How could I be okay when the love of my life spat me out used and covered in what I thought were love bites.
Maybe it was punishment. Punishment for breaking his heart.
I rub my aching chest and clear my throat.
Calm the fuck down, and stop being a baby. Bowen is not a villain.
Tucker pulls his phone out of his pocket, checks the screen, and looks to shoot off a text before he looks back at me. He lets out a long, weary sigh before nodding once. Like he's gearing up for something he doesn't want to do.
Likely just talk to me.
That's when I realize that somehow, both of our parents have snuck inside. They're in the kitchen, pulling out condiments and setting out buns and chips. I narrow my eyes at them through the door before looking back at my big brother.
“I feel like this was a trap.”
“It was,” he agrees before choosing to sit on the furthest side of the seat from me. He clears his throat and looks around, before his eyes make their way back to me. His eyebrows hike up his forehead slowly, and he takes a snail's pace sip of water. Hazel eyes just like mine look between my neck and face.
“I'm not a kid anymore, bro. You don't get to be weird about my sex life.”
He scrunches his nose. “Fuckin gross, man. I said nothing about sex.”
“It was implied with the look.”
“Well, it was implied with the sucker mark on your neck. Did you tell him we stopped doing that shit in high school?”
I didn't even start in high school.
“Move on,” I sigh, and he does too.
His phone beeps again, and he pulls it out swiftly. Anything to get him out of more conversation with me. By the time he looks back up, my head feels heavy, so I lean deeper in the cushion to rest it back.
“I'm going to propose to Delaney.”
That doesn't just chase away the lingering exhaustion. It absolutely annihilates it. I sit back up so swiftly my neck cracks.
“What now?”
He nods, takes another sip of water. “Tomorrow. It's our one year anniversary tomorrow, and I'm gonna ask her to marry me.”
I laugh, scrubbing my hands over my face. “Sorry, it sounded like you said Delaney.”
“I did.”
I blink. “Delaney… Von? Your best friend’s on again off again girlfriend?”
Tucker actually chuckles at this, like my insides aren't in a blender right now. “They've been strictly off since high-school, man. They're just friends. He gave me his blessing way before I had the balls to ask her out.”
But Ian said he went through a breakup.
But…Bowen said he went to the lake after the hospital and never left…
“But Delaney was there this morning…”
Tucker looks sideways and scratches his scruffy jaw. “Ah, yeah. She knew Dad was going to get you.”
My stomach revolts around the coffee. It squeezes like a vise.
“She wanted to, what? Make sure I left without making a scene?”
