Page 51 of One More Kiss

Jack

Against his better judgment,Jack reached for the frame on his desk and leaned back in his chair, the creaking of leather echoing in his almost empty office.

He’d been in the condo for almost a year and still, he’d never done anything with this room, hell, or with the house.

But for the picture of him, Meg, and Tucker that sat prominently displayed on the corner of his desk, the place lacked anything personal and looked as though they staged it for sale.

His chest tightened, the image of the three of them at the lake house bringing back too many memories, every one ready to cut him to the core if he resurrected them long enough.

The silence of his place, of his life, grew so loud, it drowned out the memories of Tucker’s nails scraping the tile as he ran from room to room.

Obliterated Jack’s memory of Meg’s laugh.

Come home, Jack.

Words he’d longed to hear.

But not for the reason he’d longed to hear them.

If they were going to lose Tucker, he’d never hear them again. He’d have no reason to drive back to the house on Bluebird Circle.

God, they’d shared that home for six years. He’d worked so hard to give it to her. To shed the city every night and return to the sanctuary they’d made for themselves on the Oak lined streets.

To see the pup he’d rescued from a dumpster behind Gold Logic pawn shop sleeping on the front porch waiting for him to get home.

And now how had to return one last time and what? Watch Tucker die? Watch Megan become truly alone?

He’d swear the only reason he’d even managed a wink of sleep at night was from knowing that Tucker was there, sleeping on Jack’s side of the bed, watching over Meg as she moved on without him.

He flinched, glanced down, and found himself rubbing his fist against his chest, against the ache that had been there since the day he’d moved out.

If he were honest, since before that even.

It started with the loss of their first daughter.

Grew with the second.

And became a dead weight settling in his chest, squeezing his lungs, as he watched his marriage crumble before his very eyes. Until eventually he couldn’t handle watching it anymore so he turned away.

From his life.

From his marriage.

From Meg.

His eyes burned as he stared at that ball of black fur. Tucker stared back, wise and loyal.

The dependent sidekick who’d started with him as a bachelor, stayed the course with him through falling love, getting married, preparing for fatherhood, the confusion of having his children ripped from him by death, and the shattering of his well-ordered life.

Tucker had rolled with all of it.

Jack’s ride or die.

If he had to let go of his best friend, the least he could do was give Tucker a taste of all the things he loved before Jack did.

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