Page 46 of Keep You Close

I took the overnight just because it gave me a good excuse not to be in the house. Tucker would have happily covered for Ella, and was admittedly a lot better at doing these shifts than I was.

Samson was unfazed, of course. A bed was a bed, regardless of where it was located. And he’d run himself ragged all day while I drank like three pots of coffee and tried to keep moving and fidgeting, so I didn’t start to doze off.

Little by little, though, the sky outside started to grow lighter. Then Tucker’s van was pulling into the lot. For the first time ever, earlier than his shift.

“I had a feeling you would need a break,” he told me as he came in, a tattered old green backpack slung over his shoulder. It was likely full of books, notebooks, and a giant salad full of greens and sprouts that he, apparently, grew himself.

“You’re a god among men, Tuck,” I said, walking over to give him a hug. One that he immediately gave back. And I wasn’t aware just how much I needed that until I felt his arms tighten around me.

“Hey, what’s this?” he asked when a choked sound escaped me.

The tears that I’d been tamping down for a week came right to the surface as soon as I experienced a little softness.

“Alright. What’s his name? I’ll kick his ass,” he said, getting a watery laugh out of me. “Fine. I probably won’t kick his ass. But I’ll give him a lecture about being mean to girls.”

“He wasn’t mean to me,” I said, sniffling, forcing myself to pull it together.

I was just overly tired. It made it hard to keep my emotions in check.

“He better not. Or I’ll sic Ella on him,” he declared, reaching up to wipe both of my cheeks with his hands.

“Now that is a warning,” I declared, getting a big smile out of him. “Is she coming in today?”

“I told her I am covering today.”

“But you’re working tonight.”

“I don’t need a lot of sleep,” he said, shrugging it off. “Besides, she needs to be home with the little one. She doesn’t have any help,” he added, and there was an edge to his voice that had me curious if his feelings for Ella were strictly professional, or if he was maybe harboring a little crush on the single mom.

“She’s lucky to have a guy like you around,” I said, watching as his gaze slid away, a telltale sign, I felt, that I was right. “Her ex sounds like a nightmare.”

“He was. Is,” Tucker said.

“Did you know him?”

“Only from him dropping in to see her. And the occasional office party.”

Right.

That made sense.

I forgot sometimes that Tuck and Ella had been working here pretty much since the place opened. Back when Ella was a new mom who had to get a job because her husband at the time had been lying to her about being employed. Until the bank account went negative.

So Tucker had been around through all the… well, I would normally say “ups and downs,” but it didn’t sound like there were a lot of ups in that relationship. Minus the kids, of course.

I’d once gotten the nerve to ask Ella how she’d gotten pregnant with her younger daughter when things had been so rocky with her and her ex. She said it was a moment of insanity on New Years Eve when she’d been tipsy and lonely, and answered the phone when her husband whom she’d been separated from for almost a year, called full of drunken apologies.

Then, of course, I imagined she’d been desperate for help trying to raise two kids on her own, so she’d let him back into her life.

From the sound of things, they’d been rocky for a long time before Ella finally had enough, got a lawyer, and tried to untangle herself from his web of lies.

Which meant Tucker also got to watch her go through a messy, stressful divorce from a man he knew didn’t deserve her. While he pined.

The thing was, Ella had been single for a while now. She’d even given dating a try here and there. Why hadn’t he made a move if he wanted her?

Why were things with the opposite sex so damn complicated?

Okay.

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