Chapter Eight
Libby
I offered Tucker the master bathroom to shower and dress, while Olivia took her bath in the main bath and I got her ready for bed. I was still in my bathing suit when he stuck his head into the bathroom and offered to read to Olivia so I could shower and change. His voice hitched at the last, and I glanced up to see his gaze trained on my backside. I glared at him until he grinned and ducked his head, and Olivia made him carry her to her room, to pick out three books, before he carted his burden into the living room, to bundle up on the sofa and read to her from The Jungle Book.
I undressed and started the shower, feeling more naked in my bathroom than I had since my wedding night. There was still a faint scent of the cologne and deodorant Tucker wore, and as I breathed in the smell that was so much a part of him, I felt my thighs liquefy and my body heat, just as it had when he’d touched me.
That I could do something so brazen, so unlike me, as to openly tease a man with sex, was inexplicable. If Tucker had been any other man, I would have run in that very same moment. But Tucker was the only man other than my husband who had ever touched me.
I stepped into the shower, still thinking about the night he’d spent holding me, first as I cried for the wasted life and the unanswered questions that would haunt me forever, now that Andrew was gone. But when I ran out of tears, he stayed, and chased questions and coherent thought out of my head as he used his hands and mouth on me in a way I’d never imagined. My fingers ran over my body in the shower, still remembering perfectly the path he’d taken, from my forehead and cheeks, to my lips, my throat, down my arms and up under my clothes, to my breasts. I shuddered as my body clenched around the echo of the raging ocean of pleasure I’d nearly drowned in that night, and I gasped in shock, that I could still conjure him so completely.
How could I ever be with a man who so easily occupied my every thought and desire? I finished quickly and dressed without applying makeup or doing my hair. There was no point in being pretty for Tucker. I couldn’t afford to entice him. Andrew had made me almost invisible as his wife. If I let Tucker have me, there was a chance that I might completely disappear, buried in my own desire to please him. The thought made my blood run cold, sobering me and chasing away the remnants of his touch that clung to my thoughts.
I had to send him away—and ask him, this time, to not return. I took a deep breath and descended the stairs to the living room, where Tucker was still reading. I rounded the sofa and saw a pile of read books on the floor, from Dr. Seuss to Goodnight Moon, and everything in between. Olivia was almost asleep in his arms, and his chin rested on her crown as he softly read “The Velveteen Rabbit” and rocked her in his arms. I watched her blink, slower and slower, her eyes staying closed longer each time, until she gave in to sleep with a sigh. I signaled that she was out, and he read one last page before letting me take the book from him and lift her out of his arms.
He winked and took her back once he was on his feet, and I walked behind him a stack of books in my hands. He laid her in her little four-post bed without waking her, and waited outside as I kissed her warm forehead and tucked her in.
“Do you have anything left for work tonight?” I folded my arms and gestured him downstairs with a nod.
“I don’t know. I’m pretty tired, and I don’t want you to be stuck here with me looking at my CAD program when you could be home, relaxing.” He arched an eyebrow at me, his jaw set.
“If you want me to go, say it. But I offered to help you, and I meant it. Don’t be disingenuous with me like you need an excuse to get rid of me, or it’ll force my hand.” He stalked off toward the back to collect Kennedy, who’d been sleeping when we got back from the pool, worn out from playing hard with Olivia. I watched him shove his things into the backpack he’d brought with him and groaned inwardly at a pang of guilt. I was the one turning tonight into a sex fantasy, not him. He had been a gentleman and a good friend, and I really, really, needed someone to help me get ahead of my ideas and make myself marketable.
“Tucker, I don’t want you to go. I don’t like asking for help. I especially don’t want to ask for help when what I’m trying to do is probably a terrible idea and going to be a failure.” I took a deep breath as he scowled at me.
“Are you the first graphic design genius that’s ever tried to start a business?” He asked, folding his arms across his chest.
“I wouldn’t call myself a ‘genius,’ but no. I’m obviously not the first person to go into business for themselves.”
“So, how could your idea be a terrible failure?” He jumped out of the way as Kennedy pushed past his legs and ran to me, wriggling her side against my legs as she begged for love. “I’m not Andrew, Libby. I don’t expect you to be anything other than you are.” I choked on my response, and as tears stung my eyelids, I felt his hand under my arm. “Hey, you need to sit. I just watched the color drain right out of your face.” I sat and he touched my cheek. “I wasn’t trying to be that on the money. Sorry, Darlin’.”
A glass of water was pressed into my hand and I sipped it, grateful for a reason to not speak. I heard Tucker moving around in the kitchen, and when I felt like I could stand again, I went looking for him. He had cleaned the kitchen and made a plate of food, fruits, and cheeses, and had his head in the pantry. Before I could ask him what he was looking for, he turned around with a bag of almonds in his hand.
He smiled and dumped a small handful of the nuts on the plate, and squeezed some honey out of the plastic bear I kept by the stove for my tea. With one hand on my shoulder, he steered us back into the living room, and set the plate at my elbow. Leaning forward, he kissed my forehead.
“I will still help you, with whatever you need, whenever you’re ready. I’m sorry I didn’t see everything that you had to live with, Libby. I should’ve been a better friend to you, and to Olivia. We never want to see the worst of the people we love.” He stroked my cheek and, hooking the leash to his little Kennedy, he left before I could find the words for an apology.
He couldn’t know that it was me I blamed for the life I’d lived. Every simple act of integrity, or kindness, or honor that Tucker performed, reminded me of how shallow and stupid I’d been, letting myself buy the excuses and judgment and blame that filled my head even now. I didn’t know how to tell him that I was haunted by the ghost of his best friend, and every time I looked at him, I not only saw Andrew and the good things that we’d had, but every way that my husband had failed me and our family, and every disappointing moment where I had stayed because I thought the things he provided us would make up for his failings.
No longer able to sleep for a while, I took the plate of food Tucker had made for me, and my laptop, and worked at my dining room table until my eyes burned and my sentences no longer made sense to me when I tried to read them over. Soon, I was going to need Tucker to help me for any chance at success. I’d thought I knew all about corporate law, and business laws, taxation, the kind of law my husband and Tuck practiced, but I’d soon realized that the lack of interest I’d had when Andrew was talking about his work, had left me with only a shallow, surface-level understanding of how anything in the real world worked.
When I was ready for help, it would not be because I was too stupid and vain to bother learning or “do my due diligence,” as Andrew had reminded me repeatedly. No, my husband wasn’t the only reason our marriage had been so easy to tear apart when temptation walked by in a short skirt. Andrew hadn’t understood what it meant to be a man of honor. He’d clung to Tucker because he thought he could learn what it was that made Tucker a better man. I’d let my husband drift away, because I believed that loving someone was enough to make a marriage. I was young and stupid and never bothered to learn how to do the work.
I heard Olivia shift in her bed at the top of the stairs, and went to check on her. Her sweet face framed by auburn curls, lay on a pillow designed to look like a panda. Her lips were parted, and her breaths were soft and even when I held my fingers in front of her mouth, just like I had when she was a newborn, and I was afraid to let her sleep for fear that she wouldn’t wake.
I pulled her Disney comforter up around her chin and smoothed her hair back from her face and kissed her temple. She would wake up disappointed that Kennedy had left without saying goodbye. She’d want to see the puppy, and her uncle Tuck, and I didn’t have a good answer for her. I swept my fingers over her soft cheek one last time before pulling the door to, so the light barely shone around the edges and bled softly into her room without waking her.
Back in the dining room, I looked through old photos of Tucker and Andrew. Physically, they were nothing alike. Tucker was long and lean, his muscles tight cords that felt like taut springs. Andrew had been husky, bulky enough that he’d done well as a defensive end in high school and even as an undergrad student.
Tucker was patient and soft spoken, his voice deep and gravelly, the kind that made women turn around as they walked by to give him a second look. His best friend had been explosive and loud, the first to tell a joke, and the last to realize the party was over.
It was unfair to compare the two, yet I couldn’t stop trying to find the link between them. Tucker seemed like a good man, someone to trust, or to allow to protect the most important parts of my life. But I’d been fooled before. Tucker was a good friend, but I didn’t know if I could be friends with the man who made my stomach clench with need and the raw heat of need that was burning me up, even after he was gone. I didn’t trust Tucker not to break my heart. I couldn’t trust that I would keep my distance and remember that he was only supposed to be a friend, when the moment he was near me, I wanted to devour him whole.
I closed the album, after choosing a picture of Tuck and Olivia together for a new screen saver. He was tan and lean and wet from our old backyard pool, dozing on a deck chair. Olivia was snuggled in his arms, in a sound sleep reserved for the very young. They had both blocked out the world for a moment of peace. I couldn’t wait to show her the next morning that Tucker had always doted on her. It made me feel that much worse that I couldn’t afford to let him continue, hurting my daughter once again, because of a choice I had to make about a man.