“Run!” he yelled. Narrowly avoiding being tackled, Wade dove for the end zone. Whistles bleated as a flurry of bodies followed him.
Get up. Get up. Be okay.
Triumphant, Wade stood up, accepting the frenzied congrats of his team.
“He did it!” Luis gave him a slap on the back as the scoreboard lit up to reflect the touchdown. “Man, you weren’t kidding about the nerves.”
“Yup. Never gets any easier, sad to say.” A beat of understanding passed between them, an acknowledgment of the ways love and pain and risk tangled together. Caring wasn’t ever simple, but hell if Tucker could turn it off. And he’d bet that Luis couldn’t either. He might not want to care, but he did. It was there in the way his fingers dug into Tucker’s shoulder before releasing him and in the way he didn’t break Tucker’s gaze until the crush of people leaving the stands jostled them apart.
“Dad! Did you see?” Wade broke free from a crowd of excited kids to come over to their part of the bleachers.
“I saw. Well done.” His voice came out thick and scratchy, another casualty of caring so damn much. “I’m proud of you.”
“And you brought Luis! Cool.” Wade’s smile shifted to something more mischievous, and Tucker tried to send him a warning look to not make his brother, who had also joined them, uncomfortable.
“You did good too, Walker. Excellent tackle right before the half,” Luis praised.
“It was nothing.” Expression unreadable, Walker shrugged.
“FYI we got invited to a party at Mitch Goodwin’s. Don’t wait up.” Wade waggled his eyebrows, either not getting Tucker’s message or not caring to back off the teasing.
“Are the parents going to be home? And no bonfires, right?” Tucker slid right into the concerned-dad mode that Luis liked to tease him about.
“Yes. The mom is the one who invited everyone over. They have a pool, a strict no-alcohol policy, and no fire pit. We’ll be good.”
“Mary Anne and I are going too.” Walker sounded more resigned than excited, but this wasn’t the moment for a deep dive into possible sources of his unhappiness. But come tomorrow, he was dragging him out to their favorite trail and taking Luis’s advice to get him talking.
“Be safe. I have to run Luis back to his car, but you can text me at any point for a ride. And curfew is still a thing.”
“Me too. Text away.” Heidi had a hug for both boys, brushing the dust they left behind off her dress.
“Me three.” Isaac laughed. “No wacky diving board tricks, okay?”
“That was one time,” Wade protested.
“That resulted in an emergency room trip and stitches,” Tucker reminded him.
“Okay, okay. No diving board, and Walker can drive, and we’ll be home by curfew.” Wade jogged away to rejoin his friends and teammates, leaving Walker to trail behind him after giving them a last wave.
“You drive carefully too,” Heidi told him as she and Isaac collected Angelica from where she’d been chasing some other little kids. “And text if you get a fire callout.”
“Will do.” After a few more goodbyes, he and Luis made their way back to his car.
“You want some actual food?” Luis asked once they were underway. “After that heavy snack, I just want something light, but I’ve got eggs and could make us some breakfast-as-dinner if you wanted to follow me back to my hotel. You can meet the cat.”
“Well, in that case, I better accept.” Anticipation thrummed through his body, making his fingers drum against the steering wheel. He had a feeling Luis was offering more than some scrambled eggs and a look at his cat, but he wasn’t being pushy about it, which Tucker appreciated. As wonderfully aggressive as he could be while kissing, he seemed content to let Tucker decide when and how they got to that point of getting physical.
His respectfulness for Tucker’s needs was another sign that Luis cared about more than simply getting laid while he was in town. Tucker’s chest expanded, all his wishes from earlier returning full force. And while he might not get those, he did get tonight, and he was absolutely going to make the most of it.
Chapter Twelve
“I think you’re right. The cat has it in for you.” Tucker looked up from his eggs.
Luis had scrambled them with spinach and queso fresca, then topped his own with chorizo, cilantro, and salsa macha while Tucker got extra of the cheese and some avocado. Luis had been pleased to discover the same tiny Mexican grocer that his mother had frequented was still in business, still stocking decent brands of some of his family’s favorites like the tortillas he’d heated up to go alongside. It was a cozy little late dinner at the small table in his room. Well, it would be cozy if the cat would stop glaring at both of them from her perch on top of the fridge.