“None taken. You’re not my type, either. I see you as a brother.”
“There is that.” Richard smiled.
“So, if Richard’s not the father then who is?” Christen asked.
“The baby is mine.” Lucas sighed when he heard Tucker speak up. He stepped beside Lucas, and wrapped his arms around his waist, then kissed him on the side of his head. “Sorry I’m late.”
“Papa!” Zoi yelled and hopped off her grandfather’s lap and ran over to Tucker who kneeled and scooped her up in his arms. Her tiny hands touched his cheeks as he kissed her.
“Okay, guys, pay up,” Stephen said with his hands stretched out.
Lucas watched as Mark, Julian, Jaxson, and Brenden reached into their pockets and pulled out some money. “What the hell?”
“Daddy say hell,” Zoi repeated and then covered her mouth smiling behind her hand.
“That he did, Zoi, and that’s a bad word, isn’t it?” Tucker asked.
“Ah-huh, bad words, Daddy,” Zoi scolded, pointing her finger at him.
Lucas rolled his eyes and saw the proud expression on Tucker’s face. “Your papa can spank me later. I want to know what the hel . . . heck is going on.” He never corrected Zoi that Tucker wasn’t her father; it was a subject they never brought up, since they were still feeling their way through the minefield that was their relationship.
“What’s going on is we,” Stephen said pointing to his conspirators, “kind of figured that something was going on between you two.”
“How? We just started seeing each other?” Tucker asked.
“But I saw the signs a few months back at Nick’s last soccer game. I doubt you guys knew what the score was or who was there the way you two were so wrapped up in each other,” Stephen said.
Lucas' brows creased together as the day came back to him. He was sitting in the back of the bleachers closer to the end in case Zoi decided she’d rather run around than pay attention to the game. Tucker had shown up a little after the game started.
“What’s the score?” Tucker asked walking over to him.
“Hey, Tuck, I’m glad you could make it. You didn’t miss much. The game just started.”
“I’d never miss one of Nick’s games. Are you kidding me? Stephen wouldn’t let me live it down. Not to mention Nick would give me the silent treatment for life.”
“You’re just a big softy, aren’t you?”
Tucker smiled. “Guilty as charged.”
They stared at each other and Lucas felt his pulse speed up, and for the life of him, he couldn’t say why.
“So how are things with you?” Tucker asked him.
“Same as always, doing the single father thing, and trying not to mess it up.”
“It can’t be easy,” Tucker said to him.
“No, it’s not. But you know, everyone is helping me out . . .”
“When you let them,” Tucker finished for him.
“Yeah.”
Tucker reached up and pulled something from his hair, and he felt something course down his spine, but he ignored it and continued talking with his friend he hadn’t seen in a while.
Lucas felt a smile grace his lips; they’d talked to each other the entire game, catching up with each other. He remembered Tucker made him laugh a few times, he’d even try to get Zoi’s attention but back then she wanted nothing to do with him. Stephen was right, he didn’t remember the score, he only knew that Nick’s team won the game because afterward, they’d gone to Stephen and Brenden’s to celebrate.
“I have to admit, I thought something was happening then,” Jaxson said with a shrug.
