“Why would I take your car?”

“I picked you up last night, remember? I need to get to a meeting,” he reminded me before it dawned on me what he was saying.

“Right. You don’t have time to get me back to my apartment.” I sighed. “I’ll just get a ride.”

“That will cost a fortune,” he argued.

I rolled my eyes at him. “I meant I will call someone to come give me a ride, not pay for one.”

“You could just stay,” he tried once more.

“The one promise you haven’t broken yet is that I get to finish school and graduate on time. Let’s not test the fates there, okay?”

He winced and moved to get off me. Tucker started dressing, almost robotically, while also refusing to even so much as glance back at me. “Tucker?” I called out as I too hopped up and got my dress from last night together so I could grab a shower and put it back on for the trip home.

“Yeah?”

“Did I make you angry?” If I did, it was on him, but I needed to know for reference, how to handle him in the future.

He turned toward me then. “Not angry with you, if that’s your concern.” He brought both hands up to cup my face and then bent to place a gentle kiss on my lips. “I’m angry with myself. I’ve spent a lot of years being able to selfishly get through life and not have many people question my decisions or inform me of how my decisions affect them. I don’t even want you to stop doing it, but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to want to pound my fist into something when you do. Not you, never you,” he was quick to tack on. “If I could beat my own ass, I’d do it though.”

“If you ever try, please make sure I get the invite to see that.” He laughed and then eased me toward the bathroom. Go get dressed. Lock up when you leave, and if you change your mind or can’t find someone to come pick you up, the keys will be out in the dish on the table by the door. I’m riding with Wes.”

It was a good thing he left me a ride because my sister was busy, and my roommate was either asleep or ignoring me. Considering she’d worked a long shift the previous night, I was guessing she slept right through my phone call, something that was confirmed by the time I made it back to our apartment.

It wasn’t as though I had class that day, considering it was the weekend, but I did still have a paper that was due on Monday. I got busy on that after getting into some clean clothes and sending Tucker a message that I had his car.

Chapter 17

When I got to school on Monday, a reporter was waiting to ambush me as I made my way to class. “Some say your marriage isn’t real,” the man suggested.