Page 21 of Zero Pucks

He was gone before I could ask his name, though I supposed I could have screamed Carol-Ann, and he would have come running. He walked with a bounce in his step and a speed that outmatched mine by at least three times.

I took a breath and shook my head. In a town of a fifty thousand, there had to be more than just one amputee. And of course they didn’t all know each other. The odds of that were astronomical, and the thought was ridiculous. And probably ableist.

I didn’t want to add that to my list of flaws, so I told myself it was a coincidence and moved on.

Carol-Ann’s owner was not relevant.

At least. He wasn’tsupposedto be relevant.

That all changed forty-eight hours later when I showed up at Tucker’s door and the grocery store guy answered.

* * *

“Hi again,” he said with a shit-eating grin.

I didn’t know what to do. “Uh. I’m looking for Tucker Banks?”‘

He rolled his eyes. “Of course you are. And who are you, exactly?”

I swallowed heavily. “Amedeo de Luca.”

“And you know Tucker…how?”

“We met in Vegas. And, uh. Well.” I moved my shoulders back and straightened my spine. “He and I kind of…sort of…got drunk.”

“Uh-huh,” he said. He could tell I wasn’t done. “And?”

“And we kind of—um. Got married.”

CHAPTERFIVE

TUCKER

“What the fuck,man? What thefuck?” I could hear the high, tight panic in my voice, and something in my brain couldn’t connect it to me. I wasn’t the one freaking out. I wasn’t the person who had a fucking husband at home.

At every stoplight, Boden reached over to hold my hand. He was being much nicer than he’d ever been, which was weird, but I wasn’t mad about it.

“Breathe,” he ordered. “Deep, slow breaths.”

I shook my head so hard I got dizzy. “Don’t tell me to fucking breathe, Boden.Youbreathe!” I wheezed. “Youtake some goddamn deep breaths.”

“I am breathing,” he said dryly. “But you’re going to pass out if you keep hyperventilating.”

“I—” Oh shit. I was. I’d felt like this before. When the reality of my situation set in at the hospital, I worked myself into such a state they had to sedate me, and I could not let that happen again. “I need your purse.”

“Tucker,” he said, annoyed.

“Briefcase. Laptop bag? Whatever the fuck you call it, you fucking priss.”

He jerked his chin behind him, and I fumbled around, groping until I found the handle, then shoved my face into it. This is what they always did in the movies, right?

Uhg, it smelled like leather and—eugh, were those old gym socks? That was maybe the weirdest combination ever, and very gross, but the more I began to inhale my own carbon—dioxide? Monoxide? Whatever it was—the better I felt.

“I’m married?” I groaned.

“That’s incredibly unlikely. Definitely not legal.”

I turned my head to glare at him. “What would you know, you fucking Canadian.”

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