Used While I Pretended to Sleep novel · Chapter 16 of 24
Chapter 16: Say It To Me
Tucker came on Friday, and this time he knocked.
It was nine at night, and the lake had gone dark outside my window.
I sat on the edge of the bed in a clean white t-shirt with the lamp on.
"Come in," I said.
He opened the door and stood there with his hands hanging.
He had shaved the beard down to stubble, and without it his face looked younger and more frightened.
"Hey, Roxy," he said.
"Hey, Tucker."
"Byron said it's all right."
"Byron's downstairs on the porch with a beer," I said. "I told him to stay there. It's all right because I say so."
He nodded slowly.
He shut the door and stayed against it.
"I practiced this," he said. "In the truck. I had a whole speech."
"Say it."
"I forgot it."
"Then say what you said the other time."
His face went through three expressions.
"That's not fair."
"You told me you sat in your truck for an hour after I said thanks for the bike chain. You said it to a girl you thought was asleep. Say it to me."
He crossed the room and dropped to his knees in front of me.
It put his face level with my chest, and he looked up at me with his big hands on his own thighs.
"I sat in the truck for an hour," he said. "I smiled at nothing. I thought, that girl has no idea what she did. And every Friday since, I've driven up here to look at you across a card table and not say a word."
"Why not?"
"Because I'm forty-four and I fix boat engines. Because you're Byron's."
"I'm not Byron's," I said. "I'm mine."
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