Page 58 of Tuck & Roll

“Yeah. I can do that and it takes a lot of hard work to get that good. Odds are he might have had some experience with it in his past so when they choreographed these scenes it looked way more believable.”

They finished the episode they’d been watching, then paused the next episode so they could both take a bathroom break and grab a snack. He opted for spicy pork rinds and she went for the pretzels. They started the next episode when a wave of sadness so strong it felt like it was going to pull her under slammed into her. She tried to cry quietly, but she ended up sniffling which had Darren wrapping an arm around her and pulling her toward him. “Lie down, babe.” He patted his lap.

Kylie dropped down, laying her head in his lap. She cried quietly until she finally passed out. She might have been dreaming, but she could have sworn she felt him sifting his fingers through her hair.

Tuck jolted awake to the sound of a door slamming. It took a minute for his groggy mind to register what exactly he’d heard and what he was seeing. Taylor was naked and straddling his waist and holding his hands to her tits. “What the fuck!”

Her brows dipped in confusion. “You were calling my name. I thought you wanted me.”

He jerked his hands away from her tits and yelled, “Get the fuck off me!” Another door slammed. He was getting a really bad feeling that there was a lot more going on than just waking up to find Taylor on top of him. The sound of a motorcycle kicking over in front of his house gave him a sudden sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. “Fuck, no,” he mumbled to himself.

“Get off! Get off!” He couldn’t shove Taylor off like he wanted to considering her pregnancy status. He gritted his teeth and reminded himself she was a woman, possibly carrying his child, and it wouldn’t be right to punch her in the face. As soon as she swung her leg over him, setting him free, he jumped from the bed and ran through the house. Thank God he’d gone to bed in his underwear. He hated to think about how things might have transpired had she found him naked.

He made a mad dash to the front door, yanking it open as he heard the motorcycle pulling away. He stopped in the doorway, his hands holding onto the frame as he helplessly watched Kylie drive off on the back of Darren’s bike. His shoulders slumped at the sight of her tears and ravaged expression.

As quickly as despair hit him, it fled, replaced with rage. Rage at Taylor for once again fucking with his life. This time she’d gone too far.

“Grrrrr!” he roared. He slammed the door shut, rattling the pictures on the wall. “Goddamn! Motherfuck!” he shouted. Great gusts of air billowed in and out of his chest as he stomped toward his bedroom and the source of everything bad in his life.

He found Taylor standing next to the bed, her hands on her belly. At least she’d had enough sense to get dressed. “What did I tell you when you moved in?”

“Tuck,” Taylor began, her hands held out in front of her in a placating manner.

He didn’t give her a chance to speak. “That this room, my room, is off limits. You are not allowed to step foot in it. I also remember telling you that there is no you and me. There will never be a you and me. Not even if that baby is mine.” He ran his hands through his hair, the need to strangle her almost more than he could stand. He jabbed a finger at her and added, “Don’t think for a minute that things are over between me and Kylie.”

“Tuck,” she started, but he cut her off.

“What you did just now? What you tricked Kylie into believing? That’s a new low even for you.” He spun on his foot and took a few steps away. “Goddamn. I hate you. I wish I’d never met you.”

Tuck wasn’t sure he’d ever been so mad in his life. The balls on this woman were unbelievable. He grabbed for his jeans on the floor and pulled them on, then found a clean shirt in his dresser drawer. It wasn’t until he put on his socks and boots that she seemed to snap out of it.

“Where are you going?”

“To find Kylie and fix this.” He reached the doorway and almost jumped out of his skin at the sound of Taylor screaming. He spun around and found her hands grasping her stomach and bent over, appearing to be in pain. “What? What’s wrong?”

“The baby. Something’s wrong.” She wailed as tears rolled down her cheeks as she continued to remain hunkered over.

“Fuck!” He ran into the room she was using and grabbed her robe. He hurried back to her, wrapped it around her then picked her up and carried her out to the garage where he settled her into the front seat of his truck. Any idea he’d been entertaining that he could go after Kylie and explain what happened just went out the window.

The fifteen minutes it took to get to the hospital were some of the longest of his life. Taylor’s continued screams of pain were grating on his nerves and making him feel like an incompetent failure. He pulled up in front of the automatic double doors and hopped out. He ran inside, looking for help. He stopped the first person he found in scrubs. He glanced down at her name tag stating she was an R.N. and her name was Amanda. “I need help. I’ve got a pregnant woman in my car and something’s wrong.”

A couple more people in scrubs came out from behind a desk and followed them outside with a wheelchair. He flung the vehicle door open and just stood there, not knowing what to do.

“Excuse us, sir.” One of the nurses pushed him out of the way. “We need to get to your wife.”

“What seems to be the problem?” she asked in a calm, soothing voice while he was freaking the fuck out. He wasn’t sure if she was asking him or Taylor, so he spoke up.

“She’s pregnant,” obviously “and she’s due in six weeks. We were arguing and she just bent over and said something was wrong.” He raked his hand through his hair. He glanced down at Taylor still clutching her stomach, her face flushed and grimacing.

“It’s okay. We’ll take care of her,” Amanda tried to reassure him. “You go have a seat in the waiting room and we’ll get her checked in. Someone will come get you once she’s situated so you can both speak to the doctor.”

“Okay. I’ll, uh, go move my vehicle out of the way.” He hurried out to his truck and found a parking place not too far from the entrance. Before he got out, he scrubbed a hand over his face and pulled out his phone. He tried calling Kylie, but it went straight to voicemail. No surprise. He then tried Darren’s phone and it, too, went to voicemail. He would have thought Darren would’ve picked up, but if he was still dealing with Kylie and the aftermath of Taylor’s bullshit theatrics, Tuck could understand why he hadn’t. With him having to deal with this mess, he was glad Darren would be there for Kylie.

With nothing more he could do, he went to find a seat in the waiting room. He sat in a far corner as far away from everyone else as he could get. Son of a bitch. He felt completely wrung out. With Taylor’s latest stunt, he could feel his life crumbling even more around him. There was a reason the brothers called her Tornado Taylor. She always found a way to wreck his life. Fuck, what must Kylie be thinking?

He checked the time again and saw that forty minutes had passed and still no one had come to get him. Thinking he’d been forgotten, he checked in at the desk. “Hi. I brought a woman in here, Taylor Green? Can you tell me how she’s doing? Someone was supposed to come get me.”

“Are you her husband?” A woman in thick glasses and a dress that looked like his grandmother would wear eyed him warily, like he was going to jump across the desk and have his wicked way with her. Not likely.

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