Give Me Something (18 page)

“
Playoff game,” Matt explained.  “Sure you don't want to watch?”

“
You know how much I love sports,” I replied sarcastically.  Matt laughed and waved me off.

“
Hey babe,” Tucker said in greeting.  He turned the ball cap he was wearing backwards before wrapping his arm around my waist, allowing an unobstructed path from his lips to mine.  “I didn't know you were stopping by.  I thought you were helping Brynn move.”

“
I was,” I sighed, and my heart started to feel heavy over what I was there to do as I took in a deep breath filled with the fresh-air scent of him.  “We finished early.  Can I talk to you for a minute?” I asked quietly. 

“
Yeah, of course,” he grinned.  “Can you give me like twenty minutes though? I promised Boomer and Duncan that I'd run them down to the liquor store and to grab some food.  I'm the only one not drinking today.”

“
Umm, yeah, I guess.”  This sucked.  I wanted to get it out.  Rip it off like a band aid.  Now I had to wait and deal with the anticipation of breaking Tucker's heart.

“
You wanna come with?” he proposed.

“
No, that's okay.  I'll just wait here for you.  Don't want to interrupt your boys' time.”  The truth was, I didn't want to have to pretend to be Tucker's girlfriend for one more minute, especially in front of his friends.   It was all too much.

“
Okay.”  He leaned over a kissed my forehead.  “You're the best.”  He turned his attention toward the crowd of guys, “Hey!  You two dipshits ready to go?”  Boomer and Duncan jumped up and followed Tucker toward the door.  “Just go upstairs. I'll be right back.”  With a sigh, I watched them leave and made my way up stairs to Tucker's room.

When I reached the bedroom I began a steady back and forth pace, surrounded by the tranquility of Tucker's space on one side and the pure chaos of Nick's on the other.  “It's not you, it's me,” I whispered into the silence, hoping that it wouldn't sound as lame as it did in all the movies.  It did.  It sounded even worse.  I could feed him some line of bullshit or tell him I couldn't deal with his sexual history, but he deserved better than that.  He'd been sweet and caring, and not to mention, he offered up a generous amount of money to help out his girlfriend of less than a month.  I just had to tell him the truth.  “
I'm in love with someone else.”  For some reason, saying it out loud caused my stomach to turn.  “I
think
I'm in love with somebody else?” I questioned myself.  I stopped, dead in my tracks, and looked around the room, which was so obviously a metaphor for what was going on inside my head.  One minute, I was peaceful and calm and the next I was a mess.  A picture frame on Tucker's dresser caught my eye.  It contained a photograph from the night of my fake birthday.  I admired the happy couple that was prominently displayed for all who entered to see.  The photo was of me, smiling ear to ear, with Tucker behind me, his arms wrapped around my waist with the same blissful grin.  I shifted my attention to the top of Nick's desk.  The textbooks and loose papers that covered the majority of the surface and covered the one photograph of us together.  Did I really want to be with a guy who shuffled the one picture he had of us together under a pile of trash, or did I want to be the guy who was more than happy to let people see us together?  I felt so stupid for thinking that Nick was really in love with me.  He would have never asked me to do any of this if he was.  It was all an act.  A con.  I, of all people, should have seen the signs that were right in front of my face.  The sudden shift in attention.  The promises of more to come.

“
Hi.”  I was startled by the sound of Nick's voice.

“
Hi.” I turned to see him standing in the door frame.

“
What are you doing here?”

“
Waiting for Tucker to get back.  I need to talk to him.”

“
About what?” His face covered in concern. 

“
Nothing.” I forced a smile and tried to hide the fact that I was lying.  It wasn't
nothing
.  It was everything.   I was internally preparing myself to tell Tucker everything and hoped that he could forgive me for betraying him.  The thought of not having him in my life caused the knots in my stomach to tighten.

“
It's not nothing,” he said and sat down on the foot of the bed.  “The only time a
girlfriend
says she needs to talk to her
boyfriend
is when she's going to tell him something bad.  So, you're either planning on coming clean or breaking up with him.”

“
Don't worry about it,” I encouraged as I sat down next to him.  “It's nothing like that.  We are just talking about what we are going to do tonight.  It's our two month anniversary.”  I
tried to read his expression.  Now that I'd figured out what Nick was up to I wanted to see it for myself, without the blinders I'd been wearing around him.  I wanted to see if anything he'd told me was true.

“
Well, I hope he gets you some expensive present.  I still can't believe he didn't get you anything for your birthday.” He patted his hand on the top of my thigh.  My hand moved to my collar, to feel the thin silver chain of the present I hid from Nick under my hooded sweatshirt.  I hadn't taken it off since the party, unless it was to keep Nick from seeing it.  I loved the way Tucker smiled when he saw it around my neck.  That probably should have been one of the signs that I was in way too deep.

“
Let's hope,” I said with a false chuckle.  “Tell me again why it's so important to you that we get the money from Tucker.”

“
Do we really have to go over this again, Rae?” he huffed.

“
I'm just having a hard time wrapping my head around this.  Don't you even want a chance at having a relationship with him?  He is your brother.”

“
No, I don't,” he answered and stared down at his hand on my leg.  “I just want a relationship with you,” he started moving his hand in a slow rhythm over my thigh.  He moved his head over until his chin was resting on my shoulder.  “We can start a real relationship together, once this is all over,” he whispered into my skin, letting his lips kiss the heat that his breath left behind.

I quickly stood up from his distraction tactic.  I mentioned ending the job and he immediately started spouting off about us being together.  How stupid did he think I was?  I guess my track record spoke for itself.  He'd managed to get me to do all kinds of things over the past five years.  I fought back the anger that was brewing under the surface as I thought about all of the things that Nick had been able to convince me to do.  Were any of the feelings that I'd had for him reciprocated or was it all an act to get me to do his bidding?

“We can be together now, Nick,” I muttered in a last ditch effort to get him to show his real emotions for me.  I hoped that I wasn't right to assume the he was a complete asshat.

“
You know I need that money, Rae,” he expressed.  He stood up and wrapped his arms around my waist, pulling me to him.  “I deserve to get that money from him.”

“
He doesn't deserve to be a pawn in your revenge against your father,” I sighed.

His arms quickly dropped from my body. “What you have with him isn't real!” he fumed.  “Don't forget that.  You think he'd still want you if he knew the truth about everything?  About you?” 

“Nick, stop. I – ”

“
It's all a lie and you're... You know what, forget it!  If you want to keep pretending to be Little Miss Fucking Perfect, then be my guest.” He stormed out the door before I even had a chance to speak.

I shouldn't have been surprised by his reaction.  Deep down, I knew it was going to end that way, despite what I'd been hoping. 
Little Miss Fucking Perfect?
   Maybe I was pretending to be someone else in the beginning, but not anymore.  The way I felt about Tucker was real.  I sensed the tears starting to well in my eyes and took off out the door.  I didn't have it in me to wait for Tucker, and I didn't want him to see me all torn up over Nick.  I didn't think I could explain my way out of that one.  I needed some time to get myself together before I told Tucker the truth and begged him to give me a chance at a real shot with him.  As I made my way back to my dorm, I was kicking myself for being too stupid to see that the real person I needed to cut loose was Nick and even more stupid for not realizing that I was in love with Tucker.

Chapter 13

Despite the way things had just gone down between Nick and me, I couldn't just turn off our relationship.  He'd been a part of my life for so long that it was impossible to just cut him out completely, and even though I was furious with the way he'd led me on, I couldn't stand the thought of him being hurt by Marco Belletti.  I packed a bag, grabbed the twenty-eight that Nick still owed, and headed to the city.  I know what you're thinking, most girls would have let the asshole who broke their heart rot, but apparently between the start and the end of this thing, I developed a conscience.  Maybe Nick didn't have as big a piece of my heart as I thought.  I hopefully thought that paying off Belletti and getting a clean slate for Nick, would cause karma to shine favorably on me when I told Tucker the truth.  I also planned on using whatever money I had left to help pay Tucker back the twelve grand he'd lent me... for karma's sake.

I decided to make a weekend of it and use the alone time to get my life together.  I texted Tucker to tell him that him something came up and that I had to go to Chicago for the weekend.  I was pretty vague, so I wasn't surprised by the onslaught of texts from him asking “Is everything okay?” and “Do you need me to do anything?”  I let him know that everything was fine, but I ignored the texts from Brynn.  She was apologizing for the way she acted back at her apartment.  I couldn't deal with her right now.  My proverbial plate was heaping full.

I arrived at my hotel in record time.  I logged onto Facebook while I waited for the front desk clerk to check me in.  Brynn must have called Tucker when I wouldn't respond to her because she had already filled my news feed with questions about my disappearance and why I had been ignoring her.  I finally broke down and typed out a message to her. 

Everything is fine.  I'm not mad at you.  We'll talk when I get back.

Status updated.

The quiet of the empty hotel room was exactly what I needed.  The realization that I had fallen hard for Tucker Kline was now amplified by how much I actually missed him.  I didn't feel guilty anymore for wanting to kiss him, to wrap my arms around his neck and tangle my fingers in his thick, dark hair, or for wearing the necklace he'd given me.  I was hopeful that after I confessed everything to him, I would be able to show him exactly how I felt about him with nothing, and no one, standing between us.  After I lay on the bed for the better part of an hour, I decided it was time to take a shower and get ready to go meet Belletti.  I'd texted an old acquaintance and found out where Belletti would be tonight – a little cigar club across town at 9:00 p.m.    I pulled on black tights, a scoop-neck fitted gray sweater dress, and my over-the-knee black leather boots.  After putting on my makeup and setting my hair in loose curls, I pulled on my black, cropped jacket and headed down to the hotel bar for a little liquid courage.

“
I'll have a rum and diet, please,” I leaned over the bar and flashed a smile at the bartender.  He adjusted his thick-framed glasses, nodded and started mixing my drink.

I felt a pair of strong arms wrap around my waist, as a grave whisper touched my ear. “Are you a thief?”

I held my breath as I let my eyes focus in on the mirror behind the bar.  I closed my eyes once I saw my reflection coupled with Tucker's. 
He knew.
  I'd worked out every detail about what I was going to say to him the next time I saw him, but that wasn't supposed to be for at least another twenty-four hours.  Now, here he was asking me if I was a thief.  I'd wanted to explain everything to him on my own terms, but somehow he'd found out the truth.  I slowly turned in his arms, resting my head just briefly on his warm, solid chest.  I wanted to enjoy one last hug from him before he wrote me off.

“
I can explain,” I said shakily and slowly raised my eyes up to meet his.

“
Explain what? How you stole my heart?” He smirked.  I watched him curiously, as he started laughing.  “That might be one of my best pick up lines yet.”

I let out a heavy sigh.  He didn't know.  I let out a relieved chuckle.  “Yep, that was a good one.”  I paused, “Wait, what are you doing here?”

He kissed the tip of my nose.  “I was worried about you. I'd already started driving north, when I saw your Facebook status. It checked you in at the Wellesley-Crawford Hotel.  Made finding you in this big ole city a lot easier,” he nodded.  “I was just about to pay the desk clerk for your room number when I saw you walk into the bar.”

“
Oh,” I sighed.

“
I was kind of hoping you'd at least be a little bit happy to see me,” he frowned.

“
I am happy to see you,” I sighed as I lifted my hand, placed it on his cheek, and carefully guided his face down to mine.  I rose up on my tip-toes to close the gap between us, before placing my lips on his.  I knew that I needed to tell Tucker the truth and I wanted to make sure I got at least one more good kiss in before he knew all of the facts.  I felt his arms tighten around my waist as our tongues collided.  I took in the taste of him and memorized each and every inch of his mouth with mine before my body forced me to stop for air.