Fools (Licking Thicket 3)

And, honestly, I’d wanted to shout it to the heavens. I wanted everyone in the Thicket to know he was mine, that I’d finally gotten my head out of my ass and locked him down the way things were meant to be.

There was only one teeny-tiny problem.

“Hey, Jenn,” I said, standing at the reception counter in Tuck’s waiting room. I held my gym bag behind my back in case she started asking questions. “Doc Wright here?”

Jenn’s frown turned upside down when she saw me. “Hey, handsome. What are you doing here? Did you come to surprise me for lunch?”

The secret sandwiches in my gym bag were suddenly guilt sandwiches. “Um, no? I needed to ask Tuck something. He around?”

Her eyes narrowed infinitesimally. “If not lunch, then what about dinner? I could cook.”

“Er…” I tried not to remember the other time she offered to cook for me. I’d had to order pizza the minute she left just so I could make it through the night.

“Speaking of dinner, we haven’t made plans for the Entwinin’.” She pouted. “I bet you haven’t even made a reservation, and I’ll be super disappointed.”

Crap. “Um, no. I haven’t.” I licked my lips. “About that…”

Jenn laughed. “Don’t look so worried, Dunn. I’m just kidding!”

“You are?” I shook my head, relieved. “Oh, good. You sure fooled me.”

The last thing I wanted was to make plans with Jenn. But that reminded me that I really should start thinking about plans with Tuck. I’d already made his wreath, but I hadn’t thought any further than that.

“I know you’re a busy man, and I’m not a high-maintenance sort of person at all.”

“Y-you’re not?”

“’Course not! I’m an independent woman. I don’t expect you to always be making me reservations.”

“No? Oh, that’s… that’s good. Independence is really… good.”

“I’ll sort myself out for the whole Entwinin’ thing, don’t you worry. And, FYI, they’re doing a special pasta dinner over at the Italian place.” She winked. “I might just make a reservation in your name. Let’s say… six?”

Well, dang. That was friendly of her. And Tuck loved Italian food.

“Thanks, Jenn! I really appreciate it.” I gave her a genuine smile. “But, um… now that I have you here, I did need to tell you something.” How could I tell her I didn’t want her free trial anymore if I couldn’t tell her the reason why?

She rested her chin on her folded hands and batted her eyelashes up at me. “Shoot. What’s on your mind? Hey, wait. Did you… did you hear back from Abilene about my job at the boutique? It’s only that Dr. Wright’s receptionist is going to come back, and I need to have another job lined up.”

“Oh. Uh… no? But, I mean. I didn’t ask her, so…” I tried to focus on what I needed to say. “You know how when you sign up for a free trial of something… like, let’s say a television channel. Yeah. So then you realize you don’t really have time to watch any of the shows? So it makes more sense to just… I mean, even if it’s still free, sometimes you still need to cancel it on account of it’s going to start costing you money. You see?”

“Did you sign up for that new sports streaming service? Because my brother said they start charging you before the free trial is over and it’s impossible to reverse the charges.”

I blinked at her, trying to figure out if we were good now. Vienna stood several feet behind her doing something with a filing cabinet, but she didn’t look like she was paying any attention. “No. I don’t… no. Okay, so like… we’re good to cancel the free trial?”

She shrugged. “If that’s what you want. There’s no sense in keeping something you’re not going to enjoy.”

I let out a relieved breath and opened my mouth to thank her for understanding when I heard Tuck’s voice.

“Dunn?”

I glanced over and saw Tucker with a little wrinkle of concern on his face. “Yeah, hey. Can I talk to you for a minute? In your office?”

His eyes darted between Jenn and me while he nodded his head. I shot Jenn a combination smile and nod before hotfooting it down the hall after my boyfriend.

As soon as we were in his office with the door closed, I grabbed a handful of the back of his doctor’s coat and yanked him backward. His arms windmilled, and I barely kept him from stumbling back into me. I quickly yanked him around to face me and kissed his mouth off.

“Thank freak,” I mumbled into his mouth. “Been dying to do this for hours.”

“I talked to you on the phone not twenty minutes ago,” he griped. But I could see the pink tint to his cheeks and the warmth in his eyes.

“Yeah? Well, that wasn’t kissing. Gimme more.” We kissed for several minutes until he encountered the shoulder strap of my gym bag.