Page 65 of The Long Game

I pull out some tight-fitting jeans and a pair of Adidas. I’m taking him seriously about climbing stairs and since he’s an NFL player, the last thing I want to do is end up with an impromptu leg day because I wore heels to climb ten flights of stairs or some crazy thing.

Five minutes to five-thirty, Tucker pulls up in his lifted truck and my heart flutters at seeing the man sitting inside the cab of the truck. He looks to be adjusting his radio, giving me a minute to admire his profile from my second story window.

His perfectly straight nose, his long dark eyelashes, the sharp edge of his jaw. I can’t help but want my babies to have so many of those features. It’s an odd thing to think of right now but having children of my own has certainly started entering my mind more, now that Bronx is here and I have gotten a couple of days with him this week.

I climb down the stairs as soon as I see Tucker open the driver side door. We meet in the middle of my walkway. He looks up at my house, as if he’s hoping to get a look inside. Funny, that’s exactly what I want to avoid. Tucker inside my house would be far too unnerving – too many openings and possibilities that I don’t want to get into.

"Ready?" I ask.

"As I’ll ever be." He smiles, covering up the disappointed look he had before, and turns back to head for the car.

"Are you telling me where we’re going?"

"You’ll see." He smirks.

After we climb into the car, Tucker grabs his phone and pushes a couple buttons quickly before setting it back down on his console. He pulls off the curb and onto the road. Music starts tofill the cab of the truck as he adjust the dial. As I hear the first note I start smiling uncontrollably.

"No way! Oh my God, Tuck." I laugh.

"Weezer - Island in the Sun", starts to play and the memory crowds my mind of playing this song as we pulled out of the driveway of my parent's brownstone every summer to head to the lake house.

From fifth grade until the boys started driving their own truck during their sophomore year, I forced everyone to listen to this song the minute we were all in the car. I called it our lake house anthem, and I can still hear the audible groans from Luca and Tucker as the song would start up in my mom’s Lexus crossover, stacked to the roof with everything me and the boys could cram in it.

I can’t help it as I start to belt out the words, dancing in my seat. I’ve never been able to sit still when this song comes on, and today is no different. When I look over, Tucker is singing the words with me. We’re laughing, singing, and dancing. I can’t imagine what this truck looks like from anyone following behind us as our swaying must be rocking the truck back and forth.

At a red light, Tucker reaches over, playfully trying to tickle me into missing the words, like he used to do in those days too. I’m laughing so hard my cheeks hurt from smiling this big and Tucker’s bright smile brings me back to the lake when I know, we were all the happiest.

Now I know what he had been doing while I watched him from the second story of my house. He was bringing us back like he said he would. He wants what we had, in the earlier days. When life was easy and our friendship was much less complicated.

Before the accident on the dock.

Before college admissions.

Before we had gone and screwed everything up.

A thought dawns on me.

"We’re not going to the lake house, are we?!" I can’t help my excitement at the thought, but a two-hour drive, one way, seems a bit out of the question for tonight.

"No, although I didn’t think about that. That would have been a great idea."

I’m about to give him a list of all the reason it wouldn’t have been a good idea which include, drive time, it being a Thursday, and the fact that the lake house at night would create some heavy emotional atmosphere that I’m not ready to face tonight. My brain goes blank as we turn onto my parents’ street.

I wait and watch carefully as Tucker drives down the street, stopping in front of the house across the road from my parents.

"You’re taking me to the McKinny house?"

"Nope. It’s the Evans house now."

Oh shoot, that’s right. Tucker had bought my dream home from Mr. McKinny earlier this week.

Tucker jumps out of the truck and rounds the front of the grill to open my door. He grabs my hand as I slide off the seat and onto the cement sidewalk.

As we walk up to the front door, a moment of clarity finds me.

"Wait, I thought you said you were giving him ninety days to move everything out since he had so much?"

"I am, but I told him that I wanted the house for the weekend to take down measurements and get a layout of the house. I booked him a first-class ticket to Florida to go see his son. He was more than happy to give me the space for a few days. He gets back Monday."

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