Page 52 of Playing With Love

“Hey, Liza,” Lauren greeted. “I printed the report you sent me. It’s on Tucker’s desk.”

Damn. I’d forgotten I’d sent her Frank’s field notes and asked her to print them for me.

“Thanks, Lauren.” Before I thought better of it or could change my mind, I tacked on, “And please, call me Lizzy. I mean, if you want. That’s what…um…my friends call me.”

That wasn’t the whole truth, per se, the only person who called me ‘Lizzy’ was Tucker. Though he was my only true friend so it wasn’t an outright fib.

I felt Tucker stiffen next to me. I watched Lauren’s surprise register but she recovered quickly with a nod.

“My friends call me Ren,” she supplied.

That was cool she offered her nickname in return, but now I was at a loss of how to respond. Thankfully Tucker knew what to do.

“Sorry to cut this short, Ren, but Nick’s waiting on us.”

Lauren set her mug down on her desk and picked up a stack of papers, offering them to Tucker.

“Save me the trip, will you?”

Tucker moved to retrieve the papers. I moved with him. But my eyes were on Lauren’s mug.

In for a penny in for a pound.

If I survived the meeting I was going to ask her if I could try her mushroom caffeine elixir. I couldn’t say I’d engage in meaningful conversation, but I’d try the drink.

I was still pondering why I’d offered Lauren to use Tucker’s nickname. Why it was so important to me to accept Lauren’s friendly gesture. Why I suddenly felt like such a bitch for rebuffing her earlier attempts at kindness. When Tucker grabbed my hand and laced our fingers together.

The jury was still out but I was leaning toward it being Tucker’s fault.

He’d given me a kernel of hope.

Maybe it was also Shiloh Kent-now-Marcou’s fault.

The woman had grown up in a cesspool of dysfunction, with a deadbeat father turned cop killer and a mother who’d run out on her family. The only love Sunny ever knew came from Echo, River, and Phoenix, yet she’d opened herself up to Luke and found something beautiful. Something beyond the brotherly love she’d been cloaked in. If she could do it, maybe I could, too. I didn’t know Luke well, but from what I knew he was a lot like Tucker. Honest. Loyal. Charming. Hard-headed. Maybe that’s what I needed, Tucker to fight for me like Luke had fought for Sunny.

Maybe.

Just maybe, Tucker could show me the way. He’d stay true to his word and fight for me, for us.

Maybe if Sunny could take a chance and come out a winner, I could hope.

That was a lot of maybes.

“Lizzy?” Tucker squeezed my hand. I tipped my head back to look at him. “You okay?”

I thought about lying.

I didn’t.

I gave him the truth.

“I don’t know what I am. But, no, I don’t think I’m okay.”

His eyes gentled. So did his features, giving me the old Tucker. My friend. The man who had been the one constant in my life, even if there were times when we’d gone months without speaking, and longer without actually seeing him. The one person who, up until my dinner with Lenox, I’d thought I’d shared everything with. But that night, speaking with Lenox about my father, I realized that was one thing I’d kept from Tucker. And up until Tucker’s declaration he was changing the parameters of our friendship and taking us from platonic to something more, I hadn’t ever considered why that was.

My childhood.

I didn’t like to talk about my childhood so I avoided it and Tucker had never pushed. Not that he’d know there was something there to dig into. As far as he knew, I’d grown up in a middle-income family with both parents in the home. Normal. Boring even. He had no idea how deep I’d buried my father’s disregard and my mother’s constant excuses. Hell, at this point, I wasn’t even sure if I understood my feelings. My father was one of those stop signs I knew not to get near.