Chapter Thirty

Today

It would have been easier to seduce him if I hadn't been told to wear a wetsuit.

"The water's cold," Serena explains. "You'll get hypothermia."

"Isn't Florida supposed to always be warm?" I ask, putting my arms in the rubber sleeves. "I thought that was the whole point of being here in Winter."

I stand in the sunshine of the patio, smelling the gasoline from the boat, listening to the motor bubble in the water. Wyatt and Ritchie sit in the back with Tucker at the center console, two of them having a drink, one responsibly swirling a bottle of kombucha. Tucker's head falls back in a laugh. He adjusts his sleeveless shirt. His lean arm muscles grow when he scratches his head.

Serena finishes braiding my hair, so it doesn't get wild in the water and asks, "So, how's operation Make-Tucker-Fall-in-Love-With-You going?" Her eyes notice my attention.

I zip up my suit. "At this rate, I'll probably have to get my arm chewed off by a shark in order to get so much as a pity-fuck."

She laughs. "At least you look cute in a wetsuit."

"I look like a seal." I spread my arms out.

"I'm sorry but you have to wear it. I don't need you shivering and complaining. Tucker will be mad that he has to save your life again , and he'll book a flight back to Georgia before you can say, I love you."

"This is stupid, isn't it?"

"What part of what thing that's happening is stupid?" She throws me a look and picks up a snorkel and goggles. "Is it stupid for you to be in love with him? Is it stupid for you to be staring at him with puppy dog eyes? Or is it stupid for you to not just tell him?"

I hold up the snorkel. "This came with the house?"

"Yeah."

"Did you sanitize it?"

"I used this all-natural -"

" No ." I walk into the kitchen and open the cabinets under the sink to find a disinfectant spray.

Serena follows, arguing, "Ella you can't just spray Lysol where you're going to put your mouth."

"Watch me." I spray the snorkel and leave it in the empty sink.

"Well, when you inevitably stick your tongue down Tucker's throat, he's going to get sick too."

My eyes go wide, and I clasp my hand over her mouth, walking her backward to the powder room. I gasp, "Johnny is in the living room!"

"So?"

"He'll have a conniption if he knows how I feel about Tucker. It's been the biggest thorn in his paw for ten years."

She leans against the vanity and crosses her arms. "Johnny just doesn't want things to change. He wants to move his life along, but he wants everyone else to stay where they are incase he makes a misstep and has to backtrack. He needs to fall back on the stability of you and Tucker."

"How do you know that?"

"Classic anxious attachment." She waves her hand dismissively. "Johnny doesn't matter."

"He does, though, kind of. Right?"

"No." She blinks. "What you have with Tucker is between you both. Your third wheel doesn't have a say. I mean, he kept you apart for so long. What kind of guy holds his best friends back from love?"

I wiggle in my suit. "So…you think Tucker and I might have been something if Johnny had been okay with it?"

" Babe ." She unties my braid and begins fixing the bottom of it. "I remember when Johnny punched Tucker for whatever you two did."

I recall the reason why Tucker let himself be hit. I explain, "That day Tucker said he needed to keep Johnny's friendship. He didn't think he and I could be friends. Johnny's relationship is the one he wanted to protect."

"Because Tucker didn't want to be your friend."

I consider what she's saying. "If Johnny said he didn't care, do you think Tucker would have made a move on me?"

"I think Tucker did make a move. Like, a lot of times. Like, a lot of moves." She pats the tail of my hair against my shoulder.

I cover my eyes, replaying the hundreds of interactions between us, bookended by the sprinkling of half conversations from this week. I whine to Serena, "He doesn't love me anymore. He told me."

"Then he's lying."

"How do you know?"

She huffs, "If I decide that I am vegetarian and I tell everyone I'm a vegetarian and want to believe that I'm vegetarian, but I still salivate at the sight of meat, then I'm not a vegetarian. I'm just choosing not to eat meat."

"But if he says he's a vegetarian, I don't want to force myself onto him like some rotisserie chicken predator!"

"Are you listening to me?" She grabs my wrists. "He loves you. He's always loved you. He's just scared. You just have to show him there's nothing to be afraid of."

The powder room door opens, and I gasp, spinning around to see Callie in her bathing suit, hand on her hip. She gestures to me. "Is this your kink now, Serena?"

I pull her inside and close the door. We're huddled together in a small circle in the tiny bathroom.

Callie whispers, "I feel like a trio of witches."

" Coven ," Serena corrects.

"Okay, help me," I start. "I tried wiggling my boobs at him today. He said it did nothing for him. He called me stale white bread."

"Bitch," Serena mutters.

"Fuck him," Callie concurs.

"That's what I'm trying to do!" I say. I lean back against the bathroom door. "He's not attracted to me anymore. I don't have any other cards up my sleeve. I'm not interesting. I don't have charisma. I'm not charming or delicate or lovely."

Serena shakes my shoulders. "You're wild around him. That's what Tucker loves about you. You're completely yourself with him. So be that."

The rubber of the wetsuit makes my back stick on the door and suddenly I'm falling backward. The door is opening, and I land with a squeal into arms. Tucker holds me into the crook of his elbow, catching me, and frowns. He assesses the three of us in this tight space. "What are you three cooking up?"

I right myself to a standing position. "Nothing."

He squints. "Fine. Are you ready to roll?" He flickers his eyes on my body. "That's a good look for you, shark-bait."

Johnny and Jen stay back while the rest of us go snorkeling. Serena directs Tucker to a reef she heavily researched and he anchors the boat. I am sitting in the back with Callie, only me and Serena in rented wetsuits, everyone else apparently warm-blooded enough to handle seventy-degree water.

Wyatt ties his hair back in a rubber band and asks, "You know how to snorkel, Ell?"

"Sure." I set my goggles.

"Do you know what to do if you get water in the tube?"

"Yeah. You just put your lips together and blow."

He collects his snorkel gear. "No, you put your lips around the mouthpiece. You need to push the air out."

I roll my eyes. "I was doing a thing. Hemingway, because we're in the Keys…never mind."

Callie and Serena jump off the boat into the blue-green water, the midday sun glistening off the waves. Ritchie finishes his drink and carefully steps down the ladder. He makes a sound, the water must be colder than he expected, and dunks under the surface.

Wyatt tosses me my disinfected snorkel and follows our friends, and I watch Tucker behind the wheel, on his phone.

"Are you going in the water?" he asks, his back to me.

"Yes."

"Well, go."

"Don't rush me." I fiddle with my snorkel tube, trying to connect it to my mask, and Tucker turns around.

He comes toward me. "Here, let me." He crouches down and attaches it. I put the plastic in my mouth and Tucker smiles. He says, "You look like you're fifteen again."

"Huh?" My sound vibrates and echoes.

"It makes me want to do this." He flattens his palm on the top of the snorkel tube.

I free my mouth to breathe and yell, "Tucker!"

He snickers and steps back. He peels his shirt off and says, "How are your swimming skills? Still subpar?"

My eyes do not need to look at his bare chest, especially when he takes this as a win, so I force myself to focus on his face. I stand, hands pressing into my rubber unitard, sounding like I have the world's worst allergies when I respond, "I am a decent swimmer."

"Uh huh. Sure." He pinches a smile that wants to creep forth.

I hate this. Whatever this is.

"I thought you weren't talking to me," I snap. "And you're over me. You don't care about me anymore. I'm nothing to you."

His face falls. "I didn't say you were nothing to me."

"You pretty much did."

"Ella, I said…that I've moved on." His eyelids flutter. "I care about you, I'm glad you know the truth, but there's nothing more to it. We're just friends."

My throat clogged, I say, "Just friends don't try to suffocate each other."

"That wasn't what I was -"

"Just friends don't stick their hands up the other friend's underwear."

He blinks. "I mean, sometimes they do."

Tucker takes a step backward, probably trying to pitch himself off the boat and away from this conversation.

" Just friends don't brush someone's teeth and kiss them goodnight and talk about remembering them naked."

Tucker's cheeks go pink. His knees hit the edge of the boat. "I mean, I might do those things with a friend."

"That's highly unlikely - Tucker!"

In his efforts to back away from me, he flips overboard. I see Tucker's shocked expression, hear a thump and then a splash. I peel off the snorkel and mask to rush after him and jump in the water, half expecting to see blood coasting on the surface. I hold my breath, twisting my head around to search for him, imagining his tall body sinking to the ocean floor where I won't be strong enough to pull him up. I'm panicking, not being able to find him. He probably hit his head. He hit something.

A hand catches mine. I'm pulled up to the surface.

Tucker squints, in pain, and shakes his hair back.

"Are you okay?" I grab his cheeks.

"I hit my toe."

"Oh. I was afraid you hit your head or something serious."

He glances down through the water. "Well, I do need my toe to walk properly."

I kick my feet and slide my hands to his neck. Tucker notices our closeness. He sees the movement of my hands. I'm afraid he's going to push me off of him, but his hands rest on my waist instead. The small waves move us together closer to the swaying boat and Tucker's back comes flush with the outside.

He lifts his chin out of the water. "Damn, it's kind of cold."

"You should've worn a wetsuit." I'm waiting on bated breath to see what he does next.

"Why did you jump in after me?" he whispers.

I bob closer to his face. "Because I thought you were hurt."

"Out of obligation? Keeping score? I save you, you save me?"

" No ," I say earnestly. I curve my arms over his shoulders for balance. "I'm not the one pretending we're just old acquaintances and that I don't want to dive deeper." My right leg hooks his hip, and he lets it. He even moves his hand over my butt, to hold under my thigh.

Tucker shudders. Maybe from cold, maybe from the boldness with which I press into him. He says, "It's that or friends for me. That's it."

"That's it?" I question.

He could kiss me.

I could kiss him.

One more small wave and I'd bump my mouth against his.

He bares his teeth in a grimace, noticing what I do, his eyes on my mouth. Then, Tucker's face comes closer to mine. He murmurs, "Thank you for jumping in after me." His cold wet lips press into my cheek and my body is wafted into his. My hands slide into his hair. His hands slide up my back. And then it's over.

He releases me. He's underwater before I can say a word, swimming out to Wyatt and Ritchie. Despite the chilly water, my cheek throbs where he touched it, a reminder to my brain and my body that just friends don't linger on a cheek kiss like that.

I'm glad I'm covered in rubber. Serena and I stay in the water for longer periods than the others are able, swimming after multi-colored fish and watching turtles coast through bubbles. The sand swirls. The sunlight shines rippled squares onto the coral and our backs. After we've had enough, Ritchie holds out a hand and helps me up the ladder.

I unzip my wetsuit. Tucker sits in his seat at the helm. His shoulders are hunched, eyes out at the water, soaking in the sunlight on his skin and probably loving that gentle sound the waves make. He told me once that it was his favorite sound.

I begin to free my arm, and then stop.

Rotisserie chicken predator.

"Tucker, can you help me?" I ask, coming to stand in front of him.

He frowns and looks into my half-open wetsuit. I'm wearing an electric blue bikini underneath. His eyes drag up to mine.

I raise a brow, questioning. He knows what I'm doing.

Tucker exhales through his nose, sliding his hands along my shoulders, picking up the dry straps, and pushes the rubber sleeves down to my wrists. I help pull my hands out. He could stop here if he wanted. He could recognize that Serena had no difficulty with her wetsuit.

Instead, his hands spread on my torso. I squirm a second under his cold skin.

Tucker mutters, "I know what you're doing."

His face nearly falls into my chest as his hands slide the wetsuit over my hips. I balance myself on his shoulders. Tucker leans forward, tugging my legs off one at a time while I pick my feet up and pull them out.

On his way back to a straightened posture, his hands gently drag up the length of my legs. Fingers bump over the knot in my bottoms. My breath catches my throat, his comes out uneven. Both hands find either side of my rib cage. My arms straighten, palms pressed into his shoulders, when Tucker sweeps his right thumb under my left bikini top. His rough skin grazes the underside of my breast. It prickles and warms. My whole body shivers with one sensual touch.

I sigh.

He groans. "Jesus, Ella," he whispers, eyes studying the movement of his fingers. His hands reach around and grab my butt cheeks, my jaw dropping in shock, and he lifts and moves me backward a foot, his eyes focused on mine.

"Sit down," Tucker orders. To everyone else, he says loudly, "You guys ready?"

I move with a warm head back to Callie and Serena. The sun is well past midday, and the boat barely sways but my legs stumble, my eyes bracing for a bright light.

When we reach the house, I change into a tank top and knit shorts. Tucker has already changed into sweats. He's agreed to take Johnny and Jen out for a short nighttime boat ride, so Serena called to see if we could keep the boat for one more day. Callie is making curry and rice for dinner with Wyatt's help, so the birthday boy and I are instructed to sit and relax until then.

Tucker keeps his eyes off me from the second the boat's tied up, until the moment I sink into the couch beside him.

"You have two whole couches," he argues.

"I'm cold," I lie, sliding close to him.

"Then put on warmer clothes." He snatches the remote control from the coffee table. "You've already marked my sweatshirt with your scent. Am I going to lose yet another piece of clothing to your reptilian blood?"

"I don't have any of your clothes," I deny.

"You've stolen at least three sweatshirts of mine."

"It's not stealing if someone gives it to you."

"To wear once, not own."

"Well, if you don't come back and challenge me for it, then I guess you don't really care."

He throws me a look. "What exactly is your plan?"

I observe the sliver of space between us, my shoulder pressed up to his, and think, this might be enough. I just want to be around him. I want him to look at me and touch me with the softness that he once did. If I get one more cold, indifferent look, I'll break like my twelve-year-old self realizing I'll never marry Justin Bieber.

I measure, "To clear the air."

"About what?"

"You know what, Tucker," I prod. My hand falls in the crook between us.

His eyes coast from my lips to my chest, and they shut, quickly. "Everything we have to say to each other, I've already said."

"Talking was never really our problem." I adjust in the sinking cushions. "We were always too physical to just be friends."

He's visibly uncomfortable. Tucker drops his voice. "That night happened because I was a good friend."

I twist to face him. "I'm not talking about that night. I'm talking about all of it. The kissing and the touching. Even just you holding my hand."

He glances at my palm.

"That's not nothing."

"I told you, I've moved on."

"At least tell me what there was to move on from exactly. Just an attraction?"

Tucker drops the remote with a huff, saying, "It's really convenient for you to wonder about all of this now . It would have been helpful years ago when I was drowning in a borderline obsession with you."

"Borderline?" I challenge.

He stands. "I'm going for a walk. Do not follow me."

I put up my hands and watch him walk out of the front door.

Agreed - I wish I had been able to see the signs all of those years ago, but I kept my eyes trained to see one thing that spiraled into another that spiraled into another.

I hate him to he's a nice guy to he's a good friend to he's my best friend. All the way to I love him .

I didn't have the right lens to see Tucker through anything other than the shifts and changes in my own perception. I can't just let it go. If I walk out of this vacation without hearing what he wants, feeling himself be wild and relaxed with me, knowing he didn't hold anything back and he was completely honest, then I'll spend forever wondering what could have been.