An hour or so later, Tucker leans over and asks if I’m ready to go yet—the first words he’s spoken to me since the poet was on stage.

I nod and turn toward Rae. “I’m gonna head home. Tucker’s my ride.”

“We’re getting ready to bounce too. You want me and Hudson to take you? You live closer to us than Tuck,” she says.

I start to answer, but Tucker interrupts me with, “I’ve got her.”

Rae gives me an odd look, so I shrug, letting her know I have no idea why he’s insisting either.

“Catch you Monday, assholes,” Gaige says, throwing down ten bucks for a tip. He fist bumps Tucker, Hudson, and Perry, and gives Rae a hug.

Then he comes over to me, wrapping me up in his arms. “Secret’s safe, love,” he says in my ear, so low I almost think I make it up for a moment.

I give him a firm head shake and quickly pull away from his embrace.

“I see you, asshole,” Hudson says to Tucker, patting his back as he walks past us with Rae under his arm, air-typing to let me know she’ll text me later.

“I see you too,” Tucker replies, smiling after his friend.

That whole exchange is this odd thing they’ve apparently always said to one another. At first I didn’t get it, but over time I’ve come to understand it’s their way of either saying, “Hey, I see through you” or “I get you” or “I love you” or a combo of all three. It’s neat to witness them interact in the way they do. Their bond runs deep. It’s refreshing to see two guys who aren’t afraid to show they give a shit about one another.

“You heading out too, Perry?” I shout to him. He’s currently talking with a waitress about three tables over and not paying attention. I walk over to the table and give him a kiss on the cheek. “We’re heading out. Let me know when you make it home safely,” I tell him in a low voice.

He nods at me, so I walk away.

“Maura?” he says when I’m about two tables away. I turn back to him. “It was good to see you out and about. We’ve missed you.”

“I’ve missed you more, Per Bear.”

“Liar,” he shoots back with a grin.

I laugh as I walk back to the table to find Tucker talking to one of the suits. He’s shaking his head steadily. The suit tries to hand him a business card, but Tucker keeps refusing him.

It’s frustrating to see him stand there and basically tell his future to suck it. So what do I do? I march my ass up to the suit and introduce myself.

“Hi,” I say, stepping between them and sticking my hand out. “Maura Doughers, Mr. Bentley’s manager. And you are?”

The suit peers down at me like I’ve lost my mind—because let’s face it, I have.

“Daren Darren from Hot House Records,” he replies, giving me a heavy, professional handshake as I fight the urge to laugh over his double name. “We’ve been trying to get your client here to sign with us for months now, Ms. Doughers. Maybe you could talk some sense into him?”

If only he knew how desperately I wanted to.

“We’d be more than happy to take your business card and get back in touch with you if we find you to be a suitable fit,” I tell him confidently.

“Perfect. I’m glad one of you thinks working with us is a good idea.” I take the business card he offers. “Ms. Doughers, Mr. Bentley. I hope to hear from you both,” the record label executive says, giving us one more polite handshake and walking away smiling like he hit the damn lottery.

Because that’s how it would be if you had Tucker as a client—money, money, money since he’s that good.

I can feel the heat radiating off him as Tucker steps up closely behind me. He bends down to my ear. “Thanks, Ms. Doughers. I’m so glad my manager was here to handle that one for me.”

He brushes my arm as he walks around me and toward the door, expecting me to follow him.

I glance over at Perry, who’s giving me a concerned look. What? he mouths. I shake my head, because I don’t know what, and follow Tucker outside.

When I reach his car, he’s waiting at the passenger door, pacing back and forth.

And this, my friends, is a not-so-calm-and-collected Tucker Bentley.

“I take it you’re mad,” I say.

He shakes his head once and continues to pace. Back and forth, back and forth.

Then he suddenly stops and spins to face me, practically stalking toward me. I back up as he walks closer and closer, because I’ve never seen him like this before.

He reaches out to stop me, grabbing both my shoulders and bending so that we’re face-to-face.

I have no idea what is happening, but I’m not afraid to admit that I’m a little frightened. I’m frightened because he’s not mad or upset. He appears…confused.

“Thank you,” he says firmly, holding my stare. Suddenly he jerks me toward him, wrapping those beautifully tatted up arms around me, hugging me fiercely.

I lightly pat his back, and he squeezes me harder.

“I’m not letting you go until you give me a real damn hug,” he says next to my ear.

So I comply and put my arms around him.

And I’ll be damned if I don’t melt into his warmth. This embrace—the one I’m sharing so intimately with someone who isn’t my boyfriend—feels ten times better than any other hug I’ve ever received. Because it doesn’t feel like just a hug. It feels like an understanding of sorts. Like Tucker and I took off our masks and showed each other who we truly are.

Letting out a deep breath, I allow myself to mold into him, and he does the same. I have no idea who is holding up whom at this point, because it feels like we’re both letting one another do all the work.

I needed this hug. Being held like this feels good. Being appreciated—though I’m not sure what for—feels good. Like an amateur archer finally hitting their mark or a seasoned photographer capturing that elusive, perfect shot for the first time. That kind of good.

Appreciated. It’s such a foreign word to me because I hardly ever feel it. My parents certainly never make me feel it. Sure, I feel appreciated by Rae and Perry, but they’re my best friends; they have to appreciate me. It’s part of the Bestie Code or whatever.

Tucker finally lets up and steps away from me, pulling his mask back on and clearing his throat. He’s looking down at his feet now. No doubt he’s embarrassed by holding on to me for so long.

“Why am I being thanked?” I dare to ask.

He peeks up, and I can see it. It’s for a brief moment, but he is going let me in.

“You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to do that,” he finally says.

“Do what?”

“Take a business card.”

Now I’m confused because I don’t get why that’s such a huge deal. So I ask him, “But why is that so hard?”

“Because then I’ll want to call them. Then I’ll want to have hope. And hope doesn’t get along with me. Not anymore, at least.”

That was not was I was expecting. Hope doesn’t get along with me. What’s that supposed to mean? He stands there staring at me. I huff.

“You’re not gonna elaborate, huh?”

“Nope,” he answers as he turns around and opens up my door for me.

“Right,” I say, sliding past him and climbing into his car.

He walks casually around the front and gets in beside me. He doesn’t immediately start the car. I can feel him staring at me, but I refuse to glance over at him.

“Maura,” he says quietly. “It’s not that I don’t want to tell you. It’s that I don’t want to tell you yet. Besides, it’s not just my story to tell.”

I don’t respond as he puts the key in the ignition and cranks the car. Once it’s on, I flip the stereo to my favorite station and turn the volume up to drown him out, even though he’s not speaking either.

It’s not just his story? Well, then who in the hell else does it belong to?

* * *

“You don’t need to walk me to the door,” I tell Tucker as he opens my door for me in my aunt’s driveway.

“Are you kidding me? I bet your aunt is watching out the window. She’ll probably have my balls for breakfast if I don’t walk you to the door. Plus, I’m a total gentleman.”

I snort at this.

“Super hot, Maura,” he mutters.

This time I roll my eyes. “We’re here. We safely made it twenty feet from the car. Congrats, you’re a gentleman,” I tell him as we reach the front porch.

“Your sweet words move my soul,” Tucker says, clutching his chest.

“Why are you grabbing your chest? Your soul is you, not your heart.”

“That was beautiful,” he says, disbelief crossing his face.

“I know.”

He ignores me and takes a step closer. “Did you have a nice time tonight?”

I shrug and feign indifference. “It was okay. I heard a mediocre guitar player butcher one of my all-time favorite songs.”

“Wonderwall is one of your all-time favorites?” he asks. “Noted.”

He smiles sheepishly, causing the dimple in his right cheek to stand out, and continues to stand there. Okay, then.

“Well, thanks for tonight. I guess.”

Tucker laughs lightly. “You’re welcome. I guess.” I turn around to unlock the front door. “Goodnight, Maura.”

I pause at the shy sweetness I suddenly hear in his voice and lean my head against the doorframe. “Goodnight, Tucker,” I tell him just as quietly.

We stand there silently, me against the door and him waiting on the steps. We don’t say anything. We soak in the silence.

After several moments, I hear his footsteps as he retreats to his car, and I unlock the door.

I don’t bother taking off my clothes when I get to my room. Crawling straight into bed, I pull my blankets up over me, needing a moment to decompress, to gather myself.

I need a second to fix my cracks because there were a lot of them tonight.

I’ll never admit it out loud, but Tucker scares me. He always has. That’s why I purposely avoided getting close to him and flung myself into Tanner’s arms. The second he our eyes met, I had a feeling about him. I knew he could see through me, would be able to get behind my façade.

The first (unspoken) rule of being a Doughers: Never let anyone witness you take off your mask.

And Tucker was capable of taking mine off.

But Tanner was a safe bet from the beginning. Knowing he’d accept the Maura who coveted being the ideal daughter, I clung to him.

Did I think he’d help me relax as much as I did? Nah. Did I think I’d lust after him so hard? No, not at all. Am I glad we got together? Absolutely, because those first few weeks with him mean more to me than I’ll ever admit. We had fun. I let loose in a way I haven’t before, but I still want to be more around him. I still feel the need to be perfect around him, afraid to make mistakes.

Plus, he’s the first guy I took home to my parents. I admit I did because I wanted to show him off, prove to them I could do right in their eyes. I knew they’d approve of him based on his service alone, because if there’s one thing the Doughers honorably do, it’s support the troops. But part of it was because, at the time, I was into him. I thought what I was feeling was the beginning of true love.

I was wrong. It wasn’t close to that. It was lust. Sure, I wanted Tanner, craved his companionship and body way too much, which is what lust meant to me. But I didn’t love him. I didn’t trust him with everything I had, didn’t want to build a life with him, wasn’t ready to make sacrifices for him. It wasn’t my version of love.

So, yeah, it was only lots and lots of lust…which eventually faded. I don’t want that with Tanner, because I know now that if I stay with him, we’ll fall into a cycle. We’ll talk about the same things each day. We’ll do all the things couples are supposed to do. We’ll scratch the surface of our real feelings and sweep everything else under the rug.

But that’s not what I want.

I want someone who is going to challenge me, want to peel back all my layers. Tanner won’t.

Because I think Tanner is a lot like me—full of layers. He doesn’t know that I see through the pigheaded asshole card he plays around his friends or the life-of-the-party guy he is to the rest of the world.

That’s where we won’t work, because I don’t want that.

I need someone who can see through me like I see through Tanner, push me to finally stick up to my asshole parents and force me to cross my carefully crafted line of perfection. And as much as it pains me to admit, Tanner isn’t the one to do any of those things. He’s too comfortable where he is.

So, I absolutely need to break it off with him. Because for each right we have going for us, we have an equally strong wrong pushing back.

It’s one battle I’m tired of fighting.

* * *

I wake to find a voicemail and three missed texts from Tanner.

My heart squeezes at this because I fell asleep not missing him or realizing I hadn’t spoken to him at all yesterday.

The first two were sent back-to-back.

Tanner: Babe? I tried calling…

Tanner: Maybe it didn’t come through on your end

And the third came thirty minutes later.

Tanner: Guess you’re sleeping or out with Rae. I love you, babe. Goodnight.

I text him back, not wanting to call him.

Me: Both? Tuck played last night and we all went to watch. I fell asleep when I got home. Talk to you tonight. I promise to answer this time.

He responds immediately.

Tanner: Did you have fun? How’s the asshole brother of mine?

Me wanting to come to Tucker’s defense whenever Tanner rags on him is nothing new. He’s always calling him an asshole, fuckhead, dickwad, you name it. I get that people call each other names in jest. I get that friends often call each other asshole only to mean it in the best way possible. But there’s something different in the way Tanner means it.

Tanner and Tucker are far from the ideal brothers. They’re constantly at one another’s throats and never agree about anything. Tanner hates that Tucker hasn’t—and I’m fully quoting him here—“done anything with his life.” But Tucker never—and I mean never—rags on his brother behind his back like Tanner does. Hell, apparently each time Tanner has come home on leave, Tucker has opened his apartment up to him, and Tanner takes advantage of it.

I think Tucker resents Tanner for joining the military, but I have no idea what Tanner’s problem with Tucker is. Either way, it’s a shit-cycle of douchebaggery between the two, and the situation irritates me to no end because although I don’t have siblings, I have Rae and Perry. And I would never treat them that way. Ever.

I text him back, deciding to ignore his last comment.

Me: It was a blast. I definitely needed a night out.

Tanner: That’s good. Gotta run, babe. I’ll call later.

After finally stripping off my clothes from last night and getting a shower, I walk into the kitchen to find Kassi packing her lunch for her shift at the hospital.

“Hey, kiddo. How was last night?”

“It was…good.”

“Yeah? You don’t seem too sure about that,” she observes.

“No, really, it was.” I briefly consider not telling her about how bizarre Tucker was about the suit but decide to do so anyway. “Hey, Kas?”

“Hmm?”

“Do you think it’s unusual for a person to be insanely talented and push away all the offers they get to take that talent and share it with the world?” I ask.

She observes at me thoughtfully, clearly thinking hard about it. Then she shakes her head and says, “No.”

My shoulders deflate a bit because I was hoping for more. “Care to elaborate?”

She sets her lunch box down and leans against the counter, giving me her full attention now.

“People don’t always have to have fame to know they’re good.”

True. “But what if they want fame?”

Because I think Tucker may. Well, not necessarily fame, but I think he does want to be doing this every day.

“Sometimes people want things so much that they push them away because they’re afraid of failure. Do you think that’s the case with this particular person?” she questions.

Is it? “I think so. Maybe. I don’t know. All I know is that I want to help him. I want him to realize how incredible he is. I want the world to appreciate how incredible he is. He says he can’t right now, but I honestly don’t understand why. Everything in his life seems so simple and straightforward.”

Kassi doesn’t say anything as she smashes her sandwich together and loads up her lunch box or as she fills her coffee cup. She doesn’t even say anything as she hoists her bags on her shoulders and grabs her car keys off the counter.

Then, finally, she turns and pins me with her dark blue stare. “Things aren’t always what they appear to be, Maura. You know that better than anyone.”