“No, actually I was coming to you. Like right now.” He’d suffered through a hasty dinner with Wade, but even Wade had picked up on how much Tucker wanted to be anywhere else, and had waved him away even before cleanup. Tucker had been rehearsing what he needed to say for hours, and now he simply had to see Luis, tell him everything churning in his head. “Because, yeah, we need to talk.”
Luis’s eyes went wide, and they stood there in the driveway, staring at each other, awkwardness prevailing. Finally, Tucker couldn’t stand it anymore and laughed, which broke the silence and got Luis smiling.
“I was going to see if you wanted to go for a ride with me.” Luis gestured at his car. “But if you’d rather stay here...”
“Wade’s inside devouring the last of the spaghetti.” And not that Wade would care, but Tucker really didn’t need an audience for this. Besides he was curious as to what Luis had in mind. “Drive sounds good.”
He ducked his head into the house to tell Wade what was up so that he didn’t worry when he saw Tucker’s SUV still in the driveway.
“Go. I’m heading back to Mom’s anyway for my tablet. I’ll probably sleep there.” Wade gave him a meaningful look before Tucker made his escape.
Folding his frame into Luis’s little car was an adventure, and the proximity only served to make him more aware of the distance that remained between them. He wanted to touch Luis so badly, the possibility of curious neighbors and spying Wade be damned, but he didn’t feel he had the right. Not yet.
“I was driving around earlier,” Luis shared as he put the car in gear. “Finished up at the air base, but I couldn’t seem to make myself go back to the hotel, but also couldn’t find the way to you either.”
“Even if you didn’t, I was going to come to you. I know it’s only been two days, but it feels like two years.”
“Maybe we can meet somewhere in the middle.” Laughing, Luis headed into town.
“Let’s try.” Tucker didn’t laugh with him because that was exactly what he wanted to do, find some common ground to build on.
“Okay.” Luis echoed Tucker’s gravitas as he turned into the high school parking lot, stopping near the football field. “I know this isn’t exactly the middle. But I keep coming back in my head to where it started.”
“Me too. God, how many hours did we spend in those bleachers talking?” Tucker swore that if he squinted he could see the ghosts of their younger selves up there, second row from the top of the home team section.
“Exactly. And I was here earlier. Ran into Walker actually.” Drumming his fingers against the steering wheel, Luis glanced over at him.
“You did?” The parking lot was mostly deserted, only another couple of vehicles. No sign of Walker and Wade’s car. It was still plenty light, but the sky had taken on that warm late August evening rosiness.
“Yeah. He thought maybe he was to blame for us falling out. I set him straight.” Luis gave a firm nod.
“Good.” He never doubted that he could trust Luis to say the right thing with his kids. “Only fault here is mine.”
“And mine,” Luis added quickly, bumping shoulders with Tucker. “Let’s not play the blame game.”
“Good point, but—”
“No blaming yourself.” Luis gave him a stern look. “Anyway, I sat in the bleachers for a long time, thinking. About us then and us now and everything in between.”
“I feel that.” Tucker looked out at the bleachers again, at the ghosts roaming around this campus, seeing both who they had been but also who they could be now as well. “Feels like I’ve done nothing but think since Saturday night.”
“Same. And I don’t have all the answers, but I do know that I don’t want to say goodbye.” Luis met his gaze, eyes dark pools of seriousness.
“Me either.” Tucker inhaled sharply.
“That’s why I wanted to bring you here. Remember when we would have each done anything to stay together?”
“Yeah.” Damn. He could remember the feel of Luis’s skinny fingers against his own, the press of their sneakers under the bleachers. “We would have given a lot to not say goodbye back then, which is why—”
“—I’m willing to move,” they both said at the same time.
“What? Seriously?” Tucker swiveled in his seat to better study Luis’s face. “You were right. It wasn’t fair of me to ask you to stay here. Especially not if I wasn’t willing to consider the opposite option. And I wasn’t giving enough respect to the life you’ve got back in California.”
“I appreciate that.” Luis patted Tucker’s thigh. “A lot. But I wasn’t being flexible either.”
“You shouldn’t have to be. Compromise should be on both of us, not all on you.” He grabbed Luis’s hand on his leg before Luis could pull it back.