Page 60 of The Long Game

Then, Tom walks me to my truck and waits for me to get in and start the engine.

I roll down the window. I need some reassurance before I drive away.

"Tom." He walks up and lays his forearm on the window I rolled down.

"Do I end up with the girl in the end?"

He takes in a sigh as he looks me in the eyes.

"I hope like hell you do, Tucker. Sabastian is a good guy, but he isn’t you."

I nod as he backs up onto the sidewalk again and I pull out of my spot and head to Luca’s.

A Few Hours Later…

Tucker

Finally, some good news. I don’t end up with a Luca-shaped dent in my face by the time I walk out of his house.

It was obvious the ring sitting on his table was a huge surprise. I hadn’t anticipated that Brielle would be downstairs when I got to their condo, but it wasn’t like I could ask her to leave her own kitchen. So, when I opened the box to show Luca the ring, she started sobbing. I guess a ring the size of a small planet will do that to a woman. She blamed the hormones from having Bronx. Whatever.

"I didn’t even realize you two were dating," he said confused.

"We’re not." I laughed without humor.

"She has no idea you’re interested in her?" Brielle looks like she’s about to pass out… or hit me.

"Oh… she has an idea."

Luca gave me a suspicious look. I figured he wouldn’t make this as easy as his old man had so I figured I’d have to tell him the whole story.

I explained how things had changed for me after the accident; he wasn’t surprised. I explained how I had distanced myself from his family after that summer, which he nodded as if he’d been waiting years to know what had set that in motion to begin with. I told him about how I had thought I’d curbed my feelings for Lexi by keeping "distracted" with other girls from high school. He grimaced a bit. He remembered how I was that year, too. I told him how I thought I could handle the next summer at the lake house but that I ended up kissing her on the beach. He looked a little pissed, but he was relieved to hear that a kiss was as far as I took it and that I’d lied to her and told her it was a mistake.

That might have pissed him off more than the kiss. I’d hurt her.

The one thing he told me not to do.

I skipped past all the bad decisions I’d made by going along with my dad’s college pick. He already knew that part and we’d gotten past it years before this. He told me he wished I wouldhave told him about the pressure I was in with my dad and Ole' Miss. That he would have handled things differently. But it’s in the past now.

I also skipped past the night of college admissions when I knew he and his parents wouldn’t be home so I could confess my feelings for her, hopefully get lucky, and beg her to come to Ole' Miss with me after she graduated high school.

I wasn’t sure if he would hate me more for trying to take advantage of his sister or for trying to get her to go to school that was his arch rivalry.

Best to leave that one in the past.

He knew about the time I spent at the lake house for her eighteenth birthday. I told him about how close we had gotten those days together but skipped over all the physical stuff. I didn’t want him to blow my other knee out. He knew I had asked her to be with me and had gotten rejected.

"You? Long distance?" Luca scoffed.

"Funny, that’s exactly how your sister said it, too. But just like I told her, I'd do anything she asked me to do if it meant we could be together."

"Lexi’s wanted to work in my dad’s firm for as long as I’ve dreamed of being a football star. People don’t typically think of a conventional ‘desk job’ as worthy of giving up anything. But Lexi gave up a lot to get where she is in my father’s business."

Shame clogged my throat. The things I told her to give up. The things I wasn’t willing to do in return.

"She took early bird classes she could get out of school at lunch and work for my dad’s assistant the second half of the day Junior and Senior year. She made Acquisitions Manager in less than four years after graduating high school. Did you know the fastest anyone has become an acquisitions manager was in ten years with the company?"

Suddenly, the last day we spent together at the beach house comes flooding back.

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