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He calls his assistant from the table, puts her on speakerphone, and tells her he’ll take the first meeting on video call and be at the office later than expected.
The boys are not even a little bit interested, but my whole face feels warm enough to resemble a furnace.
“I’ll be here when you get back,” he tells me simply, but the look he aims at me, one raised eyebrow, mouth set stubbornly, might be less threatening than Norma’s was yesterday, but it’s not friendly per se.
Drop-off happens without a hitch, and way too soon I’m walking back into the house, and I can hear grumbling from the office in the back.
I remember the damn sheet of paper then, the one I was looking for yesterday, though the memory is probably only a way for me to delay this conversation further.
Did the reminder of my “real” job put a sour taste in Tucker’s mind? Is he going to be the one to tell me we can’t do—be—anything anymore?
I wouldn’t exactly blame him.
I doubt I’ll have too much energy to react strongly since I’ve been fighting an internal war all week and I’m tired.
I wait by the door, just like he did last night.
His call ends before I’m ready, but he just stares at me for a minute or so, with that tiny smile barely lifting the corner of his lips and his warm eyes steady on me.
“Come here,” he murmurs finally and rolls his chair away from the desk.
He’s making room for me to go . . . sit on his lap.
He just wants to be close to me, I remember, and I still want the same, so I go to him, and sit across his lap. I deflate when his hands bracket my waist. His intent gaze on me feels less confronting with every second that passes, and instead, I start to feel that warmth creep into every inch of my body.
“You’re getting that job, Sunny. There’s no way you’re not.”
I swallow around the knot in my throat and nod. “I hope so,” I confess. I want him to know that doesn’t mean I want to be away from him, from his brothers. I don’t want to be done with them, but I know this isn’t what I’m meant to do forever.
“Let’s just enjoy this, yeah? I can see you’ve been thinking about it a lot, and maybe that hasn’t been that fun?” He combs a stray hair away from my face and smiles tenderly, making me forget I’m surprised by how easily he’s been reading me. Instead, I just react.
I scoff before mumbling, “It’s annoying.”
“You could never be annoying,” he whispers, and then he kisses me so softly, I can only think about how I want to make sure I remember it, all of it.
He kisses me slowly, like he’s got all the time in the world and doesn’t need to actually head to work. My arms travel up his arms, around his neck, until my body falls against his and there’s nothing between us.
An alarm blares eventually and I think that means our time is up. He does pull back to silence it, but then he stays right where he is.
On his big chair with me on his lap.
“I’m going to call Avery to see if she can watch the boys on Wednesday. There’s no more daycare and we don’t know how long your interview or the governors’ meeting will be.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s a meeting with all the owners of professional men’s hockey teams. My father was the chairman, so now we need to pick a new one.”
“Oh.” I straighten as much as I can without actually separating our bodies at all. “Do you want to be chairman?”
He chuckles. “Fuck no. But I hope my pick gets the spot.”
I narrow my eyes at him because he sounds . . . naughty.
“You’re plotting,” I state.
His smile only grows more devilish.
“I am.” Then he shakes his head. “But that’s besides the point. The draft is Thursday and Friday, which means I will more than likely not make it home for dinner those days, but it starts late, so I could probably have lunch with the boys. I don’t know if that will fit with what you’ll plan for them.”
