Page 20 of Reckless With You

“Tucker?” she asked, frozen against me.

“Yep. You fell asleep on top of me, and then I passed out. Sorry about that.” I quickly rolled out of bed, tapped her side as I did, and rose up on my feet. I was still dressed, even in my shoes, and figured everything was fine. She would get over this, like I would, and we wouldn’t talk about it again. And we would definitely not tell Devin. Hopefully, he hadn’t driven by at any point because my car was in front of her house. Dear God. Wouldn’t that be an interesting conversation if it happened?

“Oh my God.” She sat up, her tank top askew so one breast was exposed, peeking its little nipple at me.

Oh God, why was she making this so difficult?

I closed my eyes and gestured with my hand at her chest after I’d cleared my throat.

“You better uh, fix yourself.”

She looked down, or at least I think she did, I didn’t really know since my eyes were closed and I was so not peeking. And then she laughed. “Well, that’s just fine, isn’t it?” I heard her rustling the sheets, and then she laughed. “You can open your eyes now.”

She was standing in her tank top, perfectly covered up, and now in shorts. I didn’t know where she had found them, but at least she was fully dressed.

“So, yeah,” she said softly. Then she looked at my face, her eyes wide. “You have a red spot on your forehead. Did I do that?” She rubbed her own head and winced.

“Yep. You hit me really hard with your head as you sneezed. That’s how we both ended up like we did. But I’m fine. And you’re going to be okay. Right?”

“I think so.” She looked so lost, I felt bad. So, I walked around the bed and opened my arms for her. See? Everything would be fine. We could be casual about this.

“Come here, talk to Uncle Tucker.” That wasn’t creepy at all.

She looked wary but still took a few steps forward before wrapping her arms around my waist. She rested her head on my chest and let out a sigh. I hugged her, but not too tightly. Nothing weird. I didn’t want her to feel uncomfortable. And I sure as hell didn’t want to feel any more uncomfortable than I already did.

“I’m sorry.” She whispered the words, and I didn’t know what she was apologizing for. Probably a little bit of everything—and nothing.

“You have nothing to be sorry for.” I put my hands on her shoulders and pushed her away so I could look at her face. “Things happen. You feel any better?”

“I have a headache.”

“Well, that was a lot of tequila. You tossed most of it, and I gave you some aspirin, but you’re going to feel a little bad today. But that’s fine. You’re allowed to be a little bad once in a while.”

“I’m sorry you had to take care of me.”

“It’s what I do, Amelia. We’re family.” I smiled as I said it, knowing that I’d just had very non-family-type thoughts about her earlier. But I wasn’t going to think about it. Because if I did, things would only get weirder.

“If you say so. But I don’t think I’m ever going to be able to face you again.”

“You’re facing me right now.” I leaned down and smacked a kiss on her lips. Then grinned. “Now, go take a shower and get to work. You have things to do today, young lady. And so do I. You’re going to be fine. You don’t need to think about that asshole ever again.”

“Everyone keeps calling him names.”

“Well, we love you. It’s what we do. Now, chop-chop. Get to work.” I pushed her towards the shower and then headed out of her bedroom without a backward glance. Because if I looked, I was going to think of her in the shower. And I really shouldn’t do that.

I quickly cleaned up a little bit of the tequila mess from the night before since she didn’t follow me, and then I headed to my car, knowing that I needed to rush if I was going to make it to work on time. People relied on me, and I needed to make sure I deserved that trust. After all, I was a radiologist, and I worked my ass off. I probably shouldn’t show up smelling like vomit and tequila or whatever else had stuck to me from last night.

But I knew better. I didn’t smell like any of those. I smelled like her. And that was even worse.

Hopefully, she would be okay. But even if she wasn’t, she had others to take care of her.

I didn’t need to be that person.

Thankfully, I didn’t live too far away, hence why I’d told myself it was okay to go and check on her last night.

In retrospect, ithadbeen a good idea because I had helped her. But I still didn’t know why I had gone in the first place. Maybe because everybody had seemed so worried about her. And I had seen that pity. I hated pity. As a foster kid, I’d gotten enough pity throughout my life. And everyone had looked at Amelia with a similar pity the other night. And I hadn’t liked it.

So, I wanted to be there for her, to check on her. Not to look down on her in any way. Because there was nothing superior about me. I only wanted to make sure that she was moving on and finding what she needed. Even if I didn’t know if that was my place.