Instead, her hands come up—gentle and steady as her thumbbrushes away the tear. I avert my gaze, letting the humiliation of everything and being a grown man crying in front of her, settle in.
“Look at me,” she says.
I do.
“You scare me, too, Tucker,” she admits, then pauses. She averts her gaze for just a brief moment, telling me she’s hesitant to say more. I brace for whatever she’s about to say, and my body tightens to prepare for disappointment. “I’ve been trying like hell to keep you at a safe distance—told myself not to fall for you,” she says softly. “Since I got here. Since the beginning. I told myself it was the timing of everything. It hadn’t been that long since you walked out on me.” I wince at her words, but she continues. “The show and the mess of everything. I told myself it would be easier if I kept you at arm’s length. Yet, you kept showing up for me in every moment, from the quiet ones to the hard ones to the ones that mattered.” She smiles, shaking her head. “Do you remember what you said to me at the bar back in San Francisco?”
I tilt my head to the side in confusion.
“I said a lot of things, Scottie.” I smirk, feeling the tension slip from my body.
She playfully smacks my chest. “Not any of that. But we talked about the meaning of home…” She stops, assessing me to see if I remember. Truthfully, I don’t. “You said that home is just walls and a roof where you live and a structure with belongings and memories, but then you said it was more than that. You said it’s who’s inside those walls. It’s where you feel whole.” Her fingers skim my jaw, anchoring me in the present. “That night, you said it like you believed it. Like you were trying to convince yourself it could still be true.”
My throat works around a lump so sharp it feels like I could choke.
“I thought I was just saying words to help you with your interview.”
Scottie smiles. “You were. But you meant them.”
She shifts, standing and reaching for my hand to lift me off the floor. She tugs me to the couch next to her so we’re not folded into the floor like something broken. Keeping her hands on me, she’s reminding my body it’s allowed to be here.
I look down, my jaw tight. “I keep thinking…” I pause, swallowing and looking down at her hand on my thigh. “I keep thinking I don’t deserve anything. Any—” My voice catches. “Any of this. You.”
She lifts off the couch, straddling my lap, again—grounding me without even trying. “Then I’m going to do everything I can to show you that you do.”
I pull her into me, not gentle this time. I pull her like I’m afraid if I loosen my grip, she’ll vanish. She wraps herself around my shoulders, fitting against me like she always belonged there.
“Stay,” I whisper into the crook of her neck. “Stay with me tonight.”
“Okay.”
My eyes close as my body finally lets go of the fight to stand alone. Somewhere in my chest, the fire still crackles. The grief still breathes. But her arms are real, and the floor beneath my feet is solid, and her voice is a lighthouse in the dark.
When Scottie pulls back, pressing a kiss to my forehead, I realize something that makes my chest burn in an entirely different way.
Home isn’t the place I lost.
It’s the place I’m choosing.
It’s her.
CHAPTER 28
YOU’RE LOOKING AT ME LIKE YOU CAN FEEL IT.
Scottie
Opening my eyes, I feel disoriented.
I blink a few times, registering that I’m in Tucker’s bed. I knew I was in his bed. But because I didn’t fall asleep until sometime early in the morning—and only slept for maybe an hour—everything feels off. Even with the comfort of him next to me, body tangled with mine, I couldn’t shut my mind off.
The way his hands shook like his body had betrayed him.
The way his breathing turned sharp and panicked.
The way he’d looked at me with bloodshot, tear filled eyes.
And when his voice broke…it broke me.
