Page 131 of Just One of the Groomsmen
“I kissed her that night,” Tucker said, “and after that, I couldn’t stop kissing her.”
Time ground out as he looked at her again, and then she was reliving that night, too. His lips on hers, the way he’d pulled her close and molded her body to his…
A torturous amount of longing annihilated every other emotion, and she wanted to run to him and fling her arms around him and kiss him again. But as fantastic as that moment and the days that came after had been, things had still fallen apart.
Rehashing the good parts only made the subsequent crash that much harder to bear, and her brain reminded her that he was putting himself on trial for those kisses. That he was listing the things he’d donewrong.
Addie stood on shaky legs, making it a few inches off her chair before Lexi tugged her back down.
“Okay,” Addie said, “I think you’ve proven your point. You shouldn’t have kissed me.”
“But you see, that’s not where I went wrong,” he said. “I kissed you before telling you that you’re the coolest person I’ve ever met, hands down. My witnesses will definitely back me up on that.”
Easton and Shep muttered their agreement.
“And I should’ve told you that I love how competitive you get, whether it’s poker or football or control over the remote. I love that I hardly have a childhood memory without you in it. But these past several weeks? They’ve been the best weeks of my life, Addie.
“You have no idea how much I appreciate your reassurance that it didn’t matter that I walked away from a perfectly good, high-paying job, and the way you encouraged me to try something new when I really needed someone to believe in me. I love that you always texted to check on my dog and ask me if I had more legal or boating clients. Love that I can talk to you for hours and hours and still have more to say. You’re the first person I want to talk to when anything good or bad happens.
“I shouldn’t have kept us a secret. I worried other people would mess it up, and in the end,Imessed it up. I should’ve told you that you’re beautiful and smart and sexy—for you to not think you are is ridiculous. You’re sexy as hell in that dress right now, sure, but you’re also sexy in that ratty Falcons hoodie or your farmer overalls or any damn thing you put on.”
He looked at her now. “You’re especially sexy when you’re covered in dirt and your cheeks are flushed and you get that competitive gleam in your eye that gets my heart pumping double time. You’re the whole package. I’d be so lucky if you’d be willing to do the long-distance thing. But after this past shi—crappy week, I’m not willing to have that much space between us.
“There’s too much space between us now.”
Tucker started down the walkway leading from the gazebo, his intense gaze leveled on her, and her stomach rose up, up, up.
“Crossing lines with you is the best decision I’ve ever made. When you told me about the job, I should’ve said I wanted you to go for your dreamsandthatI’d do whatever it took to make us work. I had this idea in my head of how it had to be before I let myself fall for someone, and now I see that once you find the right person, those kind of things no longer apply, the way the rest of the rules never applied to us.”
“Those rulesdidapply to you,” one of their former teachers said. “Heaven help us if y’all actually work this out and have children.”
Tucker ignored the comment from the peanut gallery, his long legs eating up the distance between them, and then he was right in front of her. “I love you, Addison Murphy. Which is nothin’ new, but being in love with you is, and I couldn’t let you go without at least telling you so. But I’m hoping I won’t have to let you go at all. If it means we get to be together, I’m goin’ with you.”
“With me to live in Tuscaloosa?” she asked, because of all the crazy thoughts spinning through her head, it seemed to be the only one she could catch hold of. The safest one to ask, as well, considering the others might mean her crying in front of the entire town.
“With you wherever you go.”
“But you hate the city. You never wanna live in one again. You don’t deal well with being cooped up, remember? And I don’t want to be the one to rip you away from your home.”
He reached down and cupped her cheek, and everything inside her came undone. “I think you missed the part where I said I love you. That overtakes everything else. You’re what I want more than anything else. You make me happier than anything ever has.”
He brushed his thumb across her cheekbone. “You’remy home.”
Her heart pounded so hard she was sure it was bruising her insides.
“And if you wanna go back to just being friends, I’ll…” He blew out a breath. “Man, I’ll be so miserable, but Addes, I’ll try it for you.”
“Ah, hell.” Ford stood next to Tucker and crossed his arms. “I’ll be a character witness.” He looked down at her. “Still on your side, and the promise to get you outta here if you say the word stands.”
Tears were forming, such a rush of them that it left her useless to fight them. She bit the inside of her cheek and nodded. “Thank you, Ford.” Tucker’s features blurred as she turned her teary-eyed gaze on him. “As for you, Tucker Crawford…”
Addie stood, and Lexi jerked her back down. Half a second later, she seemed to realize what she’d done and gave her a shove up.
Then Tucker was mere inches away, so close and so familiar, this big guy who’d just poured out his heart with the entire town watching, something he wouldn’t normally do. “You know everyone’s gonna be all up in your business after this. You’ll never live it down.”
“Guess that’s a point for me moving to the city with you.”
He obviously didn’t mean it, but she could tell he was trying to.
