In Ruins (22 page)

“I was,” Tucker admits. “But only because I was having a hard time. I was hurting, and angry, because my father had just died and I didn't know how to handle that.”

My jaw drops. I can't believe he would confide something like that in Billy. Even if he hasn't given any details. But even just discussing his father, and how his death affected him—it's not something Tucker would ever take lightly, and he's doing it because he's worried about Billy—because he cares—and it means the world to me. I pray that it helps get Billy to talk about whatever's been bothering him, that Tucker can reach him where I seem to have failed. I've tried to get him to talk since Halloween, but he always blows it off—pretending all is well and making me seem like I'm overreacting.

But Billy doesn't open up. “That's
your
life, Tucker. Not mine. Sorry and whatever, but don't put your issues on me. I'm just having a good time.”

Sorry and whatever
? Who
is
this person?

I'm so stunned by Billy's callousness that it takes me a second to form words. “Billy, how could you act like this? Tucker's just trying to talk to you. To figure out what's up with you, because he cares.”

And then Billy gets visibly pissed off, and it throws me even more off guard. “Yeah, he cares so much that he just dumped your ass and then fucking disappeared,” he spits.

I gape at him. It hits me hard—realizing that I've been so caught up in my own loss that I somehow didn't realize that when we broke up, Billy lost Tucker, too. He's always been around as a close friend, but when we started hooking up last year, he became kind of a fixture in our lives, and even more so when we made it official.

“Whatever,” Billy says bitterly. “I don't need this shit.”

“Billy!” But this scolding apparently holds no more weight than the others.

Tucker doesn't look angry, just concerned; and I feel guilty that he tried to help only to get burned.

Billy stands up, and I think he's going to leave the room, but then he turns back. “Can you take me to visit on Sunday?” he asks.

My nerves come alive in my veins. I can't remember ever feeling this angry with Billy before, but even more than that, I'm hurt. And now he's asking me to take him to visit a man I can't stand to be in the same room as? In front of someone who really doesn't need to be reminded of his existence. Even if Billy couldn't possibly know that Tucker probably has a pretty good idea who we're talking about, we're usually so careful about talking about our father that I don't understand why he's now gone from callous to utterly thoughtless.

“No,” I say simply. I glare at Billy, admonishing him for so much, and for the first time in his almost fourteen years, he doesn't seem to care how I feel one way or another. Out of the corner of my eye I notice Tucker silently excuse himself, but he doesn't go far. Instead, he stands in the doorway like a sentinel, offering us a false sense of privacy while still standing guard, as if he actually believes Billy might go too far and hurt me. Not physically, I'm sure, but Billy's been known to lash out with cutting words when he's upset—something he's learned from our mother.

I'm grateful Tuck cares enough to stay, but it does mean he can hear us, and I'd rather he not overhear this particular subject. I'd rather he forget it even exists.

“It's been months. It's a holiday weekend and I want to go,” Billy argues. He knows this is a big ask. I haven't gone to visit my father more than a couple times a year since I learned the real reason he's still there, and I'm not due to go again until Christmas week.

“Mom will take you when she gets back.” Part of me just wants to tell him he's being an asshole and to cut it the hell out, but the other part can't stop searching for the little boy who's always been so exceptionally thoughtful and sweet.

“Just fucking take me!” he shouts.

“I'm not fucking taking you to see Dad!” I lose it. I've never cursed at him before. Ever.

Billy lifts his chin to Tucker, who's standing calm and observant in the background, and has yet to so much as flinch. “So he does know,” Billy accuses. “I have to keep it secret from everyone I know—from my best fucking friends—but you told your boyfriend?” He turns to Tucker with a sneer. “That's why you left her, huh? You liked dating the rich little princess, but once you found out where her dad really was you booked it real fast, didn't you,
Mother-Tucker
?”

“Don't talk to him like that!” I hiss.

“You're
defending
him?” Billy erupts in disbelief. “He broke your fucking heart!
Now
you suddenly care so much, Tucker? Where were you when my sister was crying herself to sleep every night? When she couldn't even get out of bed?”

“Damn it, Billy, what happened between Tucker and me is none of your business!” I snap. I'm idly aware of Tucker's gaze boring into me from my peripheral vision, but Billy and I are in a stalemate, and it's an unfamiliar position for us. “I'm sorry you got hurt in all this. And it's my fault. I should have been stronger for you. But you can't take it out on Tuck, Billy, okay? Him and me—we were a mistake from the beginning. We're friends. We always should have just stayed friends. He cares about you, and I love you, and you've got to stop acting out. Please,” I plead with him.

Billy visibly deflates, and I feel a flare of hope. “Just take me Sunday, okay? It's a holiday weekend and he just wants us for a couple hours. He said you haven't even taken his calls since you left for school.”

My mouth gapes open. I thought he'd just been asking me for a ride, but this is more than that. My father is manipulating Billy into trying to facilitate a visit, and the thought that he would do that—play on Billy's sympathy when he's obviously already dealing with so much—it infuriates me.

“I spoke to him after graduation,” I defend, even though rationally I know it's beside the point. But at the end of the day, I just don't want to see him. I can't help it. I don't hate him, but it hurts to be around him. I resent him for his choices. For choosing his money over us, and for the choices he made in the first place that a decade later would cause me to lose the love of my life.

“That was five months ago!” Billy shouts, and I'm just done.

“Why do you even want to see Dad?” I cry. “He doesn't give a fuck about us! He doesn't care who he hurts or what the fallout might be! We're better off without him and you know it, and acting like an asshole isn't going to change that!”

Billy's eyes widen in shock. I've always bitten my tongue when it comes to my father, and I can't bear to watch my brother's face crumple in denial. I turn on my heel and rush away. I need to calm the hell down. Before I say something I can't take back.

Something else
.

Present Day

I find myself alone in the Caplans' laundry room, forcing deep breaths down my throat. I don't even bother turning on the light. I can't remember the last time I lost my cool like that with Billy. Already I'm flooded with shame. Even if every word I said about our father was true, that doesn't mean Billy needed to hear them. Especially when he's obviously already dealing with so much.

God, I can be such a jerk sometimes.

It's another minute before I even realize I'm crying, and probably ten more before I manage to get control of it. I don't actually know how much time has passed. I don't wear a watch and I left my phone in the den. I need to grab it and order a cab to get us home.

A knock sounds on the door and already I know it's Tucker. He doesn't wait for me to invite him in, just tentatively opens the door.

He's backlit by the soft glow from the hall and he looks impossibly tall and looming. The planes of his face are shadowed and hard, and utterly unfathomable. My stomach twists. The last thing I would ever intentionally do is remind him of my father, and Billy and I have just thrown the man smack into his handsome face. I'm surprised he even came looking for me. Unless he's here to revoke his offer of friendship, after all.

“You okay?” he asks gently.

I shrug. “I don't know what to say, Tucker,” I murmur. “I don't know what has gotten into him.” God, all the things Billy said to him. It's humiliating. Especially the picture he painted of my state after our breakup, which incidentally was pretty accurate.

Tucker looks around, his lips quirking in vague amusement. “What is it with us and laundry rooms?”

I let out a short laugh. “I don't know.”

He takes a few steps closer, into the darkness I've been hiding in. I wish he wasn't so damn good-looking. His jaw and cheekbones are angled with perfect roughness, the deep green of his eyes almost celestial in the dim room. Men who look like him aren't like this. They're not kind and caring. They're cocky and frivolous. And he's those things, too. I suppose we're all all things. But Tucker is an impossibly perfect combination of those things. Perfect to me, anyway.

“Is he okay?” I ask him, only now realizing how selfish it was of me to leave Tucker with Billy after the way he treated him.

“He's texting on his phone and grimacing like a surly teenager.” Tucker smiles vaguely.

I run my fingers through my hair, digging them into my scalp. “Thanks for trying,” I murmur. “And I'm sorry he was such a…”

“Dick?” Tucker offers.

I sigh. “He's had his moments, I'll admit, but he's never been so intentionally hurtful before, you know? And I'm sorry he brought up, you know, our dad. And—”

Tucker's abrupt step forward cuts off my rambling. “Don't worry about me,” he says softly, his brow furrowing deeply. “I didn't realize you weren't speaking to your father.”

My stomach rolls at hearing him mention the man. I don't want him reminded of what I come from. “I'm not
not speaking
to him. I just haven't spoken to him in…a while.”
Since we broke up
.

His jaw clenches as he considers me, and then he blows out a long breath. “Look, I know this is weird coming from me of all people, and the irony isn't lost on me, I assure you, but maybe you should take Billy for that visit, you know?”

I stare at him. That is probably the last thing I ever expected him to say.

I clear my suddenly dry throat. “I don't want to see him, Tuck. I don't even get why he would want to see me.” I hate how shaky my voice comes out.

“Come on, Carl.” I hate Tuck's pity even more. “For all his bravado, Billy is still just a kid. He needs his father, in whatever capacity he can get him. And your dad…whatever the fucked-up choices he made…It doesn't mean he doesn't love you guys.”

“Doesn't it, though?”

“Carl.” My name comes out like an admonishment.

“I lost everything because of that man.”

“Did you?”

I blink at him. Why the hell is Tucker defending my father?

“You have friends who care about you, a kid brother who adores you—despite his current attitude. So your parents suck. They've always sucked. And you've always been okay. You'll always be okay. You'll get through it, whatever it is. You and Billy will work it out.”

I stare at him. He's right. My father is to blame for a hell of a lot, but the more time passes, the more I realize he's not responsible for my losing Tuck. That was all me. For all those weeks he spent supposedly hating me, it was my refusal to tell him the truth he couldn't forgive, my choice to look him in the eye, even after he unknowingly revealed the significance of that truth, and continue to lie instead.

But it wasn't until I knew he returned my feelings that I felt secure enough to consider confiding in him, and I'd only just begun to work up the nerve to do just that when Tucker dropped the bombshell. And his hostility, the contempt he harbored, not only for the man he didn't know then was my father, but for his family—
me
—choked back my words every time I came close to forcing them out.

So I can resent my father all I want, but when it comes to my breakup with Tucker, the reality is, the blame is all mine.

And now I've let my resentment affect my little brother. I can't believe I said those things to him. Tucker is right. He needs our dad. And I told him the man doesn't care about him.

I flush with remorse. All Billy wanted was to see his father, and I selfishly denied him. Out of what? Spite?

“I need to talk to Billy,” I murmur.

Tuck nods and steps out of my way. Vaguely I'm aware of him following me out of the laundry room and back toward the den. But all I find is Bits picking up our wineglasses.

“Have you seen Billy?” I ask her.

“He just headed to the front. Said his ride was here.”

His ride?

I hear the front door slam shut and I rush around to the foyer after him. I fight with the lock on the door and Tucker has to step in to disengage it for me, and then I'm outside watching Billy climb into an unfamiliar car.

“Billy!” I call after him.

He turns back to me briefly. “I'm going to stay at Sadie's,” he says in a defiant tone that sounds familiarly like my own. Sadie is Billy's other “best friend,” aside from Kyle, though I've long suspected she means even more to him than that. I recognize her older brother, a high school senior, in the driver's seat, and as I take the steps to the car, Billy shuts the passenger door behind him. I see him mouth “let's go,” and they drive off without a backward glance.

My feet crunch onto the gravel driveway as I realize three things. One—that I'm not wearing any shoes. Two—I don't have my car here. And three—that even if I did, I'm still way, way too drunk to drive.

I feel powerless, like I'm trying to swim with my arms and legs bound and weighted, and instead of resolving this thing with Billy and me, I'm just sinking further and further into the muck. I run back into the house, Tucker quietly following as I make my way back into the den to search frantically for my phone. I need to call Billy and order him back here immediately.

Where the hell is my phone?

It's not on the sofa where I left it, so I start tossing around throw pillows that Bits must have just straightened up, then start digging around in the couch cushions.

But I turn up empty.

“Damn it!” I slam my palm into the armrest.

Big hands grip my shoulders, halting the trembling I hadn't even registered. Tucker's deep, familiar voice urges me to calm down.

“I need to call Billy,” I explain. “I can't find my damn phone.”

Tuck turns me around, fingers rubbing my muscles until I submit, releasing the tension.

“He went to Sadie's,” Tucker says.

I nod. “I know.”

“Let him cool off.”

I blink at him. “But—”

“You're just going to call and start shouting and demanding he come back here, and he's just going to refuse. You're just going to fight more tonight. And that's if he even answers.” Tucker tells me what I already know, and unfortunately that makes it no less frustrating.

I sigh. “Yeah,” I admit.

“Why don't you stay here tonight, and tomorrow I'll drive you over to Sadie's to talk to Billy.”

“I should go home,” I murmur.

“No. Beth already asked me if I was cool with you and Billy staying over, seeing as we're all too drunk to drive you home.” He smiles wryly.

“I was going to order an Uber.”

Beth walks in at that moment, obviously having overheard. “I already made up the second guest room for you, so enough of that. Let's open more wine. My parents finally went to sleep and now I can have some.”

“Can you?” Tucker challenges, all overprotective big brother.

Beth pouts. “Oh, come on, Tuck. Just a little. Carl obviously needs someone to drink with.” She winks at me and I offer her a smile.

“She can drink with me,” Tucker counters.

“Oh, give it a rest, Tuck. She's almost seventeen. Remember what we were doing two years ago?” I remind him.

Tucker just sort of grunts, but Beth takes it as his approval, and she retrieves a bottle of Chianti from behind the bar.

“Here,” Tucker mutters as he slips my cell phone from his pocket and hands it to me.

I gape at him, before adjusting to an indignant stare. “You let me ransack the place when you had it the whole time?”

Tucker shrugs shamelessly. “Didn't want you to flip out on Billy and make things worse.”

I huff and walk over to Beth, turning my back on him, though rationally I know he probably did me a favor.

But with the next glass of wine, and the next after that, the evening rolls into night, and we slip into a comfortable tipsiness, talking and laughing about everything except our actual problems, and I'm grateful for it.

After we've all said good night, I lie awake in bed, staring at the ceiling, watching it lazily spin. I am most decidedly drunk. And I don't regret it for a second.

I feel so grateful to Tucker. For rescuing me last night, for his attempt to get through to Billy
,
and for his friendship. I want to thank him again, and I regret that we've already said our good nights and gone to bed. I can't stop thinking about his lopsided, intoxicated grin, his charming dimples, or his bellowing laugh. But I also think of the way his arms flexed under the sleeves of his T-shirt as he turned the corkscrew in the wine bottle. The way his breath whispered off my skin when he stood closer than necessary in the laundry room.

I think of the way he took me in his bedroom at the lacrosse house. Back when we were both still convinced he hated me. It was brutal, and punishing, but it was also unbelievably hot. That heat unfurls within me now, craving the only man who has ever been able to light its flame.

I find myself climbing out of bed in only my nightie before I even process what I'm doing. It's almost two in the morning, and as I creep out into the dark hall, I tell myself I just want to see if he's still awake. To thank him again. Though that doesn't explain why I don't bother to wrap a robe around myself.