Please, please don’t hate me forever because you found me screwing your son in his truck.
Her eyes were wide, her mouth open slightly, as she shook my hand. “Glenda Haywood.” She blinked a few times. Glenda had the same affliction that I did, her thoughts played out over her face like I was watching a movie on a big screen.
“Grace is,” Tucker started, then paused. I held my breath when he continued talking. Grace is what? “Grace is Glenn’s daughter. From California.”
Oh. Okay.
I had a blurry thought in my head that the angle I was standing wasn’t good if you needed to knee someone in the testicles. It was, however, fantastic so that he wouldn’t see the color drain from my face at the limp introduction.
Grace is Glenn’s daughter.
Not Grace is my girlfriend.
Grace is what makes me happy.
Grace is the one who has my heart.
Anything. Anything other than Grace is Glenn’s daughter.
My eyes were burning uncomfortably when I looked up at him, but he was eyeing his mother for her reaction.
“Oh Tucker,” she said softly.
But it wasn’t that soft, happy way that I was hoping for. I sniffed, tearing my gaze away from him and back to her. The thing playing over her face was clarity. Understanding.
Like a puzzle piece was finally set in place.
“This is why, isn’t it? It’s her.”
“Momma,” he said, holding up a hand. “I broke up with Maggie because it was the right thing to do.”
Her smile was soft too, like her voice, like the way she clasped her hands together. “I wish you’d told us. Everything would’ve made so much more sense.”
I kept my eyes down as she said it, because I wanted to scream, did you seriously not see that he was unhappy? But screaming at the mom would come later, like maybe when he and I were married and she judged my parenting choices or something.
Cart? Meet Horse. Please go back where you belong.
Tucker rubbed his forehead when his mom spoke again.
“Did Maggie know about her?” She didn’t wait for him to answer, voice rising as more words shot out of her mouth and landed somewhere in the vicinity of my heart. “Oh Tucker, I never thought you’d do something like this.”
So, this could feel worse. Right at the moment where she insinuated that he cheated on his girlfriend in a tone rife with disappointment.
“Momma, no offense, but I don’t have to defend my relationship choices to you, especially not when you’re making incorrect assumptions about what actually happened. I did not cheat on Magnolia, if that’s what you’re suggesting.”
I wove my fingers through his and glanced up to his face. He was still looking at his mom, but he squeezed my hand.
“You’re right,” she said. “I’m not asking you to defend your relationship choices, but I damn well expect you to explain to me why I had to find out this way. Your father and I have a right to know about things that will affect us the way this has.”
My eyes shot to her.
“Momma,” Tucker said, voice low and full of warning. I didn’t like it. I didn’t like any of this.
“Don’t you Momma me, son.”
My eyebrows popped up. This was pissed off southern woman in all her righteous glory—my inaugural experience—and it made me want to run in the other direction.
“I will talk to you about this, but not right now, all right? It’s an awkward way for you to meet Grace, and I think she and I would like a few minutes to—”
“Get dressed?” she added. “Your fly is still undone, by the way.”
It wasn’t the way she said it that had my body recoiling, because her voice was as kind as possible in a situation like this. It was everything. Every part of this made me feel like I would escape my body if it were physically possible. Leave the empty husk standing in place next to Tucker.
I was meeting the mother of the man I loved desperately, the man I wanted to spend the rest of my life with, and not only did my existence come as a complete shock to her, but I was half-naked and a presumed relationship-wrecker. She caught us screwing in his truck, in the middle of the day, and then he introduced me as Glenn’s daughter. If that didn’t scream casual, meaningless relationship, I didn’t know what did.
Awesome.
And even as I wanted to run, I knew that it must be equally as embarrassing for Tucker. If my own mom caught us like this, I’d want to freaking die. When his zipper was up, his belt firmly buckled, I took his hand again, and it was my turn to squeeze.
Three times.
He smiled down at me. Even if the edges of that smile were strained, it was something.
I still wanted to knee him in the balls a little bit, but it was something that I held onto with a desperate grip.
“I just wanted to check you on,” his mom continued. “You seemed so upset when your father said he was giving you the firm.”
“He’s what?” I gasped without thinking.
Tucker dropped his head. “Grace, I’ll explain later.”
His mom gave me a confused look. “I—I’m sorry?”
“I didn’t have a chance to tell her yet,” he told her.
It explained everything. The edge in him. The way he asserted control. The desperate way he touched me.
My heart broke for him, because it would feel like an anchor, tying him to a place that he didn’t want to be. Everything he didn’t want, handed to him like it was a gift. And he’d taken those frustrations out on me.
The ramifications of what happened trickled in like a slow bleed, just one scarlet drop at a time. It was slow, and quiet, but there was inexplicable hurt in the quiet after each one.
Instead of talking to me about it, he buried it deep and kept it to himself, smothering it with our physical connection like
