravel road, the shift in terrain waking Josh up. He shifted in his seat, looking around at the dense tree lines in the pitch black.

“Where the hell are we?” He asked, trying to regain his bearings.

“Camp,” I said, pulling the Jeep into the empty parking lot.

“What the hell?” Josh scowled. “We have practice tomorrow, Tucker,” he said, his voice deep and angry. “And there’s no fucking service out here!”

“Exactly,” I said. "Get out of the Jeep, we’re going for a swim.”

“This isn’t a joke,” Josh hollered as I hopped down to the ground and shut the door behind me. He could sit in there if he wanted, pout and whine but I brought the keys with me and I had his phone…

I stripped off the sweater and then my shirt, tossing them on the dock as I approached. I kicked off my shoes and nearly lost my balance getting out of my socks. I shucked from my jeans and underwear, and the silence of an empty camp was liberating. The water was warmer than when we were here for spring camp, and it engulfed me in an overwhelming static noise that drowned out all the worries as soon as I hit the surface.

I held my breath as long as I could before pushing to the top and falling back into the water on my back to stare up at the stars. The water lapped around my sides, muting the world as I lost myself in the serene feeling of being completely unbothered.

Josh’s footsteps creaked against the dock, and I turned my head to see him standing there in his sweats. The moon, the only light around us, practically made him glow. Every scar on his torso, the bigger ones that maimed his chest and ribcage, all places that no one was ever supposed to find them.

“What the fuck is with you guys and this damn lake?” He growled, his eyes scanning the glossy surface.

“Are you going to stand there and stare at me or get in?” I asked him, standing up in the water. It rose to my chest as my feet sank to the bottom and dug into the soft, muddy lake floor. “You’re halfway there,” I smiled at him as he ran his shaky hands through his hair.

“I don’t think so, Tuck,” he said nervously, and it was such a strange tone coming from him. “What if there’s someone around? We shouldn’t be up here. Coach is gonna flip his lid if we’re too exhausted to practice tomorrow and neither of us gets enough sleep to begin with. Let’s just go back to Dansby…” He said.

“It’s just us here,” I said to him, pushing back toward the dock. I knew that the riverside of the camp that ran off the lake was more shallow, but Josh had been adamant that he could swim. “Forget Harbor. Just for an hour—it’s you and me,” I said, resting my arms on the dock. Hopeful that it would be enough to get him in the water.

Josh squatted down in front of me and sighed, his hand coming out and daring to push through the damp curls that stuck to my forehead. I caught his hand before he pulled away, pressing my lips to his wrist and mumbled. "Get in the water, Logan.”

“Alright,” he conceded. He stood up and pushed his thumbs into the band of his sweats, rolling them down over his hips and kicking off his shoes in the process. He left his boxers on, but they gripped his thighs as he slipped down into the water from the dock directly in front of me.

I waded back from the edge, giving him the space to adjust to the water but never taking my eyes off him as his arms moved in soft circles. The moon reflected off the ripping water between us, and there was a simple, calming silence that fell over the lake. He closed his eyes, and I could see every muscle in his body start to relax in the water. He was letting his mind go just for a moment, breathing in the silence and letting it fill in all the spaces that held anxiety and panic.

It was just him and the quiet.

Josh inhaled slowly, and I mirrored his breathing.

After some time, he opened his eyes, and they were lighter in color, softer.

“Feel better?” I asked him.

He nodded, keeping his lips in a tight line while his eyes flickered up to the sky. It’d been a gamble whether or not being out here would work. I knew how it made me feel when I was overwhelmed by everything, stepping off that bus every year and having the fresh air hit my face, the quiet rustle of animals unbothered by city traffic. The early morning and late nights, the crackling of a fire and the laughter of my friends.

The three-hour drive was almost always worth it.

Josh inhaled again, filling his lungs and letting them out just as slowly. The scars on his chest stretched and pulled with his muscles from the motion. I let myself reach out and touch the one on his collarbone. I traced it over the jagged line wondering what caused the damage, he shuttered gently under the contact.

“They wouldn’t ask questions,” I said to him, and he looked down at my hand, his own coming around it to hold it still. “About the scars, if you wanted to change in the locker room, they wouldn’t even bat an eye.”

“It’s not one or two, Tuck,” he mumbled, his throat bobbing.

“Doesn’t matter,” I said. "We’re all covered in scars.” I turned in the water, showing him my back. I couldn’t see it, but I knew it was there because Cael used to trace it as he fell asleep. “Just below my shoulder blade is a deep scar from my brother pushing me out of our tree house. I hit the wooden ladder, needed thirty-two stitches,” I said.

“It’s not the same,” Josh said, but his thumb ran over the scar as he listened.

“No,” I shrugged. "But it was stupid, like a lot of my scars… Like a lot of all our scars, bad decisions, drunken nights, fights, accidents,” I said, turning back around to look at him. “Survival.”

He huffed. "You see them as trophies, Dean…I see them as reminders.”

I nodded, it was understandable, but it didn’t mean it had to be normal forever.

“When Ella started at Harbor, I don’t think I ever saw her with her hair up, in anything but a sweater. She hid the scars because she was ashamed of them, guilt-ridden for that accident that killed her family,” I said.

Josh sighed.

“But she was healing from it, making her peace, and that’s fine… I’m sure if she had wanted to hide for the rest of her life, she could have. But Arlo isn’t the kind of man who just lets people cower away in corners. He never let any of us, so it only made sense that he pushed Ella to forgive herself for shit,” I said, swimming back a little in the lake and letting my head duck beneath the water for a second.

“Tuck, is there a point to this story?” Josh asked when I broke the surface.

“I’m just trying to say that you have the team's support, they’ll have your back, no matter what.” I stared at him as he processed the statement.

“Half of them still think I’m an asshole,” he said.

“I mean, you can be an asshole… but trust me, they have practice in dealing with that…half of them had to play with Nicholas King.”

“Who’s now been ostracized from the cult ?” Josh sneered, sarcasm thick in his voice.

“Nick did that to himself. He went after one of his own. He made it clear that he was never a Hornet,” I said. “I know that you don’t believe in it, you think we’re a cult or some crap…but we’re a family. And when you made a stand to tell the guys who you were, they saw that, they took it to heart. It doesn’t matter that you’re covered in scars, or wading through years of trauma, you can be mean to them, you can be mean to me. But whatever happens next…”

“We deal with it.” He nodded.