“I was hoping.”
That should not be as attractive as it is.I shake my head, half laughing, half overwhelmed.“You’re very sure of yourself.”
“Usually.”
“Usually?”
“Not always.”
And somehow, impossibly, that makes me even more nervous.
Because if Tucker Bostic is uncertain about this too, then maybe I’m not imagining the weight of it.Maybe this is real.Or trying to be.He opens my driver’s door for me before I can overthink any of it further.I slide into the seat and glance up at him.He rests one hand on the door frame.
“Drive safe.”
There’s something in his voice tonight.Something deeper than habit.I nod.“Goodnight, Tucker.”
“Night, Lucy.”
He closes the door and steps back.I drive home with Quinn humming in the backseat and my own thoughts chasing themselves in frantic circles.By the time I get her fed and bathed and tucked into bed, I’m no closer to figuring anything out.
I clean the kitchen on autopilot.Set out Quinn’s clothes for tomorrow.Lock the doors.Wash my face.And all the while, the same thought keeps resurfacing.
A date.
With Tucker.With Mellow.
With a man twenty-five years older than me.I sit on the edge of my bed in the quiet house and stare at the wall.Can this even be a real thing?
The question is ridiculous and unavoidable all at once.Twenty-five years.That isn’t a gap.That’s a lifetime.He has lived entire chapters of a life I haven’t even touched yet.Seen places I haven’t seen.Done things I probably can’t imagine.He wears age like confidence and stillness and a kind of grounded masculinity that makes younger men feel unfinished.
And me?
I still feel like I’m building my life out of scraps and routine and sheer refusal to fall apart.What would people say?What would they assume?What happens if Quinn gets attached?What happens ifIdo?The thought makes me stand abruptly and pace once across the room.
This is exactly why dating is a bad idea.Because it isn’t just dinner.It’s never just dinner when there’s a child involved.Never just chemistry when a man has already stepped into the edges of your life and fit there too well.I stop at the window and look out at the darkened yard.
Somewhere out there, maybe too close for objectivity and too far for common sense, is Tucker Bostic.
And tomorrow night I’m going on a date with him.I press my fingers to my lips and let out a shaky breath.
“Lord help me,” I whisper to the empty room.
Because I’m stunned I said yes.And even more stunned that, underneath all the nerves and logic and very real reasons to be careful…I’m excited.
FOURTEEN
MELLOW
Istand in my room at the clubhouse staring at two black T-shirts laid across the bed like one of them matters more than the other and feel like the dumbest man in Alabama.I am a simple man.I like black, I like comfortable.Why I give a fuck what Lucy thinks about my choice in shirt tonight is what is twisting me up inside.I’m too old for this shit.
A knock hits my open door frame.
Looney leans in, takes one look at me, and grins like Christmas came early.“You dressing for dinner or surgery?”
“Get out, Looney.” I order and immediately regret my decision to get ready at the clubhouse.We had church though and there wasn’t much time for me to get showered and shaved before needing to leave to pick up Lucy.
He steps all the way in instead.“Which one saysI definitely didn’t spend fifteen minutes deciding how broad my shoulders should look while I take a younger woman on a date?”
