43
OLIVIA
T here’s a tinge of unreality hanging over everything when I wake up Sunday morning. Sitting up in my bed, I ask myself, could the last forty-eight hours really have happened the way I remember them?
The thing I’d been dreading finally happened: Tuck and my ex faced off on the ice. They got into a massive fight. Then the next night, they got into a bigger fight, with their whole teams. The entire campus started buzzing with rumors about why, placing myself and my relationship with Ryan right in the middle of a story that’s attracting national media attention. Then Tuck told me he loves me—and I told him I need space.
I let myself fall backward into my pillow like I’m tumbling off a cliff. A long, heavy sigh slides out of me. The seconds tick by as I’m flat on my back, staring up at the blank white ceiling of my room.
What a fucking weekend.
Tuck told me he loves me.
The memory of his words laces through me. Instantly, a bright, warm feeling hums through my veins. But it doesn’t last long. It’s quickly replaced—by fear.
The emotion grips my chest, its sharp talons digging into my heart.
After Ryan, I promised myself I’d never let another man wrap me around his finger like he had.
Remembering those three words on Tuck’s lips, spoken in his honey-infused drawl, while his blue eyes held my own, I know that Tuck could have me wrapped around his fingers. He could hold my heart in the palm of his hand. I could fall for him so much harder than I ever fell for Ryan. Because Tuck is a thousand times the man my ex was or ever will be.
I finally haul myself out of bed. As I walk downstairs and make myself a pot of coffee, there are so many thoughts bouncing around in my head that I can’t grab onto any one of them and actually think it through.
I take my cup of coffee to the living room couch and plop down on it. I’m glad Summer spent the night with Hudson, because right now I just need time alone to marinate in all this before I try and talk it out with anyone.
I’m not totally alone, though. Salsa hops onto the couch and curls herself next to me.
“Morning, girl,” I say, running my palm down her luxurious coat. “You ever have a guy confess his love for you way, way, way sooner than you were ready for it?”
She tilts her little cat head to me. “Meow,” is her wise response.
I slouch against the back cushion. “Yeah. Good point.”
My gaze crawls to the seat where Tuck sat when he took care of me when I was sick.
My chest squeezes. I realize that I miss Tuck right now. Missing a guy I just saw last night isn’t a good sign if I’m trying to convince myself it’s too soon to be in love with him.
Is it too soon?
Things with Tuck were going so well, and it was so new. We were having a great time together, not to mention sex so mind-blowing I never would have thought it was possible. Why did things have to suddenly get so damn complicated so soon?
Part of me wishes Tuck wouldn’t give me the space I asked for.
Part of me wishes he was knocking on my door right now, demanding to be let in, that he’d tell me he loves me again, his blue gaze boring into my eyes, daring me to tell him that I don’t love him back.
Would I be able to do it? Would I be able to tell him I don’t love him?
I’m pretty sure I know the answer to that question, and it makes my stomach twist into the biggest, tightest knot of anxiety that I’ve ever felt.
I think back to the last time I was in love—or, what I thought was love. With Ryan. I think about the person it made me: dependent, needy, easy to take advantage of. I promised myself I’d never let another man turn me into that person again.
Ever since then, I’ve thought of it as a strength, the walls I’ve put up around my heart to keep anyone from touching it.
But maybe real strength is accepting the possibility of being hurt, but still opening your heart to someone you dare to trust.
Opening yourself up to heartbreak, because the reward, someone who will hold your heart in the palm of their hand and never dare to crush it, is so great it’s worth any of the pain you might feel or mistakes you might make while you’re looking for that person.
I spend most of the day watching mindless videos on my laptop. Summer comes back later in the afternoon, and she can tell that I’m not in the mood to talk things out yet. So, she just sits on the couch next to me and we watch mindless videos together, laughing. It’s just what I need right now.
Late that evening, Tuck texts me.
Tuck
Hope you had a good day. Sebastian made us watch a long, boring Russian movie. I bet you’d have liked it. Just couldn’t get through the day without texting you. Good night.
On Monday, I have a full day of classes and then rehearsal at the theatre in Burlington. It gives me a good excuse to turn down Tuck when he texts asking if I want to get dinner.
The gears are still turning in my head about what Tuck said to me. I think I know how I feel about it. I think I know what my response is going to be. But I just need more time to marinate. Or maybe what I need more time for is to build up my courage.
On Tuesday, when I’m sitting in my second class waiting for the professor to arrive, a girl who’s also in the class approaches me.
“Hey,” she says, getting my attention. I look up to see her wearing an amused grin. “That guy asked me to give this to you.”
She hands me a folded-up piece of paper and then nods her head towards the door. I look over my shoulder to see Tuck standing there. My heart leaps into my throat seeing him after a couple days. That scruffy hair, those oceans of blue that are his eyes.
I unfold the note. Hope this is enough space. Still love you btw. The message is scrawled in his sloppy handwriting, and he’s drawn a big heart on the bottom of the page.
I lift my head to look at him again, and he just waves at me with the biggest grin on his face before walking down the hall.
My chest thrums with warmth for the whole class.
Later, in the afternoon, I’m waiting in line for a coffee at Brumehill Brews, when a guy comes up to me.
“Excuse me,” he says. He holds something out to me. “That guy out there asked me to come in and give you this.”
Sure enough, when I follow the direction of his nod towards the glass doors of the café, I see Tuck standing on the other side. A boyish grin is carving his dimples deep on his stubble-covered cheeks.
My chest flutters. I unfold the note.
In case you were wondering, I haven’t stopped loving you since I wrote that first note this morning. In fact, I love you more. See the drawing below for proof.
This time there are three hearts drawn below the message. The first one has this morning written under it. The second heart is bigger and has now written under it. The third is even bigger and has tomorrow written under it.
Tears prick at the edges of my eyes at the same time as I breathe out a laugh and shake my head. It’s so silly, so sincere, so sweet, and so Tuck.
Giving up my spot in line, I walk outside to where Tuck’s standing, not even sure what I’m going to say when I get there.
Something sparks inside me when I’m in front of him, looking up into the bright blues of his eyes. It hits me how much I’ve missed him, even over less than three days, so much that I’ve been carrying an ache in my chest that I’ve grown used to.
“Finally had enough of all that space ?” Tuck asks, his cocky, knowing, teasing drawl filling me with warmth.
I roll my eyes. “Tuck,” I say his name as an admonishment, but we both know there’s no bite to it. Especially since the edges of my mouth are pulling up.
“Hey, Olivia,” Tuck says, a quick, upward lilt to his voice like he just realized something he needs to tell me.
“What?”
He waits a beat. “I love you.”
Happiness hums through my blood as he looks down on me with that grin of his. “So I’ve heard.”
“Say it.”
I roll my eyes. “Say what?”
He places the tip of his finger at the edge of my jaw, just below my ear. Sparks skitter over me as he lightly drags it across the edge of my jaw, down to my chin, which he captures between his forefinger and his thumb, the tip of that thumb grazing below my bottom lip.
“You know you want to.”
The truth of his words spears through me, and I can’t even play coy anymore.
“I love you, Tuck.”
His eyes flash, like he loved hearing those words even more than he expected to. I know I loved saying them even more than I expected to. Then, his lips are pressed to mine.
I moan with relief into his mouth. His taste, his smell, the gentle firmness of his lips caressing mine—I’ve missed him so much, and it’s only been a couple days.
I relax into his body, leaning against his hard torso as he slants our kiss deeper, so deep that I drown in it, lost in his touch and his smell and his warmth and happy to stay lost there.
It wasn’t hard to tell Tuck that I love him. It felt right. It felt safe. And when Tuck wraps his arms around me and pulls me closer, I realize nothing has felt as right, as safe, as this does.
Tuck’s crooked grin and warm eyes are beaming at me when we part, both of us breathing heavy from the kiss.
“I have a scandalous proposition,” he drawls. The mischievous glimmer dancing in his eyes is just one of the so many things I love about this man.
“Do tell,” I say, through giggles.
“How about we skip our next class and go back to my place?”
“I love that idea almost as much as I love you.”
Those words fill his eyes with a flash of intensity, and before I know it, he’s dipping down to scoop me up in his arms and walking me across campus to his house, all while I’m giggling like a nut and he’s kissing me every couple steps.
“I love you,” I say again, later, in Tuck’s bed, with my head resting on his bare chest, utterly spent and satisfied.
“Love you too, Lockley,” he replies, planting a kiss on the top of my head.
A swoony sigh swooshes from my lips. “I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of hearing that.”
His chest rumbles with laughter. “I’ll put that to the test, Lockley. Don’t tempt me.”
I lift my head to look at him. “Hey, Tuck?”
“Yeah?”
“Now I’ve got a scandalous proposition.”
His brow bounces. “I like the sound of this.”
“Let’s skip our next class, too.”
I squeal in delight as Tuck flips me onto my back and covers me with his body.
We spend the rest of the day proving just how much we love each other.