“Do you know if she’s seeing someone, darling? I’m asking for my brother.”
“Nat – ”
“Stop interrupting me, Tuck. I’m trying to do your bitch ass a favor since you won’t ask her out yourself.”
Riley laughed but I felt like I was stuck in quicksand, standing there helplessly and sinking slowly into a guaranteed mess. My eyes shifted to Tuck as he shook his head at his sister. “You’re a piece of work, Nat,” he muttered before turning to me with a crooked smile. “Sash, if you’re really single though…” God, oh God, I eyed Liam, who was actually glaring now at Tuck. “I owe it to myself to ask you to dinner since I’ve had a pretty monster fucking crush on you for the past three years.”
I had no idea how to respond. Catching Liam’s eye, I knew what he wanted me to say something. I knew he wanted me to somehow allude to the fact that I was seeing someone, but I was in no way prepared to lie on the spot and come up with a whole story since I clearly couldn’t say, “I can’t say yes because I’m dating my stepbrother.” It was a mess of a situation, and to my own disappointment, “Really?” was all I came up with when I finally spoke. “I had no idea,” I added lamely, prompting Tuck to laugh.
“Yeah… I think it started that year we all snuck out of our family’s Christmas dinners and used the MacPherson’s backyard hot tub. And you were, uh,” he cut off, something naughty but sheepish in his grin. I was surprised to see a little color flush to his cheeks. Tuck Mathis had never struck me as the typ
e of guy who blushed for any reason. “Liam, man, I feel like I shouldn’t be saying this stuff in front of you,” Tuck joked.
“By all means, go on,” Liam said, though I was the only one who read the steeliness of his voice. I was the only one who noticed how his body went rigid and his neck went taut. He looked like he wanted to kill Tuck and I could tell that, but everyone else took Liam’s words at face value.
“Well… long story short, everyone else stripped down to underwear but you were shy, so you went in wearing… what was it? It was this…”
“White dress,” Liam said curtly.
“Oh.” Tuck blinked over at him. “Yeah. That’s what it was. The white dress.”
Cream, actually.
My heart beat fast as I remembered that night. The dress I wore was cream-colored, long-sleeved and nicely fitted, hugging my body all the way down to my knees. I paired it with knee-high suede boots and showed barely any skin but Ethan hated me for wearing it that year, and he wound up drinking so fast in spite of me that night that he passed out early in the living room with my uncles. I was moderately depressed about the whole situation, so around midnight, Liam, Riley and I escaped to Junction and got drunk with Natalie, Tuck and the others we generally saw there. Within an hour, we’d consumed enough tequila to trespass into a neighbor’s yard to use their hot tub. Everyone peeled their clothes off and laughed when I wouldn’t. They laughed even harder when, in my drunkenness, I decided that getting in the tub fully clothed was a better idea. Riley called me a prude.
We spent hours in that tub drinking, and I was drunk out of my mind by 3AM. But I still clearly remembered the moment I got out of the tub – the complete and utter silence as everyone stared at the fine knit of my dress clinging to me, sucking on my skin to reveal every dip, line and contour of my soaking wet body.
Tuck was staring at me. I remembered that and I remembered Natalie’s scandalous remarks. But the only person I really paid attention to Liam. He was the only one who refused to look. He was trying so hard not to. I could see him fighting it, water trickling down his muscled forearm as he rubbed the hell out of his jaw, looking downright pissed off.
But then he finally caved. And when he did, the look on his face sent such a tremor up my legs that I thought I might fall to my knees. His eyes were filled with lust and desire but there was anger, shame and regret storming in there, and I remember feeling so confused – even more so when he gave me something that looked like a sneer before getting out of the hot tub. He didn’t talk to me again, and walked with Natalie for the rest of the night.
But back at our parents’ house, when we were both still drunk and sneaking into our beds for the night, he passed my room and said something I thought I’d imagined because I was so completely out of it. But now, thinking back, I was sure I hadn’t imagined it at all.
“Was that something I shouldn’t have brought up?”
I was too lost in my memory to say anything when Tuck hustled me aside to speak to me in private. Across the floor, Riley and Natalie had Liam occupied, forcing him to train them on squats. But I felt his eyes flick over to me every minute or so, keeping tabs on Tuck as he spoke so close that I found myself leaned up on the cold tile wall.
“Why would it be something you shouldn’t have brought up?” I asked.
“I don’t know. Liam looked like he was ready to kick my ass just now. Probably because… well. You looked like you should be on the cover of Maxim or Playboy that night. No disrespect.” Tuck held up his hands. “It’s just a memory that’s seared into my brain. And as weird as it sounds, around this time of year, I always think of you. You know, the way November comes and everyone wants pumpkin spiced everything. For me, when November comes, I just want to see Sasha Blakely.”
I raised my eyebrows and gave a true laugh. “Really.’”
“Yeah.” Tuck winced to convey embarrassment, but his body language was still cocky as ever since he leaned in closer. When a staffer had to get behind me to grab some towels, Tuck took me by the waist to move me aside. He let his hand fall a bit and linger on my hip as we kept talking. “I find myself talking about you. Wondering if you’ll be in Hudson Valley for Thanksgiving. You’ve probably noticed that I’ll like anything you post on Facebook, even if it’s a drunk typo or something.”
I blinked, peering at Liam from afar. Max was with him now. Liam’s eyes stayed fixed on me as he muttered something to Max, both of them looking at me and Tuck from time to time.
“I… guess that’s true,” I said, though I really hadn’t noticed anything about Tuck’s activity on my social media. I really hadn’t thought about anything in recent months except Liam.
“Anyway, I’m really sorry for unloading all this shit on you at once. I swear I never would’ve if Nat didn’t push my buttons,” Tuck laughed apologetically. “I shouldn’t have confessed the thing about the white dress though. That’s on me.”
“It’s not such a big deal.”
“Well, it is because I was talking about a memory when none of us could stop staring at your perfect body.” Tuck said. He eyed me, waiting for a reaction I didn’t give him. “Anyway, I suspect I just pissed off your stepbrother now because, I don’t know, he’s probably secretly in love with you or some shit.”
“That’s not true,” I blurted. “Not at all. What would make you say that?”
Tuck blinked. “I don’t know, because it’s a common fantasy? I didn’t really mean it…” he said, trailing off in a way that made me think he was going to follow it up with, But now that you’ve reacted this way, maybe I do mean it. Our eyes were locked hard now as I tried to read him, to gauge him for any reactions outside the normal. Damn it, Sasha, I cursed myself just as Max cut in.