Page 110 of Love is a Game

Tuck’s eyes flick over me, sharp, assessing. He drags out the pause before settling into the chair beside me. “Wanna talk about it?”

I stare at a sunbaked pot plant, brittle and lifeless. Exactly how I feel inside.

I take a lazy sip of coffee, letting the heat burn my tongue just to feel something different. “That could cover a lot. And honestly, I don’t have the brain capacity to narrow it down in terms of priority. Unless “it”is about howeveryoneapparently knows about us?”

He leans back, taking his time. Eggshells. “Everyone knows about us, huh? What exactly do they know?”

“That we’ve been seeing each other. That we have sex.A lot.”

“Huh. And that makes you uncomfortable?”

“Of course it does!” I spit out. “I never knew people had guessed. I thought what we had was private.”

His jaw twitches. “‘What we had’?”

Shit.

He clocks my wording immediately, and it hangs between us, thick and heavy.

“Did we not make a pact to give things a shot this week?” he says, his voice measured. “To see if I could convince you we could be more than random hookups?”

“So?”

“So if people picked up on that, then I guess it just means they have eyes. They see we’ve been practically inseparable since we got here. Maybe some of those people are happy for us. Maybe they think we should be together.”

“Like who?” My laugh is sharp, humorless. “All I did was humiliate your mother when I blurted out every detail of our sex life—where I planned to keep you anonymous. Because I didn’t realize she already knew everything about us. Or that Vivian did, which means Brady’s all over it. Mason—”

“I think we should talk about this later.”

“Well, I think we should talk about itnow.”

His eyes darken. “You do see what you’re doing, right?”

The ugly, festering thing inside me rises—resentment, shame, fear, all of it—and I can’t stop the spitefulness creeping into my voice. “Why don’t you tell me, since you’re the expert?”

“You’re changing the rules. Again.”

I blink, thrown off balance. “What?”

Tuck exhales heavily, shaking his head. “You draw me in every time, then set these impossible rules—no one can know, keep things casual, don’t get attached. And then, the second I actually follow your rules, you move the fucking goalposts.”

His brewing anger versus my pitiful spite. And still, I can’t stop.

“That’s not what I do.”

“Isn’t it?” His voice is low and measured, but there’s something dangerous underneath it. “We’ve been doing this for years. Back and forth. And every time I start to think we’re making progress, you pull back. You shift the rules to keep me at arm’s length.”

I swallow hard, my pulse hammering in my throat. “That’s not fair.”

Tuck ducks his head. “So you don’t deliberately sabotage us every time? Let me get my hopes up—let me go all out to win you over, and then do…whatever the fuck this is?”

“I don’t know what you expected of me, Tuck.” My voice is strained, my throat tight. “I’m messed up. I’m not in a good position for anything right now, let alone pretending we could be something we’re not.”

He tries again. “Listen. Maybe this was all bad timing. Losing your mom and being back here. Let’s just—”

“That’s not why.” I shake my head, my chest tightening. “I’m not messed up because Mom died. I’m messed up, period. I’m no good at relationships. Every single one has failed. I was good at maintaining what we had, because it was something I could do. Something I understood. Not something I can’t even imagine having. Something I don’t have the capacity for.”

His jaw flexes. “And what about what I want?”

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