“For that comment, I will be shooting with my right hand next time we compete.”
“I guess I’ll shoot with my eyes open, then. Keep going.”
“Like I said, I was an amazing hunter. And an idiot.”
“Nobody’s disputing that.” My hand dropped to her stomach, tickling her until she said she was sorry.
“We dated for a while, just like that. I had this feeling that if things got too boring, she’d leave. And instead of recognizing that as the massive red flag that it was and breaking up with her, I proposed.”
Miranda had been so excited to be engaged. She was the first of her friends to get married. I knew she’d been more excited about the ring than me, but I didn’t care. I had won her. To the world, she wantedme. I was good enough.
“And just like that, she became immersed in planning our wedding. We started having way more good days than bad, and I was back to being the most exciting thing to her.”
“I remember your wedding,” Shelby murmured. My arm drew Shelby in closer without consulting my brain, and soon enough, strands of her coconut-scented hair began clouding my thoughts.
“You know what I thought?” she asked.
“I could take a wild guess.”
“I kept waiting for Rodeo to be the ring bearer and botch the whole thing up, but imagine my surprise when it was just some cute kid in suspenders.”
“I asked her if Rodeo could be in the lineup, and she just laughed at me.”
I had expected Shelby to laugh at that, but she didn’t.
“Youaskedher if you could have something you wanted at your wedding?” She said the words softly, like she was explaining something to herself. “Did you get anything else?”
I knew where she was going, and I hated it, even though she was calling me out on something I kicked myself for every day.
Sighing, I said, “Listen, Shelb, she is who she is. I brought this whole thing on. I was so lost in the idea of winning her and keeping her won that nothing else mattered. It’s on me. I knew what she was, and I still married her. I didn’t care about the wedding. She was happy planning it, and I was relieved that she was happy.”
And thinking about that angered me more than anything.
We didn’t say anything for a while. I was busy trying not to think about my wedding day. There were only so many times a man could regret something, and I was at my limit. It had happened. No going back.
“I remember feeling so sad at your wedding.” Her voice came out soft, and I almost groaned that we weren’t finished talking about it yet.
“Me too.”
I meant it as a joke, to lighten the moment and hopefully move us onto other topics, but neither of us laughed.
“I felt like I was too late.”
My body stilled. I looked down at her. “What?” My words came out soft, but my mind was now reeling with…the idea her words immediately invited.
“After I moved away, you stayed here with Dusty, and worked for Layne, and did rodeo. I remember feeling sad that I wasn’t a part of your world here anymore. I was busy with basketball and hardly ever came home. Pretty soon, we had our own lives apart from each other. I didn’t even know you were dating Miranda until I met her at Dusty’s wedding. I hated thatwe let ourselves drift apart, but it was at your wedding that I wondered if I’d stuck around, if you’d be marrying her.”
“What are you saying, Tuck?” My breath and my body were frozen solid as I held Shelby’s very warm and very real body against my chest.
She readjusted her head, sending another whiff of the tropics my way, and I had to talk myself out of pulling her closer, which terrified me enough that I sat up straighter.
“Remember when we were juniors and that senior girl with the blonde hair started chasing after you?”
“Clarissa?”
“Yeah.”
“She had the hots for me?”