Page 106 of Pretty Little Scars

“You gonna tell us about that?” Dani asks.

“Nope.”

“If I have to talk, you have to talk,” I inform her, and Charlie sighs, sets her spoon down, and licks her lips.

“There is nothing at all to talk about.”

Then, she picks up her spoon and takes another bite.

“So, I’m a happily married woman totwomen,” Alex says before popping a chip in her mouth. My little sister has never been particularly traditional, so it wasn’t a shock when she announced to all of us that she’d fallen in love with Gabe and Adam. They had already been in a happily committed relationship when they met Alex and then decided they couldn’t live without her. “But I can confidently say that guy is hot AF, and he wants to bend you over this table and?—”

“Okay,” I interrupt, giving a shiver. “I know you all have sex, but I don’t want toknow.”

Dani snorts next to me. “I had a baby last year, you know.”

“Yes, and it was an immaculate conception.”

“No, I’m pretty sure we conceived on a fire truck,” she says, and Alex offers her a high five. “And it washot. No pun intended.”

I can’t help but laugh at that, and then we all turn back to Charlie, whose eyes widen, and around another bite of her lunch, she says, “What?”

“He likes you,” I tell her.

“Well, yeah, he likes me. But I don’t do relationships. I’m too busy. He’s nice to look at, and he really did come in clutch for me on that cake. It wasdamngood, and beautiful. He trained in Paris. He used to work at the Ritz.”

“You know all that about him, but there’s nothing to tell?” I ask her.

“I can have conversations with the man without sucking his dick.”

“I mean, you could do both,” Alex offers, and I look up at the ceiling, as if asking a higher power for strength.

“Oh, stop it, as if you haven’t had your lips all over some guy’s?—”

“Okay,” I interrupt, stopping Charlie’s train of thought. “We’re in a public place. I can’t take you three anywhere.”

“It’s Tucker, isn’t it?” Dani asks with a knowing smile.

“How do you know that?”

“I mean, you’re living at his ranch. And he’s hot. And heused to besingle,” she says, and the other two nod.

“He’s really nice. I’ve met him,” Alex adds, and suddenly I feel bad that I haven’t asked Tucker if he’d like to meet my family. I hang out with his all the time when Xander has games, which is almost every other day, if I’m not out on call. “It’s him, right?”

“Yeah, it’s Tucker.” I nibble my lip and stare at my tacos. Ilovetacos. And my sisters know it.

“You don’t look excited about it.” Dani says.

“Iamexcited,” I counter. “He’s so great. And he’s ... he’s seen everything there is to see, and he hasn’t run away yet.”

“Why would he run away?” Alex scoffs. “You’re awesome, and he knows it.”

Because I have so many issues, I could fill a notebook with them.

“He used the L-word.”NowI take a bite of my taco, and watch as all three of them stare at me with wide blue eyes, so much like my own. God, I love them. They’re all smart, successful, happy women, and I like to think that I had something to do with that. I know that I’m not their mother, but I’m the closest thing that they ever had to it. “And I’m not exactly used to that.”

No one but my siblings and Millie, Holden’s wife, has ever told me that they love me.

So when Tucker said it, it both lit me up inside and made me feel nauseated.