Was this what it was like for everyone else in my family? This sudden, bright burst of happiness, of peace;, just being near that person was heady and strange. Hypnotizing in a way that I'd never experienced.
As we drove in comfortable silence, I thought about what Levi had said about his relationship with Joss. He'd crafted the patience of a saint over those five years, because he knew that she was it for him. Pressing my nose into Tucker's shoulder, I knew that, despite how difficult it had been to hide the way I felt about him those first couple days, I'd be able to do it too. I'd learn how to wait, if it meant that he'd be mine someday. Mine in the way that I was his.
Levi said something else, about his oldest brother Hunter. About his relationship woes, and how they related to the curse, and his wife that he definitely did not meet in Green Valley. Driving toward Knoxville, I thought about the fact that Hunter rarely ever came home to visit, and if that was the reason why.
If Tucker was with someone else, the thought of staying in the front row and watching for years was incredibly painful.
But being away seemed even worse.
"Whatcha thinking about?" he asked.
I sat up and smiled at him. "My cousin Hunter, actually."
Tucker's eyebrows popped up. "I don't really know him. What made you think about that?"
Another thing that I couldn't say. Not really. I swallowed it down, along with every other mention of this strange family quirk that seemed impossible to explain.
"He's never home," I said. "And I know I haven't been in Green Valley long, but I feel like you'd have to hate this place to avoid it the way he seems to. It takes some getting used to, I think all small towns would, but I haven't seen anything about it that would chase someone away from his family for that long."
"Other than the rampant gossip and the fact that no one can mind their own business if their life depended on it?" he asked ruefully.
I exhaled a laugh. "Other than that."
"Small towns are a strange creature, and if the rhythm of the way they move doesn't fit you exactly right, it's hard to ever feel like it's your home."
I thought about that as he pulled into the parking lot of a fancy looking steak restaurant, a dark, low slung building with clean lines and tasteful landscaping.
"I don't know if I've figured out that rhythm yet," I told him. "Considering we had to drive almost an hour to feel safe enough to enjoy our first date."
Tucker tilted my chin up with his thumb and placed a feather-light kiss on my lips. "We'll be able to date all over that damn town soon enough. As soon as someone else makes bigger waves than I just did."
While it may not have helped me feel like it was my home, it was enough for me. Or at least it was for one night.
He left the truck and opened the door for me, holding my hand as we walked into the dimly lit restaurant. He'd reserved us a private booth, and even if it made me look like the cliché of all clichés, I forced him to sit on the same side of the booth as me.
"I don't want that table in between us," I told him when the hostess walked away. He curled a hand around my thigh and dropped a kiss at my temple, breathing me in before he pulled back.
"Pretty Girl, you're going to make me lose my mind, I can already tell."
The smile on my face at his answer stayed there almost the entire night.
We ate slowly, his hands staying firmly on that one stretch of skin along my thigh, even if it meant he had to eat one-handed. And we talked for hours. No one rushed us, simply refilled waters, brought a couple glasses of red wine for me, a whiskey for him, and I spent those hours getting to know Tucker Haywood, letting him get to know me.
My fingers itched for my camera as he spoke and as he listened, because I could have taken picture upon picture of him for my hypothetical book. A veritable study in focus and attention, from the set of his eyes to the smile hovering over his lips.
But if I’d been taking pictures, I wouldn’t have been able to talk with him like I was. And that would’ve been a sin.
For each thing we had in common, there was something about us that was completely different.
He didn't like chocolate, which was a sin in my eyes, but we agreed that pineapple on pizza was perfection.
He loved watching golf, which was my favorite way to trigger a nap, but we both preferred college football over professional.
His voting patterns leaned toward the right of the middle, and mine leaned to the left.
He told me about his job, how long the law firm had been in his family, the expectations that came with it. I listened without judgment of how unhappy it made him, just like he didn't chide me for up and moving across the country without a single lead on a job.
With each topic we covered, it was like unrolling a smooth sheet of pristine white paper. There was no flaw to it, to this conversation, just unending possibilities of what it could be turned into, and that's when I realized that the curse didn't mean that you found someone who was exactly like you.
Tucker was explaining what he loved about going to church, and even though I couldn't remember the last time my head had been covered by the roof of a place of worship, I found myself interested in knowing why it was important to him, to explore the truth of a God that dwelled in a single space.
I preferred the outdoors, climbing a mountain or following a trail to a sunset
