Page 67 of Here's to Yesterday

We must read each other’s minds—or pay really good attention—because I head toward the ice cream and Tucker heads toward thechips.

“What chips do you want?” I heard him yell across a coupleisles.

I check myself before I start glancing around for someone watching, reminding myself that I want to let loose tonight, that I need to stop being the paranoid girl I normally am and let it allgo.

“Do they have the hot Cheetos?” I hollerback.

“My kind ofwoman!”

The grin overtakes my face before I can stop it. Then I realize that it’s now okay to grin over the cheesy things Tucker says to me. So I do. I smile like a kid on Christmas day, simply because Ican.

I glance around the small ice cream section and come to the conclusion that I have no idea what type of ice cream he likes. So I take a page out of his book and yell, “Mint cookies or fudgebrownies?”

“Geez, Maura. No need to yell. I’m right here,” Tucker says from behindme.

“Jesus!” I yelp and jump around to face him. “You scared the shit out ofme!”

“I prefer Tucker,” hewinks.

I reach out to smack his chest, but he dodges me, almost causing me to fall into a shelf. “Ass,” Imumble.

“But I’myourass.”

My eyes close briefly in response to his statement and slight emphasis onyour. I assume it was an automatic response of sorts on his part. Or at least that’s what I’m going to tell myself. I can’t help but wonder if I’ll always feel this way, if I’ll always feel guilty when Tucker says these type of things, or if it’s because this is all still sofresh.

Ignoring whatever that was, I grab two random pints of ice cream and head toward the booze. Looking over at Tucker as we’re standing in front of the not-so-impressive collections, I say, “Red orwhite?”

“White,” he replies, his gaze filled with a silent apology, sensing that tonight may not be the night for phrases likethat.

My response? I thread my fingers throughhis.

* * *

“So this iswhat a bachelor’s place lookslike.”

I glance around the small, sparse apartment. It’s relatively clean. To my astonishment, there’s only one empty pizza box, three scattered water bottles, and one bowl on thecounter.

“Yep. Sorry it’s a mess. We weren’t expecting company,” he says, grabbing the box and bottles, carrying them into the small kitchen along with our bag of snacks andwine.

“We?”

“We. Gaige lives heretoo.”

“Huh. I didn’t know that,” I say, genuinely shocked. “For howlong?”

“A couple months now. He was having troubles athome.”

“Wait. He still lived at home? I thought Gaige was like super responsible orsomething.”

Tucker regards me with serious eyes. “Heis.”

I get his meaning in those two words. Guess there’s a lot more to Gaige than he lets on. Seems to be a theme aroundhere.

“How come you live with youraunt?”

I shrug when I know he can’t see me. “You’ve met my mother. That should be reasonenough.”

“Point taken,” Tucker says, resting up against the wall that joins the living room and kitchen. He crosses his arms and legs, watching me with curious eyes. “And the realreason?”

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