Page 3 of Zero Pucks

He bowed his head. “Seriously, Tuck. Why are you here? It would have taken a lot less effort to ruin my day than showing up like this. And a lot less money you and I both know you don’t have.”

My heart hurt so much that he thought so low of me. “You asked me to come.” I hated how small and pathetic my voice sounded, but I couldn’t help it. He knew how to hit me where it hurt.

“I was trying to be nice,” Killian said. Even with my shitty eye, I could see his pained expression as he tugged on his hair. He and I both still did that the same way. “And Mom convinced me I should.” He took a breath, then dropped another bomb. “I didn’t think you’d say yes. I wouldn’t have asked if I’d known.”

Oh. Well…shit. I didn’t think he could hurt me worse than the day he and Delia came into my room and said that they were together.

But I was wrong.

“Sorry to let you down. Again.”

“Wait, Tuck…that’s not what I meant. I just?—”

“No, whatever. It’s fine. I’ll just…” I trailed off, glancing back at the hotel. “I wasn’t going to go with y’all tonight anyway. Strip clubs don’t do it for me anymore. I’ll stay back, and you can pretend you don’t have a weird, half-blind, legless twin hanging on like some lost puppy.”

I heard him choke on a laugh, and I knew that was in spite of himself. ”I didn’t mean it likethat, Tuck. Really?—”

“You know, I hate when you call me that,” I told him.

Killian froze. “Everyone calls you that.”

I was going in for the kill. He could hurt me, but I had claws too. “I know. But that name is reserved for people I consider family, and that hasn’t been you in eight years.”

He went silent, then cleared his throat. “Fine. Tucker.”

I managed a half smile. “I’m going to get a drink and be irresponsible on a slot machine while you guys go out. I’ll catch my flight tomorrow, and we can pretend like this never happened.”

“Tuck—er. Tucker. Wait. I didn’t mean to hurt you,” he said, trailing after me as I turned toward the sliding doors. “I just wanted to be happy.”

I stopped, but I didn’t bother trying to look back. “You’re marrying her. Wasn’t that enough for you? Or did you really need to drive it home that she wanted the twin who wasn’t all…this.” I waved my hand down at my legs.

“It wasn’t like that. None of this was on purpose. I wasn’t out there looking for a way to take her from you.” He sounded desperate, and I almost believed him. “And she wasn’t looking for a replacement. It just…happened.”

I suppose, in a way, that was true.

When I was in the hospital after the accident, Killian didn’t leave my side for weeks. I was in a coma after a nasty infection and several surgeries, and when I woke up, I was screwed six ways to Sunday in my head and my body.

Delia was there too, of course. The two of them stayed beside me and stroked my hand and wiped sweat off my brow when I was up all night shaking from the phantom pains.

They were there when I tried to get up for the first time and almost pissed myself because I couldn’t move fast enough to the bed pan. Killian was the one who stood beside me the first time I had enough sight in my remaining eye to see myself in the mirror.

And Delia had been right behind him, promising me that it was fine—that she loved me anyway, no matter what I looked like.

But even if she didn’t know it at the time, her words had been a lie.

I started PT, trying to learn how to live in this body, and they started getting coffee. And then they’d get lunch while I was taking a shower. And dinner when the drugs knocked me out early.

And I had to give Delia credit. She did try. She wasn’t one of those assholes who immediately looked for a way to dump the mess I’d become. She stuck by me through my few good days and my many,manybad ones. She shouldered every moment I told her to get away from me because I was tired of people staring at me, including her.

But that wasn’t enough, and I knew that. She and Killian were getting closer by the day, and it didn’t take me long to realize she knew how to have her fiancé back.

Same face, different name.

She wouldn’t be part of the WAGs anymore. She wouldn’t have a famous TikTok account and rub elbows with celebrities, but Killian would make good money and be able to take care of her. He’d give her the house, and the fancy car, and her Louboutins and Rodeo Drive shopping trips. And she wouldn’t be tied to a man whose body would forever be broken into a bunch of interchangeable pieces.

When she confessed in a whisper to me one night that she thought she wanted out, I didn’t fight. I let her go.

And as predicted, Killian was there to catch her as she fell.

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