Make a Right (17 page)

Fucking Thomas
. Did he think he could take Tuck’s place or what? Sure seemed like it, the way he slipped in everywhere he could.

Hannah watched them too. “Thomas has been a good friend of ours,” she said. “He’s been there when we needed him.”

Tuck bit down on the jagged pill. “I know.”

“He’s a good man.”

The question jumped out of Tuck, the words scraping his throat painfully raw. “Better for Cade than me, you mean?”

Hannah shot him a glare over her shoulder that would have scalded leather and that indicated she wasn’t going to dignify his question with any other answer.

She
did
lean out the open screen door and shout, “Cade! Come inside. I need your help.”

Cade squinted at her, shading his eyes against the sun. “What’s up?”

“I need your help,” Hannah said. “Inside. Now.”

Cade shared shrugs with Thomas. “If he can handle this.”

“In my sleep,” Thomas said. He knuckled the back of Cade’s head. “Go on.” Like Thomas had nothing to worry about. Nothing to lose.

Maybe he didn’t, Tuck thought, abruptly cold with fear. They looked happy together. They fit, side by side. Easy. No worries, no shit fits, no fighting. Just peace.

“Tuck?” Hannah jostled him out of his fugue by letting the door slam to with a bang, and took him by the ear. He swore aloud, slapping at her hand. She evaded him with ease. “Don’t,” she whispered. “I’m giving you a chance. Take it. Do we understand each other?”

“About what?” Cade asked, standing at the open screen door.

Tuck thought fast. Starting off with a lie? Bad idea. But his mouth moved before the rest of him, and what could he do then? Take it back?

Especially when part of it wasn’t a lie.

Wedding jitters
, he mouthed to Cade.
Bridezilla time.

Cade’s eyebrow rose, but after a quick look at Hannah with her lips pursed in a scowl, he seemed to accept that. Dubiously, but still.

Tuck breathed a sigh of relief. Small blessings; he’d take ’em.

Cade looked from Tuck to Hannah and back again. “What’s going on?”

Then again, Tuck would take some
large
blessings and a few breaks cut his way too.

Hannah faced the pair of them down, her hands squarely on her hips. “You promised me a first dance,” she said directly to Tuck, eye square to eye. “You both need practice. I cleared out one of the rooms we don’t use for you two. Go, and before I turn into Bridezilla, would you?”

Sharp cookie. Tuck had to admire her savvy even as he winced over the subtle jab at him and at the proof she’d caught that little exchange.

He gave in. Might as well, when things were inevitable. “Which room and how do we find it? It’s like a maze in there.”

* * *

“Good God,” Cade said from above him, just taller enough to see over Tuck’s head.

“Amen,” Tuck muttered. If this was the parlor, he’d stand by his idea of a wedding pavilion as about a hundred times preferable. The cold of the room made the hair on his arms rise, propelled by goose bumps. He shook it off. “So. Feel like dancing in a grave, not on one?”

“Now I feel so much more comfortable. Thanks.” Cade nudged him. Hey, what did you know? That went a good ways toward dispelling the chill, and in a room like this one, cavernous and unwelcoming, there was a hell of a lot of chill to disperse.

The parlor stood empty, or as good as. Both of the girls—or probably just Hannah, all things and theses considered—had scooted bulky settees and ottomans and lamps against the walls on all sides. A thick carpet had been rolled and propped up behind the door.

Tuck prowled inside, cold forgotten for the sake of fascination. “Do you believe this place?”

Cade tested his strength on one of the couches. He winced at the screech it made, its bulk and the marble floor both complaining loudly at his undignified maltreatment. “How could we not hear her doing this?”

“We
were
sort of distracted.”

Cade arched an eyebrow at Tuck. “I don’t think anyone could be that distracted.”

“You wound me. Best guess?” Tuck rubbed the back of his neck, sure his guess was as close to the truth as made no difference. “She did it before we even showed.”

Cade traced the dustless glass of a giant grandfather clock that ticked quietly. “You really think she was so sure we’d come?”

“I think she believed in us.” Tuck paced to the middle of the room, as best as he could figure it, and struck what he thought might be close to an old-world pose with leg forward, foot pointed, and arms flung out wide. What the hell, right? Cade didn’t seem inclined to argue.

It was probably Thomas who’d cooled his temper. That made Tuck want to clench his teeth. Maybe he’d have said something…if he hadn’t heard Hannah’s warning again in his mind’s ear.

He balanced himself inside and out and bowed a little deeper to his partner. “Shall we begin?”

Cade’s hoot of laughter pulled out of him. “God, you keep making me… Not yet. We need music. Do you think she remembered to put something in here?”

“This is Hannah we’re talking about. Definitely.” Tuck had started to wobble. “Either come over here and prop me up or be prepared to scrape me up if I tip over.”

Cade tilted his head with an odd sort of frown. “You wouldn’t move to catch yourself first?”

“Maybe. Seeing how long I can hang tough is mostly the point.”

“A man in that kind of pose has no business talking about hanging tough,” Cade said drily, making Tuck suspect he looked way less like a European aristocrat than he’d hoped and probably more like a court jester.

Eh, whatever. Anything for a laugh. A chance.

Tuck made “come on” curly fingers at Cade. “Bring it, already. May I have this dance?”

“If I can’t find the music, I can’t teach you right.” Cade stood still, visibly searching. “I feel like I should be hunting for a Victrola or a phonograph. Is what I’m looking for right in front of my face?”

Tuck would have let him find it for himself, to allow him his pride, but since he’d asked… “CD player tucked inside that big cubbyhole on the desk with the roll lid. I think.”

Cade grimaced as he approached it. “At least it’s not an MP3 player. The old school hangs on as long as it can.”

Tuck winced. “Jeez. CDs are old-school? Now I’m feeling ancient.”

“I told you, you have a gray hair,” Cade said, absorbed in figuring out how the player worked. “I miss CDs. Do you remember…”

“The Discman you had back at St. Pius’s?” Hell yes, Tuck did. Thumping out that tinny, forbidden beat, forgotten except as background noise, the first night he’d sneaked into Cade’s room and from there, into his bed…

“I loved that thing.” Cade pushed a button and popped the catch on the CD player. He snorted and held the disc up for Tuck to see the lack of label and a feminine scrawl in Sharpie. “She burned it from MP3s.”

Tuck couldn’t help laughing. “So much for old-school, huh?” He reconsidered. “Or maybe it’s more like ‘then’ and ‘now’ collided. Boom.”

“Uh-huh.” Cade moved as swiftly and economically as ever, too quick for Tuck to follow, barely knowing what he was up to before something complicated and classical sang its way through more speakers than had to belong to one boom box. Impressive, and Cade didn’t fail to notice. He looked up and around. “When this room is lived in, it must be set up for perfect acoustics.”

“It’s not that bad now.” Tuck gave up on the pose and stood naturally, arm extended, waiting for Cade to join him. “She went to all this trouble. Come over here, and let’s do right by her.”

Now
Cade bit his lip and hesitated.

“We’ve come this far. Don’t puss out on me now.” Tuck waited. He’d wait all day if he had to. “It’s just a dance.”

“It’s never just anything with you,” Cade said.

Tuck couldn’t argue his point.

He put that aside for the moment, because Cade did as he’d been asked. Businesslike, professional, as if Tuck was paying by the hour for the privilege, but still. “Waltzes are composed in three-quarter time. If this is the music she wants, this is the dance you need to learn.”

“Oh, fuck me.”

“Not in front of the guests.”

Tuck stared at him.

He didn’t think he imagined the ghost of Cade’s smile. But before he could ask, Cade took Tuck’s right hand and placed his left at Tuck’s waist. “It helps if you imagine you’re stepping around a four-cornered box.”

“Yes, Mr. Fosse,” Tuck grumbled. “Hang on.” He kicked off his sneakers and sent them tumbling into a corner. “I have a feeling you’ll thank me for that later. And if you would be so kind, sir?”

“Don’t call me sir.”

“No, sir.”

“Don’t be a dick either.” Cade pinched Tuck’s hip. “Step. Slide. Step. Three-quarter time. I know you’re not as clumsy as you’re pretending to be. Just—follow my lead, would you? Or at least try. That’d do.”

Tuck gave it his best. He did. Helped when he watched Cade instead of paying attention to his feet. He loved that little line between Cade’s eyebrows and the way Cade caught his lip between his teeth. And so what if he’d been assigned to dance the woman’s role? He could sacrifice a little machismo to make Cade happy.

Besides, there was something to this, Cade’s arms sure and strong where Cade guided him. Something good to hold on to, warm beneath his light shirt and close enough to breathe in the scent of him, sunlight and salt, soap and coffee.

Huh
. When he let Cade direct him, they didn’t have nearly as many bumps and thumps and stubbed toes.

Cade’s cheeks pinked. “I know what you’re thinking right now.”

Tuck’s ears warmed. Well, this close to one another, not so easy to hide. “You know how I am, how I feel about you. I’m not apologizing.”

Cade took them in through another three circles before the music stopped and a brief hiss cued up the next song on the disc. “I’m not asking you to,” he said, soft as the wind through the trees.

“Thought you were pissed at me,” Tuck chanced, not letting go now. “And am I doing this waltz thing at all right?”

“You’re decent enough for a beginner. And I was. Pissed, that is.” Cade didn’t guide Tuck quite so firmly now, but well enough. Tuck could take more of the lead and bear him up now that he knew how.

Jeez, would that the rest of the tangle they’d gotten themselves wound up in be half so simple to unspool. “You’re not now?”

“I don’t know,” Cade said after a pause.

Tuck shifted the balance. He mirrored the stance Cade had taken when the music started, asking permission with one eyebrow, and turned the tide. God help him, Cade didn’t miss a beat when he slid into the lady’s part. So to speak.

“Let me guess. It’s not that easy?” Tuck asked, guiding Cade in the dance. “However did I know?”

Cade’s lips twitched. “I never got that about you. How you could still joke no matter what.”

“You need more laughter in your life, idiot. You always have. Don’t tell me that’s not so.”

Silence. Tuck thought maybe, maybe he’d gone too far. He expelled his breath in a
whoosh
when Cade said, sotto voce, “Maybe you’re right.”

He drew them to a stop, graceful as a swan. Tuck, not so much. He stumbled and bumped forward; if Cade hadn’t been resilient, he’d have fallen. Even so, he had to sternum-slap Cade to keep from tripping over his stocking feet.

“If you loved me, you’d make this easier,” Cade said.

From zero to serious in point-six seconds. Tuck coped and kept pace. “It’s because I love you that I can’t. You know me well enough to know that by heart.”

Cade shook his head. Tuck could almost see the thoughts whizzing through there.

He had a bad feeling about those thoughts. Reaching for any straw, Cade was, and if he got hold of the truly sharp and spiky one…

“Hannah sent us off quick, like we were to go to bed without supper in an old story,” Cade said slowly. “I keep thinking about that.”

Tuck stalled. “She’s busy, you know that.”

“But she’s still Hannah. No. She was angry, I think.” Cade covered Tuck’s hand. His was cold, and he wasn’t looking at anything less than a thousand yards away. “You’re lying to me about something. Aren’t you?”

Fuck!

Tuck dropped Cade’s hand hot-potato style before Cade could do it for him. “Well, you told me not to make you laugh.”

“Nothing’s funny right now.”

“You went looking for something to turn it that way, and don’t tell me any different.”

“Trust me, I’m not.”

“About which, point A or point B?”

Cade ground his teeth together. “Tell me the truth,” he said, clear and distinct. “Now. Or I walk out this door, and I don’t look back.”

“You wouldn’t do that to them.”

“I won’t stay and have you patronize me either.”

He meant it. No doubt. That couldn’t happen. Maybe being with Cade was like a roller coaster, sure, but be damned if Tuck wanted the ride to stop to let the passengers off. He did Cade the respect of looking him in the eye and standing tall to get the slap he deserved. “She knows the truth.”

Y’know, it would have been easier if Cade had yelled. Thrown things. Maybe even taken a swing. But Cade? No. He stood as if he’d been planted on the spot and grown up through the marble floor, stiller than if he’d been carved, everything he might have thought or felt locked so tightly away that Tuck knew it as if he’d spelled out every word.

He still would’ve rather had a shout or two.

God knew he couldn’t keep
his
mouth shut. “I didn’t tell her,” Tuck said. “She guessed.”

Chapter Twelve

They’d ended up near enough the rolltop desk to let Tuck cross his arms and lean against it. Wasn’t as sturdy as it looked and it wobbled on one short leg.

“What do you want me to say, Cade?”

Nothing.

Then—“How did she guess?”

Tuck sighed. No use fighting this. He guessed there hadn’t been all along. Might as well have saved them the trouble.

Might as well let the inevitable happen.

Sometimes. Not in all things.

“Bits of this and that, she said. She’s got a sharp eye. I’d forgotten how sharp, or maybe she grew into one as she got older. She—”