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CHAPTER EIGHT

AMEDEO

This was the first real home-cooked meal I’d had in…hell, I couldn’t remember how long. I wasn’t much of a chef, and Bryce rarely did more than pour a bunch of granola over yogurt and pretend to eat it on Instagram for his followers before heading down to the coffee shop or the dumpling place a block from the apartment.

I had subsisted on meal delivery services or the vending machine at my office building that had sandwiches, which rarely doled out food poisoning. So this? It was heaven.

I was so enamored by the meal I’d almost forgotten where I was and why I was there. It was only when I caught Tucker staring at me with a tiny smirk that I realized I was having a full-blown love affair with my plate, and I shook myself out of my thoughts.

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Tucker said, the corner of his mouth lifting higher. “I’m glad you like it. I do wonder if you make those noises every time you’re happy though.”

“Oh my God. That’s mortifying.”

He didn’t say sorry, which was…something. He just smirked. “It’s poutine.”

I blinked at him.

Pointing to his plate with his fork, he repeated himself. “Poutine. It’s Canadian. Well…I’m not sure how, like, real Canadian this is. I think he puts his own twist on it with the shredded chicken and all the fucking broccoli he makes me eat.”

He was speaking English, but I didn’t understand all the words coming out of his mouth.

“Don’t mind me,” he added after studying my expression. “I babble when I’m nervous.”

“Are you nervous?” He didn’t seem like it. At all. I was the one with trembling knees and an entire eclipse of moths in my gut, fluttering around like they’d just climbed out of their cocoons.

Tucker shrugged and shoveled another large forkful of fries into his mouth. “Mm.” He chewed obnoxiously, and while his manners should have put me off, there was something endearing about him. I liked that he was raw and rough and unapologetically himself. I wasn’t used to being around people like that. “I mean, aren’t you?”

“Well… yes ,” I said, fighting off a laugh. “But I’m sitting in front of the gorgeous jock I fake-married in Vegas who would have probably shoved me into a locker if we were at school together.”

He threw his head back and laughed. “I want to say there’s no way in hell, but I definitely would have. But not because of you,” he added, his face sobering. “I was a total dick in high school, and I was even worse in college.”

“What changed?”

“Losing a third of my body in a car crash,” he said flatly.

Crap. “Right, yeah. That would do it.”

He stared for a beat, and then his face bloomed into a huge smile. “Okay, yeah. I’m not even a little bit curious why we got married now.”

I set my fork down a little too hard. “You remember?”

“Nope, but you’re funny as fuck, and I like that.”

That…was a first. No one said that to me ever. And was I? Because I was not trying to be funny. “Thank you?”

His grin widened, making his eyes crinkle. “Do you want to come watch one of our games this week?”

That was not the question I’d expected him to ask. “Am I allowed? I mean, won’t it be strange? Won’t people ask questions?”

“Oh, trust me, Ford couldn’t keep a secret if you paid him. Everyone is going to know who you are tomorrow. But they’ll grill me in the locker room, so you’ll be spared most of the personal questions. It’s cool if you don’t want to though,” he added in a rush.

“No. No, I…that sounds…” Nice. It sounded nice. More than I deserved after this whole disaster. But I was going to take the kindness where I could get it. It had been so long. “I think that would be fun.”

Tucker let out a breath like he’d been holding it. “Yeah?”

“Definitely. I don’t know anything about hockey?—”

“Sled hockey. It’s different. It’s more fun if you ask me, but that might be because I’m still bitter at losing my shot at the NHL.”

I had zero idea what to say to that. I didn’t think he wanted pity. “Will you show me?”

He brightened and jumped up, grabbing the table as he wobbled off-balance. “Shit, yeah. Come on, we can go watch some tape.”

* * *

I very quickly learned that watching tape meant watching videos of past games. And I also very quickly learned that sled hockey was terrifying. If standing hockey was anything close to it, it was not a hobby I ever wanted to pick up. Tucker ended the first period with a bleeding mouth after accidentally taking a stick to the face.

“It’s easier on sleds to get walloped,” he explained. He was sitting across the room, very close to the TV, which I assumed had to do with his vision. He wore glasses, and I had a memory of him doing that with the menu at the bar. I didn’t ask though. It felt invasive. “But blind hockey gets pretty intense too.”

I blinked at him. “Blind…hockey?”

“Yeah, it’s exactly what it sounds like. Blind guys. I coach a peewee team, but I play on the community league sometimes. I’m just not super stable on my prosthetics, so it’s only when they’re fucking around on the ice or playing shinny.”

More words I didn’t know. “Your life sounds interesting.”

He turned slowly, his brows furrowed like he was trying to see me from that far away. “Sarcasm?”

“What? Oh my God, n-no!” I cleared my throat and took a breath to help stop the stammer. “I’m literally the most boring person you will ever meet. I work in accounting, in IT, so I don’t even do all the fun stuff with numbers. I live at my desk and eat out of vending machines, and I don’t even remember the last time I went shopping for new clothes.”

Tucker let out a grunt as he pushed himself to stand. I wondered what it felt like—walking on legs like that. Was it like stilts?

He sauntered over, then sank down with a tiny groan and began to rub his hands along his thighs. “You’re a guy who took a chance on some weirdo in a bar in Vegas. I could have stolen your liver.”

I blinked. “Is…that a thing you’ve done?”

He laughed. “No, but you know. That shit happens all the time in movies. I could have been a total psychopath.”

“I liked you,” I told him, and I meant it. I might not have remembered much, but I did remember that. “You made me feel good after a very long week of feeling like shit.”

“Your partner, right? The one who dumped you because of me.”

I stared down at my hands. “Ex.” I’d been avoiding the topic of Bryce this entire night, but I knew Tucker needed to know he hadn’t ruined anything. “I meant what I said when I told you that what happened didn’t ruin anything between me and Bryce.”

“What a terrible name.”

I raised a brow at him.

“Shut up. It is. Tucker’s a classic.”

I couldn’t help a small laugh as a tiny well of affection began to grow in my chest. “I like it better than Bryce, if that helps.”

He sniffed. “It does. Go on.”

“He’s your classic narcissistic jerk. Cheats on me a lot, likes emotional torment when he wants to punish me, then gives me crumbs of affection when I try to walk away—just enough so I’ll come begging for more. We should have split up years ago, but I’ve always been kind of a coward. I don’t like change. I think the night I met you, I snapped.”

“That’s some way to snap,” Tucker said, blowing out a puff of air. He looked angry, but I wasn’t sure it was directed at me. “I think we had a good night. Even if we didn’t do anything…right?”

I bit my lip. As far as I could tell, we hadn’t had sex. But there was the haziest memory of him touching my face, going in for a kiss. But it faded out before I could remember what his lips felt like.

“Oh shit, we did,” he said, snapping me out of my head.

My ears burned. “I think we might have kissed. You, uh…you did this thing.”

“I what?” he pressed. “What did I do? Show me.”

Lifting my hands, I leaned over, and he flinched back. “S-sorry. I didn’t mean to?—”

“No!” He lunged for me and grabbed me by the wrists, pulling me back. “Sorry. My vision is totally shit, and I get kind of freaked-out when people move too quickly toward me. I mean it. Show me. Please.”

Swallowing heavily, I nodded. Having permission to do this one small thing, this little creature comfort, I couldn’t give it up. I pressed my palms to his cheeks the way he’d done to mine, then stroked my thumbs over his rough stubble.

“And then we kissed?” His voice was soft and thready.

“I don’t remember.”

There was a long beat, and then I dropped my hands from his cheeks to his shoulders. I should have pulled away. All social propriety and decorum told me that was what I was supposed to do. But I didn’t want to let go. It had been so long since anyone had wanted me to touch them, and Tucker was leaning into my touch.

“Sucks that we might have had that and neither of us can remember it,” he murmured.

I nodded, then finally let him go. For a second, I swore there was disappointment in his face, but it was gone before I could take a second look. “So. Hockey.”

“Right,” he said, clapping his hands. “You’re going to love it. The guys are amazing. The new coach fucking sucks, but he’ll probably be gone soon. And if someone pisses you off, you basically have carte blanche to slam them into the boards. If you stick around long enough, maybe I can get you into a sled.”

Like fuck that would happen, but I still let myself nod and smile. It was nice to pretend, even if all of this was nothing more than a fantasy I wouldn’t get to keep.

* * *

In spite of taking all the vacation days I had in the bank—which were plenty, considering I never took time off work—I still got calls. The system we worked with was total shit, and the programs were always throwing error codes.

And the fact that we were right in the middle of corporate tax season, it was never-ending. It was why I had to blow Tucker off for breakfast the next morning and pray that he didn’t take it personally.

We’d parted ways on better terms than I thought we would. He’d walked me to my Uber and held my hand for a really long time. For a moment, I thought he might go in to take that kiss we’d both lost to alcohol in Vegas, but he just held my gaze before letting me go.

I went to sleep with a good-night text flashing behind my eyelids and woke up with a good morning waiting for me on my screen.

When I let him know I couldn’t meet him, he’d sent me a teardrop emoji but then told me to let him know when I was free. And that was that. With the workload mounting, that was going to be never if I didn’t start sticking up for myself and the time off I’d earned.

Fuck, I needed a new job, along with a new boyfriend.

Glancing at the clock, I realized it was nearly noon, and all I’d had was a stale croissant and some shitty coffee from a pod that tasted like ass. I felt kind of crusty from stress sweat, so I decided to hop in the shower and rinse off.

There was a little café not too far from where I was staying, and a walk in the sun was just what my pasty skin needed. I’d been indoors for too damn long. God, when had I lost myself so badly? A trip to a small East Coast town should not feel like another universe.

I needed to do better. As my old therapist would have me saying over and over, I deserved better.

My shoes were a little tight as I began the walk down the street, but the fresh air felt good in my lungs, and the heavy weight on my shoulders began to ease. When my phone started buzzing with an unknown number, I didn’t even feel panic.

If it was work, I was going to tell them to fuck all the way off. I was taking some time for me.

“Yes?”

“Baby.” It wasn’t work.

I stopped dead in my tracks. My knees went a little weak, and by some miracle, there was a bus bench a few feet away to catch me before I fell. God, why did hearing Bryce’s voice fuck me up so badly? My breath shook on my exhale.

“Don’t call me that.”

“Why are you being like this?” His voice took on an old, familiar whine.

Unable to help it, I let out a laugh. “Is that a joke? You cheated on me r-repeatedly. You mistreated me. You d-d-d—” I took a breath to slow my words. “You don’t bother treating our relationship like it matters to you. The entire w-week before I went to Vegas, you shit all over me.”

“Baby—”

“ Don’t !”

He was completely silent.

“Now you’re refusing to leave my apartment like you have any r-right to be there,” I finished. “Whose phone are you calling me on, anyway? Because I blocked your number.” I was shaking like an autumn leaf, but it was worth it to unleash on him. There was still so much pent up—so much I wanted to say, even if nothing would ever really get through.

“Don’t worry about it. I just wanted to know why you’re in fucking Massachusetts, of all places.”

My blood ran cold. “What? How do you know that?”

“Don’t worry about it,” he said again.

I hung up without thinking. How did he know where I was? I went so far out of my way to keep this from him. How could he have possibly found me? My vision went white at the edges, and my stomach roiled violently.

I didn’t want to be sick in public, and the last thing I needed was to fucking faint right here on this bus bench. God, the walk back to the rental was so far. Why did I think I could get away this easily? There was no peace.

“Amedeo?”

My head snapped to the side, and I realized a car had pulled up to the curb. It was a low-to-the-ground, two-door, sporty thing, and I recognized the man behind the wheel. It was Tucker’s friend, the one from the supermarket. Ford.

“You okay, bud? You look a little green?” he asked.

I waved him off with a grimace. “Yeah, no. Just…stopped for a breather.”

He hummed. “Mmmmyeah, I don’t think that’s the truth. Get in.”

“No, really, I’m?—”

“Get. In.”

I moved without thinking, my legs still weak, but I managed to slide into the seat and close the door. He shot me a sunny grin.

“Sorry. I’m not actually trying to be a dick, but if Tuck knew that I left his husband sitting on the side of the road, looking like he wanted to ralph all over his shoes, he’d literally kill me.”

He was sweet, though I wasn’t sure he was entirely accurate. Tucker had been nicer to me and about this whole situation than I expected him to be, but now that he knew we weren’t really legally married, there was no reason to care about my well-being.

But I was still shaken from hearing Bryce’s voice. And although he hadn’t made a direct threat, him letting me know he knew where I was felt like one. I felt entirely unsafe.

My sister was right—I couldn’t trust him.

He’d never laid hands on me before, but I was starting to realize I didn’t know what he might be capable of. Having some beefy hockey players on my side was not the worst position I could be in if Bryce knew my exact location and decided to show up.

“Hey.”

I glanced over and realized Ford hadn’t moved the car. Shit, had he asked me something?

“Are you okay? We can—” His words were cut off by a person behind him laying on their horn.

He shoved his hand out the window, and though I couldn’t see it from my angle, I knew he was giving them the finger.

“Eat shit, dickhead! There’s no one in the other lane!”

The car behind us zoomed around while pressing the horn, and Ford’s middle finger followed them forward.

“Sorry, people here are assholes sometimes. Anyway, you good? I’m kind of late, so we should get going if you’re not going to throw up in my car.”

I blinked at him. “I’m good. I won’t throw up, I promise. We can go.”

It was only after he put the car back into drive and hit the gas that I realized I had no idea where I’d agreed to tag along to or if I would be welcome.