Page 119 of Just One of the Groomsmen
“Everyone just calm down,” he said, his cop voice in full effect.“Now.”
Calm? There was no calm.
He and Addie just had one of those huge, damaging fights he’d worked so hard to avoid, and then she’d left and Ford made that remark about her looks, and he’d seen red.
Was still seeing red.
“Crawford.” Easton gave his chest a mild shove, and Tucker dropped his arms but kept his fists clenched, and Ford did the same. On the rare occasion, they’d gotten on each other’s nerves, mostly for dumb shit like taking a joke or prank too far, but he’d never genuinely wanted to take a swing at any of the guys.
Not to mention those times had never been accompanied by this overwhelming sense of anger and adrenaline.
But how could they make light of such a shitty situation? How could they talk about Addie like there weren’t a hundred other amazing things about her besides how beautiful and sexy she was?
She was smart and funny and easy to talk to, and the best person to have by your side, ups, downs, and everything in between.
She made life better. Made him better.
“I warned you,” Easton said with a shake of his head, and variations of “you knew?” came from Shep and Ford, but Tucker ignored those.
“And I told you that I was aware it was a bad idea.” He’d wished so hard that it wasn’t, that he’d convinced himself he and Addie could figure out a way for it to not be.
“Seriously? You guys honestly didn’t see it?” Easton asked, which brought out offended scowls, and he held up his hands again and sighed. “Let’s not get into this. What I need to know is why Addie stormed out of here like that.”
Never before had Tucker struggled so much to rein in his emotions. He dug deep, not allowing himself to break in front of the guys, especially not with them so pissed at him. “Because I told her she should go for a really good job.”
“Doesn’t sound like our Addie,” Ford said, and it sent a toxic burning through Tucker’s gut—she was his more than theirs. “I feel like you’re leavin’ out a few details.”
The calm-breathing shit didn’t work yesterday, so Tucker forewent it and stuck to the basics. “If she gets it, she’ll be working at the University of Alabama. For their football team.”
“Addie’s gonna go redcoat and work for Bama?” Shep asked, brow furrowed.
“She should, and don’t act like any of you wouldn’t jump at the opportunity. She’d be working for one of the best teams in the nation, doing what she was trained to do. She’d make more money than she ever could here, and while we all cringe at the thought of any of us yelling Roll Tide—”
A uniform groan carried through the room.
“—she wouldn’t have to deal with her asshole boss anymore, and she’d be doing what she loves.”
“In Tuscaloosa,” Ford said, his voice softer.
For all his brash ways, Tucker could tell it dug at him to think of her far away, and that made his anger and desire to punch him cool.
“Yeah. It’d mean a move.” The weight of everything it meant hit him again.
He knew how this story ended. She’d head out there and they’d love her. Weekends would go by where she couldn’t visit, or he couldn’t get to her, and she’d fall in love with the benefits and working with such successful, driven people, and they’d grow further apart.
They’d have uglier, more devastating fights.
Things sucked right now, but they could get over it. If they gave it everything they had and dragged it out, it’d only hurt more in the end.
Only do more damage to their relationship.
If he was even sort of financially stable, maybe then he could find a better way to make it work, but he wasn’t, and he never should’ve crossed lines. The risk had been too high, and he’d known better.
Now look at the mess—it’d torn the group apart, just like they’d worried it would.
“You think I want her to move?” Tucker asked, to no one in particular, and in fact, he found it easier to stare at the knot of wood in one of the cabinets. “Think I want her that far away? She’s worried about not being here for her family. For her grandma.”
“I’ll help with her grandma,” Ford said, and Shep and Easton added they would, too.
