Just One of the Groomsmen

by Cindi Madsen

  Regardless of not meaning to, his leaving had hurt her.

  She knew telling him she’d felt slightly abandoned when he moved away wouldn’t do any good now.

  She understood he needed to take a high-paying job after law school, just like she understood life got busy.

  Only she’d continued to call, her weekends filled with a whole lot of nothing besides work and studying, and he’d done less and less of it.

  Every time she lifted her phone to see if he’d texted or returned her call, only to find a less exciting message from someone else, disappointment crept in.

  Until she’d expected him to ignore her.

  Why, oh why were these old hurts drifting up now? Apparently once the tap opened, emotions all rushed at you at once.

  Another point for shutting them down.

  “Addison!”

  Ugh, now David wanted to talk to her? Maybe she should let Nonna set her up with a girl and see if they were less confusing and frustrating.

  Maybe girls would pick up the damn phone and call.

  “That game looked rough,” he said.

  She shrugged. “Ah, not too bad. My clothes didn’t get torn, and I’m not even bleeding.”

  Ultimately disturbed best described his reaction, and she clamped her lips so she wouldn’t laugh at how horrified he was over an activity she used to engage in on a regular basis. “Well, I’m glad I caught you. I was wondering if you wanted to grab dinner tonight? I’d give you time to clean up, of course.”

  Right. Most people going on a date would care about whether or not their clothes were grass stained with a side of ground-in dirt.

  But why now? Why last minute, after yet another week of radio silence?

  Perhaps he wasn’t stringing her along, and maybe he had valid excuses for only calling late at night.

  She thought of Tucker telling her she deserved better, and she did. Honestly, so did David.

  Her feelings for him weren’t strong enough to justify dragging this out any longer, anyway.

  “She’s already got plans,” Tucker said, stepping up next to her, and he was seriously testing her patience this afternoon.

  She gave her overbearing friend a menacing smile with teeth. “This falls under things I can handle myself.”

  He crossed his arms and, with his gaze locked on hers, took all of one step back. “I’ll just be here waiting for you so we can walk to the bar.”

  Addie glanced at the heavens for strength and then turned her attention to David. With Tucker mere feet away, she kept opening her mouth, then feeling self-conscious. She grabbed David by the elbow and walked a few yards away, giving them at least a semblance of privacy.

  “I do have plans tonight. I also think that you and I… Maybe we’d be better off just tryin’ to be friends.”

  After a couple of seconds of silence, he slowly nodded. “That’d probably be for the best. I’m so busy with my new practice and helping out with my niece…”

  “Who I coach, which only adds more complications.”

  “Right. And I hesitated to tell you before, but I only recently ended a long-term relationship.”

  She wasn’t sure why he was telling her now, but since she wanted their…whatever this was…to keep going amicably, she went with it. “Oh. That must’ve been hard.”

  “Yeah. Amazing girl. Beautiful, too. She was always dragging me to these fancy restaurants and clubs. I complained about having to get all dressed up, but secretly I loved it, because she always made it fun.”

  Addie couldn’t help taking that as how she paled in comparison, both as a date and as a female.

  It stabbed that insecurity about not being girlie enough she liked to pretend she didn’t have. Ironic considering how angry she was at Tucker for treating her like a girl. “She sounds lovely.”

  “She was. We just clicked, you know?”

  Oh shit, he was getting choked up, and everything in her screamed abort, abort.

  “Thanks for being so cool,” he said.

  Then he shocked her by pulling her in for a hug, and she could feel Tucker closing in. All she needed was for him to hear that she was consoling the guy over losing his beautiful ex-girlfriend.

  After deciding this wasn’t a shoulder-punch-type sitch, she hesitantly patted him on the back. “Once you are ready to date again, drop a hint in front of Lottie, and she’ll have the single ladies in town lining up.”

  He laughed. “Funny enough, she’s the one who nudged me toward you.”

  Yeah. Downright hilarious.

  The joke was on him. Or her.

  Or maybe both of them.

  “I’ll catch you later, Addison.” One last smile and then he turned and walked away, and she didn’t know how to feel. The hint of sorrow came more from losing the possibility of a relationship than anything.

  Relief rose up, along with the worry over how her mom and grandmother would take the news.

  The skin on the back of her neck prickled as she sensed Tucker come up behind her. “Let me guess, he wants you to come over after you’re done at the bar.”

  Her emotions flipped in an instant, screeching toward offense and anger. “None of your business,” she said, whirling on her heel and heading for the bar.

  How dare he come back to town to judge who she dated and how? To act like she needed to be taken care of when she’d taken care of herself—not to mention helped out with her family—for years.

  Tucker reached over her to pull open the door to the bar, his firm chest bumping her back, and her irritation morphed to desire, which caused another wave of irritation.

  She strode over to the group of guys and plopped down on an open stool, sweeping the pieces of hair that’d fallen out of her ponytail behind her ear and directing her question to no one in particular. “Is this part of my natural habitat?”

  “Hell yeah,” Shep said, raising a beer, and Easton and Ford echoed their agreement.

  “Perfect. I was worried about adaptin’ and survivin’, so it’s a relief that on the football field and in the bar, I can be me.” She coated her words in sarcasm. “As long as my overbearing big brother behind me approves it, that is.”

  Tucker placed his hand on her upper back, his thumb going to the base of her neck, and a shock of awareness zipped down her spine.

  “Real funny, Murph.” Her muscles tensed. Most of the guys called her “Murph” on a regular basis, including Tucker. Hell, half the town still did.

  But there was something different in the way Tucker had thrown it at her just now. She hated it and the way it threw up a wall between them.

  As opposed to the other night when he’d called her Addison, and heat had flooded her veins.

  It’s official. I’m losing it.

  “Would you like me to bring you a beer?” Tucker asked. “For adapting and surviving purposes?”

  She risked a peek over her shoulder and found his face closer than expected. Her heart beat so hard and fast she feared everyone in the bar would hear it. “That’d be great.”

  Instead of simply dropping his hand, he dragged it down a couple of inches, and as soon as the heat of his palm left her skin, she missed it.

  Because she was going insane.

  “The guys and I were just going to go for round two as well. We’ll help you carry it all back.” Shep tilted his head toward the bar, and after exchanging some confused glances, they all got the memo and jumped up.

  Then Addie and Lexi were alone at the table.

  “Not real subtle, my guys,” Addie said, then worried that she shouldn’t have called them hers.

  Lexi laughed. “About as subtle as a gorilla wearing high heels in a bowling alley.”

  Addie snort-laughed, but since the vibe between them seemed chill once again, she didn’t even care. “That’s quite an image. You have a l
ovely way with words, Lexi.”

  “Why thank you.”

  Not a hint of tightness remained in the smile Lexi gave her, and Addie dared to hope that Shep’s crazy natural-habitat idea had actually worked.

  Lexi twisted the stem of her wineglass between her fingers. “There’s a chance I overacted to the news about you and Will.”

  Addie froze, afraid to agree or argue or so much as breathe in case it would change her mind again.

  “Planning a wedding is stressful, and I felt a tad bamboozled, considering I might not’ve been super into the idea of a female groomsman in the first place.”

  “It’s all good. I understand that it’s a little unconventional—that I’m a little unconventional.”

  Lexi teared up, and then she lunged right over two bar stools and wrapped her in a hug.

  Addie patted her arm. Wow. Two surprise hugs within minutes of each other.

  Apparently hot mess is a better look for me than I thought.

  She also wasn’t sure she could handle hopping on this roller coaster again. “I don’t know what’s happening. Don’t get me wrong, I’m kind of happy thinking this means we’re cool now, but I’m also a bit confused.”

  “The note you wrote about your friendship with the guys helped, and I’ve been trying to be understanding…” Lexi glanced around, and Addie automatically followed suit, paranoia jumping into her swirling tornado of emotions. “But what truly sealed the deal was seeing the way you look at Tucker.”

  The air whooshed out of Addie’s lungs. “Like I want to spike the ball at his face?”

  Lexi nodded, quick enough to resemble a bobblehead doll. “You only get that mad at someone you’re crazy about. After watching you and Tucker interact this afternoon, I can clearly see the difference between just friends and more than friends.”

  “Oh, no,” Addie said, her blood pressure steadily rising. “I mean yes about Shep, and how he and I are just friends, but Tucker and I are—”

  “Don’t worry. I won’t say anything.” Lexi’s gaze flickered to where the guys were biding their time at the bar. “I’m assuming he doesn’t know?”

  The tight, tangled ball lodged in Addie’s chest where her heart should be unraveled, leaving a raw, aching spot in its place.

  She wanted to deny it.

  She’d been doing a fair job of denying it, even to herself, although deep down she knew things had shifted, maybe for good.

  Which only brought a whole heap of fears crashing down on her. A cold sweat broke out across her body, her panic shifting into overdrive.

  Admitting it aloud might bring some kind of blowback on her that she wouldn’t be able to deal with.

  But if it made Lexi feel better about having her in the wedding party…?

  Addie carefully picked through her feelings and words, trying to dance around the many landmines. “Tucker is one of the most important people in my life, and he has been for as long as I can remember. Our friendship means too much to me.”

  Lexi scrunched up her face. “I get that, but maybe—table this conversation for later. Will and Ford are coming back.” Keeping her arm draped around Addie’s shoulders, Lexi turned to greet the guys. “Yes, things are good between us again, and I’m happy to announce that Addie’s still one of my bridesmaids.”

  This time, Addie didn’t bother correcting her. When in wedding-obsessed Rome, right?

  Then Lexi went and added words that sucked some of the air out of her celebratory sails. “And tomorrow, we get to go try on our dresses and do the fittings!”

  Chapter Fourteen

  After handing Addie’s beer over to Ford for delivery, Tucker held Easton back at the bar with him. Things seemed to be good between the two women, and he hoped they were, but he suspected Easton had already sensed something was going on, and he needed some peace of mind.

  “What’s up?” Easton asked.

  “What do you know about the dentist? And could you maybe use your access to certain records to do a background check? I can get in touch with one of my contacts, but—”

  “Already done.” Easton set his beer on the bar and leaned a hip against the polished wood. “I like to know who’s moving into town, but admittedly, I put a rush on it when I saw the way he looked at Addie.”

  “You know she’d kill us just for having this conversation,” Tucker said with a laugh. “For daring to try to protect her from anything.”

  “That’s why I only planned on telling her if something bad came back.”

  “And he was clean?” Tucker didn’t want her to be dating a psychopath, but he would’ve liked something he could point at to convince her he wasn’t the good guy she thought he was.

  “Clean.”

  “Damn.”

  “My turn for questions. What’s goin’ on with you and Addie?”

  Tucker took a large swig of the water he’d ordered. Adding beer to the mess of thoughts rushing through his head screamed disaster, as nice as drowning them in alcohol might be.

  Again he thought of the group dynamic, but Easton was too observant to buy any attempt to downplay it, and he needed to talk to someone.

  The guy was a vault, too.

  “Honestly, I don’t rightly know. I drive into town and see a pair of sexy legs sticking out from underneath a truck, only to discover they belong to Addie. As soon as I realized it was her, I tried to shut down those thoughts, but it’s more than the legs.”

  Or the flashing incident.

  He swore and dragged a hand through his hair. “I can’t stop thinking about her. The more time I spend around her, the stronger the urge to cross lines is.”

  Easton sighed. “That’s what I was afraid of. Don’t you remember when Ford and Shep went for that same coed freshman year, and it almost tore apart the group?”

  He slowly nodded. “I remember.” It was right after his parents’ divorce, and like them, his friends were constantly bickering and wanting everyone to pick sides. Poker nights turned tense at the drop of a hat and resulted in heated arguments, and they’d canceled it altogether for a while.

  It was a shitty couple of months.

  “And after that mess, we all swore that we’d never let anything get between us ever again. Bros above hos and all that, and it goes without saying that Addie’s on the bro side of that line.”

  “Does that make me the ho in this situation?”

  “Hey, if the street corner fits…” Easton chuckled at his own joke and formed circles of water on the bar with the condensation from his bottle. “Haven’t you ever heard the saying don’t shit where you eat?”

  Tucker assumed that was rhetorical—of course he’d heard the saying.

  “Dude, we just got things back to normal,” Easton said, not bothering to hide the fact that he didn’t like the idea, and when it came to this kind of thing, he’d be the most sensible one in the group. “I swear to God, if you screw up poker night—”

  “Believe me, I know it’s a bad idea. Especially right now. We’re dealing with all this extra wedding drama, and I’m currently unemployed and living on a houseboat, for hell’s sake. She’s one of my best friends, and has been ever since I can remember. I hardly have a childhood memory that doesn’t include her.”

  He’d told himself every single one of those things while trying to talk himself out of crossing lines, and saying them out loud made them feel even more overwhelming. His gut sank, and pressure squeezed at his lungs.

  Crossing lines with Addie could screw up everything. Among all of them. “The high potential for disaster is definitely there, and yet…”

  We might be great together.

  That “might” messed with his head but didn’t faze the shaky self-control problem he’d been dealing with lately.

  “Does she know?” Easton asked.

  “No. I overheard her talking to Lexi a
bout how all of us are like her brothers, and then she makes that overprotective comment.” He checked to make sure no one else was in earshot, and then leaned closer, because the entire town had big ears. “I’m not just friend zoned. I’m brother zoned. I’m Luke Fucking Skywalker.”

  Easton barked out a laugh, nearly choking on his swig of beer.

  “It’s not funny!”

  “It’s a little funny,” Easton said.

  Tucker sagged back onto a barstool and ran his fingers over his forehead. “It’s also slowly driving me insane.” He set his cool water glass on his thigh. “And I seriously want to kill the dentist. I manage to piss her off every time I mention the guy, but I can’t stop. Jealousy like I’ve never felt before takes over, and it’s like I can’t be rational about it.”

  “The good news is, the dentist is no Han Solo, and he sure as shit can’t handle her.” Easton tipped his beer at Tucker. “I’m not sure you can, either.”

  “Believe me, I know.”

  But a big part of him wanted to try.

  He’d have to strap in, but it’d be one helluva ride while it lasted.

  The “while it lasted” made him hesitate once again, because what if they crashed? What would happen afterward?

  Would he be the guy who came back to ruin decades of friendships because he was selfish?

  Easton looked toward the table where the rest of their friends sat, smiled at whatever tall tale Ford was spinning that required huge arm motions, and then turned back to Tucker. “You know I love you like a brother—”

  “Thanks for using those exact words, jackass,” Tucker said, knowing he’d done it on purpose.

  “Welcome, dickwad. All’s I’m saying is that I’m not gonna stand here and tell you that you can’t cross that line, and I’m sure as hell not telling you it’s a good idea. I am going to say that if things get messed up and she gets hurt, you’ll have to deal with me, Ford, and Shep, just like any other guy would.”

  “I’d expect nothing less. I’m glad you guys have her back, actually.”

  He meant it, too.

  Knowing she had extra protection took an odd weight off the center of his chest. He wasn’t sure if it pushed him more toward ignoring the way his body buzzed around her, or toward taking a big-ass risk, jumping in, and seeing what happened.