Boxes and boxes of lanterns and permanent markers line the tables. At least the weather will be perfect and the park locked down overnight so everything can stay staged.
“Hey, so, is there food or…?” Courtney calls out.
River whistles loudly, which has Gilbert jogging up with an expectant look.
“Yeah?” Gilbert asks.
We all stare in confusion, because what the hell? Did Gilbert just answer to a whistle? River looks anywhere but at Gilbert and asks, “The pizza?”
“Right,” Gilbert says eagerly, just before disappearing toward the parking lot. He drags Scott with him, who looks just as confused as the rest of us. I bend over to ask Tucker what’s going on but he furiously shakes his head, so I stay quiet, assuming now is not the time to ask anything about what the hell is going on with all… that.
Gilbert and Scott return sometime later with so many pizzas it’s almost impossible to see their faces. And it takes literally moments for everyone to destroy over half of the pizzas. Tucker doesn’t eat, which makes me feel bad, but he explains that he’s used to it and it gives him more stress to have people trying to find a meal for him in this sort of situation. I decide to not eat in solidarity with him, but also in the hope of a make-out session later without needing to skip away to brush my teeth. Not that it’s a bother to brush my teeth, I just don’t ever want Tucker to feel left out for something that he can’t help.
We wrap up preparing for the festival.
Courtney jogs over to me with a very pleased look on his face. “Hey, so, Orson invited me out with some of the other guys for beers. I’m going to go unless…”
“Nah, you go ahead. Tucker and I… Well…”
Courtney slaps me on the shoulder. “I get it, man, that’s why I’m taking the invite. I’ll be home late.”
Courtney backs away while wiggling his eyebrows. When he meets up with Orson, I watch as their shoulders brush as they walk. An interesting development that I’m not going to turn my nose up at.
Tucker and I head back to my house in comfortable silence. Soft ’90s country fills the cab and the cool night marsh blows through our hair as we ride home with the windows down. Halfway home is when I decide now is the best time to stupidly bring up our living arrangements.
“I like you being at my house,” I say into the dark of the cab.
Tucker turns slowly to look at me. “I like being at your house.”
“But I think you should stay with your parents most nights, for a while.”
I grip the steering wheel tight, expecting an argument, expecting something, but all Tucker does is shrug and say, “Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Yeah. I mean, I know why you’re doing it. You’re afraid to put pressure on me because of my last relationship. We can take it slow. Maybe I’ll stay over after guitar lessons and one night on the weekends. Is that okay?”
“Yes,” I say in amazement.
And that’s that apparently.
We sit in front of Tucker’s parents’ house for a while, both of us looking ahead. It’s not tension exactly, but something unsaid between us.
“Anthony never treated me the way you do.”
We don’t talk about his ex much, since I can pick up context clues, but I stay silent in hopes that Tucker will feelsafe enough to talk to me. After the minor grooming detail he shared earlier, I want him to feel safe enough to know that anything he says will be met not with derision at any choice he made, but anger that someone could treat him any other way but with love.
Tucker swallows roughly, the sound radiating through the silence of the truck. “It didn’t take long for his real side to show up, and by then I was invested and thought there wasn’t a way out. I felt trapped. Have you ever felt trapped, Charlie?”
“Yes.” I squeeze the steering wheel tight for a moment, anger and exhaustion warring in me at once. “I worked as hard as I could as a teen so I could escape my parents, escape their home, just to enter into a career where I still couldn’t really beme. Not without fear of losing everything. So, yes, I’ve felt trapped, and while it’s not the same, I understand why you stayed.”
Tucker hums thoughtfully, that sound he makes when he’s about to drop a nuclear bomb on me. He lifts his hand to his mouth, those graceful pianist fingers dancing over his lips in thought.
“I knew you were different from that very first sunrise,” Tucker says softly, like he’s admitting some sort of state secret. “You’re kind and lovely, and I’m scared I’ll do something to fuck it up, since I’m low-key kind of a fuckup.”
“You’re not a fuckup,” I say, voice low, because he’s not. He’s human and he’s perfect. “I like you just the way you are.”
“I like you just the way you are too. And that scares me. You scare me, but in a good way.”
