I blush and nod while Tucker slips from the room. “I’m okay. I’m sure I was a sight—”
“It’s okay,” Capone says. “We can only imagine what they said or did to you.”
“Itwasn’t them,” I say. “I have a thing about basements. They… make me lose my mind.”
“You don’t say,” Rooster jokes.
His comment earns him a punch from Zep, and I smile. “It was quite a sight, wasn’t it?”
“It’s okay,” Penn says. “We all have things that drive us crazy.”
“I found my mom and uncle dead in our basement when I was twelve. She killed my uncle in the place where he… hurt both of us. Then she took her own life. Basements bring me back to the day I found her.”
Kannon gasps, and Capone wears an expression I can’t quite decipher. After hearing what that man he killed in my bakery said, I think he might empathize in a way others can’t.
“Your uncle… Are you fucking kidding?” Kannon asks.
Shaking my head, I look at the ground. “It lasted a few years, and Mom found out. He’d done the same thing to her, and she lost it.”
“Where was your father?” Jethro asks.
I shrug. “He left years before. I barely remember what he looks like.”
Tucker walks into the room with a glass of water, and I take it gratefully. My throat is scratchy, and my ears ring. I must’ve been screaming for a while.
“I’m sorry,” says a man I don’t recognize.
“Are you Tanner?”
He looks shocked. “Yeah. You know me?”
“Your dad mentioned you. He said I reminded him of you.”
“What else did dear old Dad say?” Tucker asks.
Swallowing, I look at the ground. “That I’m not your type. And he’s surprised you’re with me. Then he lost it on Ryan when he found out that we only met because Ryan robbed my bakery.”
“You told him?”
“Yeah, it was kind of self-preservation, I guess. I told him Ryan knew my death wouldn’t bother you because you told him so. I hoped I was wrong, but I didn’t tell your dad that.”
“You thought that if Benito didn’t think killing you would hurt Pacino, he’d keep you alive,” Capone says. “Smart.”
“Then he told me he liked me. It wasn’t exactly a warm and fuzzy feeling, but he and Ryan left right afterwards. You guys showed up, I think.”
Tucker wraps his arms around me and holds me close. I nearly spill the water as he does, but I don’t care. Today has been one of the worst days but also one of the best. Tucker loves me.
“For the record, Pacino about killed himself getting here when he learned you were gone. If anything happened to you, he was going to burn the place down,” Zep says. “I think hurting you would do more than bother him.”
Smiling, I nod. “Thank you.”
“And the rest of us. We’ve kind of grown attached to you,” Penn says.
“You don’t think I’m annoying?”
“I think you can fucking bake, and I love to eat.”
I laugh as an unfamiliar man walks into the house. Tucker’s embrace tightens to an almost painful strength, and I hold my breath.
