I nodded. “I know.”
He ran a hand through his hair. “I was hurt and, yeah, a little scared. You were the first person I let in for a long time. And then, when you dropped the Florida bomb, it felt like maybe I’d been stupid to believe it meant something.”
My chest tightened.
He shook his head, mostly at himself. “ButI also didn’t give you a chance to explain. I just . . . cut you off, cold tofurkey. Like that would somehow make it easier.”
His dry, rueful laugh gave me hope. “Spoiler alert, it didn’t.”
For the first time in weeks, my smile reached my eyes.
“I missed you,” he said, eyes steady on mine now. “Everyfuckingday.”
I swallowed the knot in my throat and gave him a half-shrug. “We both kinda suck at this, huh?”
“Yeah,” he replied, in between nervous laughter. “Real bad.”
We stood there toe to toe, both of us radiating nerves. The air between us sizzled with everything we hadn’t said, everything we’d been too afraid to risk. But I was done holding back. I’d spent weeks wondering if I’d blown my shot with Tucker—if I’d ruined my chance at love.
And now here he was, standing in front of me, open, imperfect, and still somehow mine.
Neither of us knew what would happen tomorrow. But I knew how I felt here and now, and I wasn’t going to waste the moment.
“But there’s nobody I would rather suck at love with than you, Johnathan Tucker.” His eyes flared with desire when I stepped forward. And before I could talk myself out of it, I added, voice low and sure, “I love you.”
There, I said it. Out loud.
No hiding, no edits.
The silence between us stretched, just long enough to make my stomach twist. Then, after what felt like forever but was probably only a few seconds, his lips parted.
“I love you, too.”
His voice cracked, like the words had been sitting in his chest too long, too heavy to carry alone anymore.
“I never stopped.”
And just like that, I could breathe again. Hell, I felt like I could fly, knowing that Tucker would be there to catch me if I fell.
He rocked forward on his toes, brushing the weight of his erection against my thigh. My eyes nearly rolled back into my head when he dragged his fingers over my ear, scraping my scalp in that delicious toe-curling way that only he and the woman who cut my hair could do. The shit-eating grin on his face told me he knew exactly how much his touch affected me.
“Well, now that we’ve gotten that out of the way . . .,” he murmured, his grin crooked and knowing, like he’d just hit a walk-off and was still rounding the bases in my head.
I opened my mouth to fire back something witty, but then he leaned in, close enough that his breath grazed my cheek.
“Wanna come home with me?”
I froze for half a second, not because of what he’d asked, but because ofhowhe’d asked it. This wasn’t just about sex—though, there would be sex; we had a lot of catching up to do—and we both knew it.
Tuck’s eyes searched mine, like he needed me to understand the real question he was posing:are you in this with me fully?Thankfully, and perhaps for the first time, we were both on the same page.
I stepped in until we were chest to chest, his heartbeat echoing against mine.
“Yeah,” I said quietly. “I do.”
He reached for my hand, and I let him take it. And then, before I could say another word, Tucker tugged me closer and kissed me.
Not a shy, testing kiss either.
