He just turns in the doorway, jaw clenched out of frustration. “I want to know why you won’t give us a second chance.”
My hand trembles as I reach up and snag a mug from a cupboard Emmett fixed, so much of me wishing I hadn’t asked him to leave.
“There is nous, Tucker. You cheated and destroyed our relationship.”
Footsteps sound from behind me as I flick on the machine and spin around to face him, palms cutting into the edge of the counter.
Standing only a few feet away, Tucker hunches his shoulders. “I thought you were a better mom than that, and so did my parents.”
Since the second Tucker showed up at my place, anger was yet to feature in the many emotions I felt.
Until now.
“Excuse me?” I question, voice incredulous.
He just shrugs like what he said wasn’t the epitome of gaslighting. “If Blake could talk, I’m pretty sure that she’d want her mommy to give her daddy another shot.” His eyes rove my home once more. “No kid would want to be brought up in a place like this.”
Hurt lances through me. Burning, maddening, searing hurt.
“Who the fuck do you think you are?”
He looks borderline satisfied to get a rise out of me. I can’tsay I blame him; I’ve offered next to zero emotional response since he crossed the threshold.
“Billie,” he begins, “you’re a college dropout from a poor family, living in a place that looks like it should be condemned.”
“That’s not true,” I volley back, proud of my little apartment even if I can’t refute the rest.
He edges closer to me as the coffee machine finishes up its cycle. “It’s all true, Billie. But I want to make things right again.”
I scoff. “So, you’re here to rescue us, right? Like a white knight in shining armor.”
He grins, and I hate it. “Something like that, yeah. Plus, there’s a bunch of rumors circulating around the country club, and most of them aren’t favorable to my family.”
I cannot have heard that right. “I-I’m sorry?”
Tucker flushes a color I used to think was cute. “Let’s just say that it would be ideal for all of us if you came back to Austin with me. Whatever outstanding rent you have on this place my parents will settle, and the house we originally picked out is ready and waiting for us to move into.”
Pressing the heels of my hands into my eyes, I check that I haven’t entered an alternate universe. Nothing in real life can be this messed up.
Not even the Price family.
“I need to get this straight,” I sigh, hands still digging into my eye sockets. “You want me and Blake to up and leave our lives here in Brooklyn so we can fly back to Texas with you …” I drop my hands, vision now blurry as I look at him. “All so your parents can save face in their social circles?”
Tucker’s lack of response is answer enough.
“Get. Out.” I punctuate each word through my teeth.
Like I just pulled a gun and shot him through the chest, he rears back. “You’re kicking me out?”
I shake my head at him. “No, Tucker.I’mnot kicking you out.We’rekicking you out. Blake and I.”
His jaw pops open, and I’m already halfway to the front door.
Yanking on the handle, I motion for him to leave.
Like he did with me earlier, I stop him with a hand to his arm, although he doesn’t bother to show me his eyes. “Given that your parents are the ones who call the shots in your life, would you take a personal message on my behalf?”
He remains silent, molars grinding.
