Page 84 of Absolutely Pucked
“No. I eventually got his name out of my mom, but she had no idea what happened to him, and she wasn’t interested in helping me find him. She was super fixated on me apologizing to my stepdad for everything.”
“After he let a horse crush you?”
My laugh was bitter. “Mhm. She went on and on about karma and how the more I acted out, the worse things would get for me. That’s why I don’t talk to her.”
“God, what a monster.” He was quiet for a long beat, then sighed and leaned back on his hands. “I guess I really am done being mad at you.”
“You aren’t,” I told him. “Once you get over what a sorry sack of shit I am, you’ll be angry again.”
He pulled a face and hand-walked himself across the table and back to the couch. When he was settled, he grabbed his phone. “I’ll tell Deo we can go home now.”
“You trust me to be on my own? Don’t you have a couple other brothers I can fuck?”
He glared. “You’re so not funny. Like, not even a little bit right now. It’s too fucking soon!”
I smiled.
“Ford?”
“Yeah.”
“Are you in love with him?” he asked again.
Taking a breath, I shrugged. “It doesn’t matter anymore, does it? I choose you. I will always choose you, Tucker. I need you to understand that. We were going to end it because no matter how either of us felt, we were both choosing you.”
He licked his lips. “Not the best way to show it.”
“I know. And I will regret that for the rest of my life. But I’m dead serious, okay? I’ll take the coaching job and eventually maybe date someone else, and this will be a blip. And you will be there because you are my best fucking friend in the entire world, and I will not lose you.”
He met my gaze, his slightly fogged but sighted eye fixed on me. “You’re not going to lose me.”
That was the only comfort I could hold in that moment. The only comfort that was allowed to matter.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-THREE
KILLIAN
In the weekthat followed my fleeing Ford’s place, I tried to leave three times. All three times, Jonah seemed to sense it and managed to stop me just before I got to the door.
“Just because I can’t see your ass making an escape doesn’t mean I don’t know what you’re planning,” he said the final time. He stood in front of me with his arms crossed. “It isn’t cute, by the way. Taking advantage of my blindness?—”
“I’m not taking advantage of that. I’m taking advantage of your home. And your kindness. And your?—”
“Dude.”
I shut my mouth.
“Can you go sit at the counter and shut up for ten seconds while I make us lunch?”
Why was I so easy to control? I walked over and plopped down, watching as he moved into the kitchen and put together a sandwich that would feed me for aweek. He ate like a pro athlete, of course, and assumed everyone ate that way.
My appetite was worse than ever, but I forced down several bites because I wasn’t an asshole.
“So,” he said after a short forever of chewing noises and awkward silence, “you blocked Ford?”
Wincing, I glanced away as though somehow he could see the guilt on my face. “It was better that way.”
