And then he smiled. At me. My father smiled at me, and it was like the sun coming out…
I still remembered how secure it had felt, basking in the warmth of his approval. His love. Or his version of love. And also how sad it was that I needed to beg for what should have come unconditionally.
Then Tucker nudged me, and I blinked out of the memory. “Hey, Em? You ready? Let’s roll.” He slapped hands with Rhett and Gideon. “Let’s get our drink on.”
Our group scooted out of the booth. The boys had left a mess, the girls had hardly touched their salads, and there was no tip. I fished two twenties out of my purse and slipped them under the ketchup bottle.
The waitress was just arriving to clean up. “Thank you,” she said quietly.
I smiled back but it wasn’t like I’d done anything spectacular; showing basic decency didn’t deserve awards. It wasn’t even my money, anyway, but what my dad put into my account.
Nothing I’d earned.
But in the parking lot, Tucker held open the door of his black Ford F150, an expectant grin on his face, so maybe I’d earned it after all.
***
We parked at a lookout spot close to the lighthouse. The sun had sunk away, leaving the truck cab dark and stifling, the windows fogged so that I couldn’t see the ocean in front of us. Tucker’s hands were all over me—along my thighs in my skinny jeans, up my shirt, then in my hair, then at the back of my head, pushing me toward his lap. I’d done this dozens of times, but that night, his touch made me want to scream, as if I were trapped and suffocating in my own skin.
I shoved him away and sat up. “I’m not in the mood.”
Tucker threw up his hands, then brought them down onto the steering wheel. “Oh, come on, Em. I’m on the brink.” He turned on a winning grin. “Don’t leave me hanging.”
I faced him. “Aren’t you tired of this?”
“Tired of only getting head? Yes.”
“I meant, this.” I gestured around the cab. “The same thing, every weekend. Cassidy’s with the gang. Then we park somewhere, you get off, and we call it a night.”
He frowned. “You haven’t complained before.”
“Well, I’m complaining now,” I snapped and cursed Xander Ford.
One thing I’d managed to remember from math class was the concept of a shared property—something multiple situations had in common. Over the past few days, situations that had been normal in my world were suddenly flipped upside down, and Xander was why. I’d all but forced myself to forget about him, and now, suddenly, he was a default setting—the place my mind and heart went to first.
Ridiculous. We were ten years old. Why does it feel like so much?
“So…what?” Tucker was asking. “You want romance? I told you, babe, it’s not my thing.” He reached out and brushed his knuckles against my cheek. “But I’ll always take care of you. No matter what.”
“I can take care of myself.”
He burst out laughing, then coughed. “Sure, you can.”
My eyes flashed. “You don’t believe me?”
“Princess—”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Emery.Be real. You are, like, the perfect woman. Perfect face, perfect tits, perfect ass…you’re the whole package. You don’t have todoanything because you alreadyhaveeverything. Why not just enjoy it?”
He leaned in to try to kiss me, but I pulled away, arms crossed.
Tucker sat back, facing forward. A muscle ticked in his jaw. “Your dad loves me, you know.”
“So?”
“I’m just saying, if you’re holding out on me because you think he’d be pissed, he won’t.” He glanced at me sideways. “Unless there’s some weird purity thing going on?”
