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“How long have you been friends?” I ask.
“Most of our lives,” he admits, and my expression softens.
“Really. I just assumed you met here or in college or something,” I say.
“Nope,” Tuck says. “Childhood best friends. I’ve been there through a lot.”
“You knew him as a kid?”
“Yeah. We go back much farther than that.”
“His family too?” I ask. I am curious about the man behind the walls, but the moment the question leaves my mouth, I know I may be crossing a line.
Part of me wants the history because Marcus’s family is also Jamie’s family, whether Marcus knows that yet or not. But part of me simply wants to understand him, and that feels far more dangerous.
Tuck studies me long enough to make me wonder what he sees. Then his expression closes a little. “His parents’ marriage was rough, and trust never came easily to him. That’s all I’m saying. The rest is his story.”
I appreciate the boundary even as my curiosity sharpens. “Fair.”
“You can ask him,” Tuck says. “If he wants you to know, he’ll tell you.”
“That sounds ominous.”
“It isn’t. Ash just keeps his circle small.” He glances at me with a speculative smile. “What I can tell you is that he doesn’t make room for many people. When he does, it matters.”
I shake my head.
“Needless to say,” he goes on. “He doesn’t get close to many people. He pretty much never dates, no matter how many times I try to encourage him.”
“I don’t blame him,” I say.
“Which is why I find it interesting that he shows so much interest in you,” he adds. I snap out of my moment of deep thought and look at him.
Does he know?
Does he know we hooked up on the Ferris wheel? Does he know that I have a son? Does he know about the other…things…that have happened since then? I mean, he is Marcus’s best friend. My best friend knows. Do guys talk about things like that the way girls do?
“I work for him,” I state. I don’t want him to think I know what he’s talking about. If he is, in fact, talking about it.
“Right,” he says. “You work for him and you see him all the time and you go to meetings with him alone.”
“I am the director of events,” I say. “He just came into the company, so I don’t think it’s that odd for us–”
“I just told you as much as I’m going to about the man. The least you can do is admit that there is something going on between you two. I can already see it.”
“You…you can?” I ask and immediately hate myself for those words.
Tuck scoffs. “Oh yeah. I might be kind of biased because I know him better than anyone, but yes. I see it. He’s been different since meeting you.”
Meeting me now? Or meeting me five years ago? Again, I don’t really want to go into all that just in case he doesn’t know.
“How so?” I ask the simple question instead.
“Oh, you know,” Tuck shrugs, a funny casual response for a man who could dwarf Shrek. “He’s more motivated. Puts more thought into certain things. Smiles from time to time for no reason. That’s big for him. Taking interest in a woman at all to the point that she’s actually living rent-free in his frontal lobe, is big for him.”
“Is it?” I ask.
“Very big,” he says.
