table, twiddling his thumbs, like this is the most normal thing in the world and he’s been at my kitchen table a million morning/afternoons before.
I take my seat just in time for Mom to serve up fresh toast and orange juice. “Thank you, Mommy Dearest.”
She swats me on the head with a dish towel before taking her cup of coffee back into the living room, leaving Tucker and me with a bowl of eggs and a plate of bacon covered with a damp paper towel.
“So, you’re at my house for breakfast,” I venture.
He scoops eggs onto his plate and piles it up with bacon. “Well, not actually for breakfast. More like brunch. But I never turn down breakfast. Even this late in the day. Long night?”
“Uh-uh,” I say, wagging a finger at him. “I ask the questions. What are you doing at my house on a Sunday? Scratch that. What are you doing at my house at all?”
“Your dad asked me to look at your mom’s alternator.”
“Well,” I say with a disappointed huff, “that’s a perfectly reasonable explanation.”
“But I don’t think that’s what you really wanted to ask me,” he says with a smirk as he hunches over his plate like someone might take it.
“So then why don’t you tell me what I really want to ask you?”
He eats a slice of bacon in one bite and washes it down with a swig of orange juice. “You’re wondering if I think Peppa Roni was really the most deserving queen last night or if her win was nepotism.”
“Cut the shit. Why were you at the Hideaway?” I ask.
He leans toward me and rests his chin in the palm of his hand and clears his throat. “It was an all-ages night.” He shrugs. “Sounded like something fun to do on a Saturday night.”
“So are you saying that you’re . . .” After almost two years of fooling around with Lucas behind closed doors and constantly wishing for something more, but knowing deep down that it wasn’t for me to pressure him, I’m not about to put myself in a similar situation with Tucker.
“I’m saying I went to a show at a bar on all-ages night.” He doesn’t say it quietly or loudly. He just says it.
“And you were only there for the fun of it? At a gay bar?”
He shrugs and smiles playfully. “I like the atmosphere.”
“Wait. You’ve been there before. What about Melissa?” I ask, trying to read between the lines.
“What about Melissa? She’s my ex-girlfriend. It’d be kind of weird if I took her out on a date. Don’t you think? If you’re wondering, though, she was a big Peppa fan, too.” He stands up. “I better get back out there.”
“So you’re not going to swear to beat the shit out of me if I tell anyone I saw you at the Hideaway?”
“I’m not trying to keep secrets.” He walks out the door to the garage.
I wait for the door to shut behind him before I let out an exhausted sigh. Did I wake up in the Twilight Zone today? I know that technically he doesn’t owe me any kind of answers, but I can’t get the image of him out of my head. His coy smile, neon lights blurring behind him.
I finish up my breakfast and shuffle out to the living room, unable to help how mopey I am. Mom sits in her recliner and is playing mah-jongg on her iPad while catching up on her DVR.
Dramatically, I spread out on the couch next to her recliner, daring her to ask me what’s wrong so I can tell her all about the way everything in my body right down to my guts is twisted into a knot and that I feel restless and aimless and just . . . less.
She doesn’t take the bait.
“Sweet of that boy to come over and look at the car. I told your father I’d take it in this week, but he insisted. He’s taken a real shine to that boy.”
“Maybe he can adopt him,” I say. “Swap me out for a more useful model.”
She chuckles at something on her iPad or at me and my endless misery. Probably both.
“Where’s Clem?” I ask.
“Hannah’s.”
Ah, yes, living her life without me. It’s like when we were in middle school and we both agreed to stay up late the night before a history test and blow off studying for reruns of Keeping Up with the Kardashians. Except when I passed out, Clem studied without me. Only one