Page 98 of Absolutely Pucked
I recoiled, but it was my own fault. “Sorry. I’m feeling a little defensive.”
“I get it.” He passed a hand down his face with another sigh. “When I think about you, sometimes it’s my anger about Delia or the absolute fucking jackass you were in Vegas. But I also think about what a horrible bully I was to you when we were young. You were my best fucking friend—literally the only person who ever got me. But I was so angry all the time?—”
“That wasn’t on you,” I interrupted. I couldn’t help it. “Tucker, Mom and Dad really fucked us up.”
“Yeah.” He laughed, but the sound wasn’t amused. “They really did. And you…you liked the attention.”
“I did.” I wasn’t about to deny that. “I liked it more the meaner you got. It kind of felt like you were proving them right when they said all those things about you. I was also scared that they were going to turn on me if I didn’t do exactly what they said. I was petrified of being a failure. I used to throw up every night and every morning at the thought of not getting that four point oh.”
Tucker’s face fell. “God, sometimes I just want five minutes alone with them.”
“It wouldn’t make a difference. Even if you punched them in the face, they’d just use that to say they were right all along,” I told him.
He smiled. “Yeah, but it would feel good.”
I couldn’t help a small laugh. “You know, it really would. But listen,” I said, and the moment between us sobered, “I figured out years ago that the whole bullying thing wasn’t your fault.”
“Killian—”
“No. I mean, okay, yes, take responsibility for being an asshole. Some of the things you and your friends did were traumatizing. But by the time Delia and I happened, I already understood why you were the way you were. When I went after you at that fucking rave?—”
“Killian,” he said again, his voice cracking.
“No, just…please,” I begged. God, I’d been holding on to this for so long.Solong.
He took a breath, then closed his eyes and nodded. “Okay.”
“I wasn’t trying to hurt you. I know I—I came across aggressive and angry, and I kind of was, but only because I thought the NHL was going to be the best thing that ever happened to you. I thought you’d go be this wild success and finally be happy, you know? I was terrified you were throwing it all away because you couldn’t stop being angry at Mom and Dad. And me.”
He let out a trembling breath. “I guess you were right. I did throw it away.”
I started to reach for him, then pulled back. I didn’t have permission for that yet. “I was wrong about it being the best thing that ever happened to you. Back then, you never looked even close to the way you look now with him. With Amedeo.” I’d only met him inpassing—a quick hello. But I couldn’t wait until Tucker let me get to know him.
He opened his eyes and looked up at me. “You’re right.”
“My point is, by then, I knew it was Mom and Dad fucking everything up. I was still terrified to fail. I knew I’d never be as charming or successful or as loved as you. I was never going to be popular. I was a weird little nerd and always would be. But if I could follow their path, I thought maybe I could at least be successful for myself. I might meet someone and be happy. Instead, I fell for the fucking trap, and it ruined my life.”
“I don’t know what to say. Part of me thinks you made your fucking bed, Kill.”
“Oh,” I said with a bitter chuckle, “I did make my bed. That’s not on you. That’s not even on Mom and Dad.” Sitting back, I rubbed at my eyes, then wrapped my arms around my middle. “I stopped blaming you for the bully shit years ago. If you need to hear it from me over and over, I’m happy to tell you, okay? I forgive you. None of that played into the Delia thing. It wasn’t revenge. It was…”
He was holding his breath, then let it out when I didn’t finish. “It was what?”
“Me being a fool. Her using that to manipulate the fuck out of me. Me making bad decisions and not taking responsibility for them for a long, long time.” I shrugged helplessly. “Take your pick.”
He was quiet for a long beat. “I think I need to know what happened. What your PI found.”
Fuck. I had been so prepared to tell him everything just six months ago. Now though?
I attempted to swallow past the boulder in my throat. “She used to say little things when she was angry—shit like, ‘I can’t believe I worked this hard to get you in my bed for you to turn out like this.’ Sometimes she’d drop little hints about how she would have been better off staying with you. That was only weird because she told me you dumped her.”
Tucker bit his lip, then said, “I did. I mean, I kind of did. She didn’t put up a fight when I ended things, but I did it because she kept talking over and over andoverabout how hard our lives were going to be. She sobbed into my damn pillow at the hospital about how the money from the settlement wasn’t going to last long, and what was the point of her keeping up with the way she looked if I was never going to be able to see her. Then she’d apologize for making it about her, but she’d start all over the next night.” He looked a little green, and I thought about asking him to stop, but maybe this was weighing on him.
“She’d ask doctors and nurses for support groups on how to deal with the way people would stare at us when we were in public together. She made it sound like she was trying to be supportive, but all I could think about was how I was ruining her life. She didn’t fight me at all when I told her it was over.”
I hadn’t known all of that. I never questioned the idea of Tucker breaking up with her because it was a very him thing to do. I hadn’t realized how deep her lies went.
“When she started having an affair,” I said slowly, “I hired a PI to get evidence. And he did. But he came back with a lot more than just the affair. Old emails,” I said. God, my stomach hurt, saying all this aloud. “They were messages she was sending to her friends right after the accident, talking about how she was using your bad attitude to manipulate me into bed with her. She said she didn’t care how long it took, but she wasn’t going to marry a—” I didn’t say the word. The heinous word that started with aC.
