Just One of the Groomsmen

by Cindi Madsen

  After their second round, Tucker stood and announced he was grabbing more drinks, and that Addie was helping him. She opened her mouth to beg off, but before she got out the words, he snagged her arm and hauled her to her feet.

  In the name of keeping the peace, she went along with it, following him over to the kitchen area before tugging free.

  “You’re ignoring me,” he said.

  “I wish I could ignore you,” she said, since she was super good at comebacks.

  “Can we just get through poker, and then, after everyone else is gone, we can talk it out?”

  “Why? We already talked it out. I told you I had a job opportunity and that it would mean moving away, and you practically did cartwheels over all the freedom you’d have. I had no idea being with me was so confining.”

  He gritted his teeth. “You’re being ridiculous.”

  Her blood pressure skyrocketed. Did he actually just call her ridiculous? “Yep, that’s me. It was ridiculous to think you and I could cross lines without everything getting all screwed up. Even more ridiculous to think that you’d want to be with me, even if it wasn’t convenient.”

  “If you think what we’ve been doing is convenient, you need a vocabulary lesson.”

  She jabbed a finger at his chest, the angry heat surging to the forefront getting the best of her. “Well, if you think liking you is super easy, then I’ve got news for you, buddy. You’re a regular jackass sometimes. I’d count now as one of those times.”

  “You’re hard to read and stubborn as hell.”

  “Like you’re an open book? I have to hand it to you, that ‘this feels right’ line was a nice touch.”

  “Ouch. I’d never feed you a line.”

  “And yet I ate it up anyway.”

  Tucker dragged a hand down his face, frustration etching his features, and he could join the freaking club because she was right there with him. “Addie, you asked for my opinion on the job, and I told you that you’d be crazy to give up an opportunity like that. And you would! You should take it and run with it.”

  “You’re literally yelling at me to leave. Don’t you see how that might hurt?”

  “I won’t be your excuse to not take a risk.”

  The band around her chest tightened even more, no longer allowing for breaths. “And see, the difference is, I wanted to take a risk on you.”

  “You are!” Tucker flung up his hands. “I’m a huge risk. That’s why you should go.”

  “This arrangement doesn’t allow you to tell me what to do.”

  “Then what good is it?” he roared back, and everything inside of her shattered. The barriers broke and the pain spilled out, flowing everywhere until every inch of her hurt.

  Then she noticed they’d gained the attention of the guys, who were watching the exchange with mostly confused expressions. Somehow she’d managed to forget they had an audience.

  Too bad the damage had been done, no chance of simply shoving it away and faking her way through being okay now.

  “Um, why are Mommy and Daddy fighting?” Ford asked, and she wanted to be able to laugh it off, but more stupid tears pricked her eyes.

  “Great.” Tucker raked a hand through his hair. “The nightmare continues. This is exactly what I worried would happen.”

  “Yep. Now people are gonna know that you were actually interested in me, even if it was just for a little while. That must be horrifying.”

  “Addie.” He reached for her, but she jerked her arm away—it made it too hard to think straight when he touched her, and this wasn’t something he could hug away.

  Luckily, the glare she fired at him effectively stopped him from trying again.

  Pull it together. Just for a few more seconds.

  “Sorry, guys,” she said past the giant lump in her throat, and there was no hiding the quiver in her voice. “I’ve gotta go.”

  She rushed out of the houseboat, and as soon as she was safe inside the truck, the roar of the engine drowning out every other noise, the tears broke free. How could she even have more?

  She needed someone, someone who she could talk to about the situation without judging or momentary excitement followed by crushing disappointment.

  But all of her someones were in that houseboat.

  Then she realized that wasn’t exactly true.

  She fumbled with her phone and tapped the name she’d pulled up.

  After two rings, Lexi answered, her voice as chipper as ever, and Addie sniffed, gratitude mixing with the sorrow. “Lexi, it’s Addie. I need someone to talk to, and I was wondering…hoping, really…” She sucked in a deep breath, not sure why it was so hard to spit out. “Could you meet me at my house?”

  Lexi didn’t miss a beat. “I’ll be right there.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Tucker stood across the room from three of his best friends, unsure where to even start. He’d lived in that magical world without consequences for a while, but it was time to face the music, and he doubted it’d be nice music.

  It didn’t help that the pit that’d opened up in his chest last night was now a gaping hole filled entirely with despair, and Addie was driving away after they’d said awful things to each other.

  “What the hell just happened?” Shep asked, his voice dangerously low. “That fight didn’t look like a fight between friends. It looked and sounded like the type of heated discussions Lexi and I get into.”

  The wheels were turning, all of them slowly coming to the same conclusion, though Easton had some insider information.

  Ford was the one who voiced it. “Did you sleep with Addie?”

  “I…” His shoulders sagged, everything inside him deflating. “Shit.”

  Shep shot to his feet, sending the table and the poker chips wobbling. “You. Did. What now?”

  “Now why would you go and do that?” Ford asked, so much disappointment in his tone, and seeing how everyone considered him the reckless one, it stung even more.

  The ache pushed deeper, down to his bones. “Because I like her.”

  Like was way too weak of a word, but his head was still spinning, and damn it. How had it spiraled out of control so quickly?

  Ford pushed to his feet and stepped around the table. “We all like her. And it’s not like she’s exactly hard to look at, but there are lines. You don’t see me sleeping with her.”

  Tucker surged forward, his finger pointed at Ford’s chest. “And you better not, or I’ll kick your ass so fast—”

  “I’d like to see you try.” He advanced, and Tucker lifted his fists, and then Easton stepped between them, one hand braced on each of their chests.

  “Everyone just calm down,” he said, his cop voice in full effect. “Now.”

  Calm? There was no calm.

  He and Addie just had one of those huge, damaging fights he’d worked so hard to avoid, and then she’d left and Ford made that remark about her looks, and he’d seen red.

  Was still seeing red.

  “Crawford.” Easton gave his chest a mild shove, and Tucker dropped his arms but kept his fists clenched, and Ford did the same. On the rare occasion, they’d gotten on each other’s nerves, mostly for dumb shit like taking a joke or prank too far, but he’d never genuinely wanted to take a swing at any of the guys.

  Not to mention those times had never been accompanied by this overwhelming sense of anger and adrenaline.

  But how could they make light of such a shitty situation? How could they talk about Addie like there weren’t a hundred other amazing things about her besides how beautiful and sexy she was?

  She was smart and funny and easy to talk to, and the best person to have by your side, ups, downs, and everything in between.

  She made life better. Made him better.

  “I warned you,” Easton said with a shake of his head, and var
iations of “you knew?” came from Shep and Ford, but Tucker ignored those.

  “And I told you that I was aware it was a bad idea.” He’d wished so hard that it wasn’t, that he’d convinced himself he and Addie could figure out a way for it to not be.

  “Seriously? You guys honestly didn’t see it?” Easton asked, which brought out offended scowls, and he held up his hands again and sighed. “Let’s not get into this. What I need to know is why Addie stormed out of here like that.”

  Never before had Tucker struggled so much to rein in his emotions. He dug deep, not allowing himself to break in front of the guys, especially not with them so pissed at him. “Because I told her she should go for a really good job.”

  “Doesn’t sound like our Addie,” Ford said, and it sent a toxic burning through Tucker’s gut—she was his more than theirs. “I feel like you’re leavin’ out a few details.”

  The calm-breathing shit didn’t work yesterday, so Tucker forewent it and stuck to the basics. “If she gets it, she’ll be working at the University of Alabama. For their football team.”

  “Addie’s gonna go redcoat and work for Bama?” Shep asked, brow furrowed.

  “She should, and don’t act like any of you wouldn’t jump at the opportunity. She’d be working for one of the best teams in the nation, doing what she was trained to do. She’d make more money than she ever could here, and while we all cringe at the thought of any of us yelling Roll Tide—”

  A uniform groan carried through the room.

  “—she wouldn’t have to deal with her asshole boss anymore, and she’d be doing what she loves.”

  “In Tuscaloosa,” Ford said, his voice softer.

  For all his brash ways, Tucker could tell it dug at him to think of her far away, and that made his anger and desire to punch him cool.

  “Yeah. It’d mean a move.” The weight of everything it meant hit him again.

  He knew how this story ended. She’d head out there and they’d love her. Weekends would go by where she couldn’t visit, or he couldn’t get to her, and she’d fall in love with the benefits and working with such successful, driven people, and they’d grow further apart.

  They’d have uglier, more devastating fights.

  Things sucked right now, but they could get over it. If they gave it everything they had and dragged it out, it’d only hurt more in the end.

  Only do more damage to their relationship.

  If he was even sort of financially stable, maybe then he could find a better way to make it work, but he wasn’t, and he never should’ve crossed lines. The risk had been too high, and he’d known better.

  Now look at the mess—it’d torn the group apart, just like they’d worried it would.

  “You think I want her to move?” Tucker asked, to no one in particular, and in fact, he found it easier to stare at the knot of wood in one of the cabinets. “Think I want her that far away? She’s worried about not being here for her family. For her grandma.”

  “I’ll help with her grandma,” Ford said, and Shep and Easton added they would, too.

  “And so will I.” Tucker cleared his throat. “Opportunities like this don’t come along very often, and she needs a nudge to get her to go for it, so I’ll be the asshole who gives her the nudge.”

  “Still don’t understand why you had to go and sleep with her,” Ford mumbled.

  So I could get that much more attached, and experience how amazing we could be together before life ripped her away.

  Life didn’t care about fair, and the timing seemed extra cruel, coming right when he’d gripped hold of that fickle bitch, hope.

  He replayed her rounding the cabin of his boat and throwing her arms around him all those months ago, minutes before Shep had announced his engagement. She’d hugged him so tightly and something inside of him whispered, There you are. Exactly what I’ve been missing.

  He’d loved her in a different way then, but over this past month of spending more time together, and going out on the water, and kissing, and…so much more—and he didn’t just mean the sex, although it’d been incredible—their relationship had deepened and morphed into something else entirely.

  None of that changed anything, though.

  “I crossed a line I shouldn’t have; I get that.” It tasted bitter on the way out, and even though it’d made a mess of things, Tucker couldn’t bring himself to regret it.

  “You’d better make it right,” Shep said.

  “I wish I could. But I’m willing to have things not right if that means she’s happier in the long run.”

  Ford shoved his hands in his pockets and hung his head. “This blows.”

  Amen, Tucker thought, but because things were still too volatile, he didn’t say it.

  If he voiced it, he might also add that it sucked way more for him, and he was the one who had more to lose.

  Everything to lose.

  Then again, with his center of gravity suddenly off-kilter and misery streaking through him, deadening every organ it touched, it felt like he’d already lost it all.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Addie stepped out her front door and threw her arms around Lexi. “Thank you for coming.”

  Lexi patted her back, the paper bag in her hand crinkling as she did so. “Okay, you totally initiated the hug this time, where usually I have to sorta force them upon you, so now I’m extra concerned.”

  Addie half laughed, half sobbed.

  “I gotcha, girl. I even brought reinforcements.”

  Panic tore through Addie as she cast her eyes toward the street, terrified Lexi’s bridesmaids would be storming in, and then she’d have to pretend she had a normal problem that didn’t involve falling for her best friend.

  Because yeah, she’d fallen hard, and the landing freaking sucked.

  Lexi moved into the living room and lowered her bag onto the coffee table, then she reached inside and pulled out a large bottle. “See, I brought wine…”

  Wine. Right.

  Maybe she could just choke it down to help numb the pain.

  “And, ta-da!” She brought out a six-pack of Naked Pig Pale Ale. “I know you guys like this stuff. And if you need something harder, I also grabbed Will’s bottle of Jack.”

  Addie blinked back tears and initiated her second hug of the night.

  Then they settled on the couch, and the entire story spilled out of her. About how she and Tucker had kissed after he’d taken her for a ride in his renovated boat, and then kissed some more, and how they’d slept together and it was amazing, but he didn’t want anyone to know. Then she covered the way everything had fallen apart so quickly, leaving off with the awful screaming match at the houseboat.

  Lexi listened, nodding and patting her shoulder, and at the end, she opened the Jack Daniel’s and passed it over.

  Addie took a burning swig and handed it back. Lexi tipped it to her lips and then coughed, her eyes going watery.

  “That’s horrible. Even worse than I imagined.”

  Addie shrugged. “You get used to it.”

  Lexi wrinkled her nose and shoved the bottle at Addie. “No thank you.”

  After everything that’d happened, Addie hadn’t expected to be able to laugh.

  She sank into her couch cushions as a maelstrom of emotions hit her, the sad and happy fronts meeting and leaving a tropical storm with the kind of hail that cracked windshields.

  The cushions shifted as Lexi propped her elbow on the back of the couch. “I’m sure he cares about you—I can see it in the way he looks at you. That’s why I kept pushing for you to say something.”

  “Then we both said something, and we took a risk, and now that our friendship is in ruins, I’m not sure it was worth it. Everything’s broken, and it feels like the kind of broken that can’t be fixed. How can we ever come back from this?”

 
“That’s what people say after every bad hurricane that hits. Then we rebuild and we do.”

  “I get what you’re sayin’, but the hurricanes have never been our friends. They haven’t cozied up and promised it’d be okay before suddenly changing course and laying waste to everything.” Addie pinched the bridge of her nose. “Oh jeez, now I’m getting all sappy and overly dramatic, and I’m glad you’re the only one here to witness it.”

  Lexi wrapped her in a side hug. “It’s okay. I promise to never reveal that Addison Murphy not only has emotions but actually lets them out once in a while.”

  The half-laugh, half-sob thing happened again, accompanied by a snort.

  Addie drank another glug of Jack, and then Lexi took the smallest sip before reaffirming her stance against it and opening the wine.

  In a shocking move, she didn’t bother with a glass, either. Simply tapped the bottle to Addie’s and downed a healthy gulp.

  Addie picked at the label with her nail. “I know Tucker cares about me. There are years and years of history and ups and downs where he was there for me. He sometimes gets protective to the point someone should protect him because I’m considerin’ throttling him, and he claims he just wants what’s best for me. I get all that. But I could tell the thought of at least tryin’ a long-distance relationship never occurred to him, and then he tells me he can’t get serious anyway, like we weren’t serious. As if that wasn’t enough, he gives me some spiel about having a certain amount of money in the bank before he settles down. Like I’m the kind of girl who’d demand financial security from a guy instead of taking care of myself.

  “I actually considered skipping the interview so I wouldn’t have to choose the job over him. My family factored into that, too, but leaving him behind was my first thought.”

  The giant lump she’d finally managed to rid herself of lodged in her throat again.

  “And it was his last,” she continued. “I know he’d never move back to the city, either. I just thought…” Her lungs tightened, deflating instead of filling with air, and pain radiated through her chest. “But he doesn’t want me. Not for good, not to settle down with. In the end, all the reasons I worried that he wouldn’t came true.”