Make a Right by Willa Okati Page B

the facing wall as Tuck had done. He clenched one fist tightly enough to vibrate.
    Tuck’s tongue lay still. He couldn’t say anything now. It had to be Cade; he knew it somehow. Again. For once and for a miracle, no neighbors were in the halls and no doors were cracked for eavesdroppers’ convenience.
    And so he waited.
    Not for long. “There’s a thing I can’t get out of my head,” Cade said without warning or preamble. “Megan called me Dad once. Did you know that?”
    Tuck hadn’t.
    Cade went on, rushing, wide-eyed with panic as if he wanted to but couldn’t stop. “She’d fallen asleep in the rec room, so I carried her up to bed. She was thirteen. So skinny her bones almost poked out. Carrying her was like carrying air. Me . She called me —”
    “And? You were like a dad to her, sort of.” Tuck raised one shoulder. “Same as I was to Hannah.”
    Cade shook his head sharp, hard, no doubt forgetting he didn’t have long hair to whip his cheeks with. “That’s different. You’re different. But me? I fuck up everything I touch.”
    Tuck stiffened. “Wait a damn minute. What’s that supposed to mean?”
    Cade put his hand up between them to warn Tuck off. “I didn’t deserve—”
    “Stop.” Tuck pushed Cade’s barrier away. His head swam with so much to sort through, so many questions jabbing at him like sharp sticks.
    Deserve ? Man, that made his head hurt. He had to think about that one. Or approach it from a side angle, maybe, starting with the simplest truth he knew. “Brother or father, what’s it matter? You were better to her than any blood family she had.”
    Cade scoffed. “She called me Dad. I can’t stop hearing it.”
    It took everything Tuck had not to just grab the man and hug him stupid, or hug the stupid out of him. Whichever. But if he let himself try, Cade would completely lose his shit, and that’d make everything worse in the long run. Loving a proud man? Not easy, not even when times were good.
    Tuck had to settle, unwillingly because it wasn’t enough, for a simple “I don’t know. Seems like maybe that means you should listen.”
    Cade snorted. No response but for a silence that wanted more words.
    Trouble was, Tuck’s well had almost run dry. “You want me to make it easy on you? I can’t. But you want to know what I think?”
    He waited for Cade to nod, not sure he would, and loosing a deep breath when, finally, Cade did.
    “Way I see it, you wouldn’t be here now if you didn’t want to change your mind. To go with me, to the girls.” For starters, Tuck thought but didn’t say.
    Cade closed his eyes. His lips moved. No sound came out, and Tuck couldn’t read lips, but he thought that was Cade saying yes and I know.
    How could one man break his heart so many times and still leave enough left over to break yet again?
    “I’d make it easy if I could,” Tuck said. “Trust me, I’d like to toss you over my shoulder and haul you down the road.”
    Cade laughed. “God. You never change.”
    “Made you smile. I’m not sorry about that.” Tuck rubbed his forehead. What he had to offer Cade, no choice, didn’t come any easier the second time around tonight. “You’re the one who has to make the choice. Are you out, or are you in?”
    Cade stood so still. “Pathetic,” he said, aiming the word at himself.
    “You’re really not.” Tuck stood back and swung the door to his apartment wide open. Couldn’t hurt and might help. If ever a man needed to go home and rest his tired head, that man was Cade. “Come on. We can talk about it, fight about it, whatever you want. And I mean talk , not fuck. I’ll be good.”
    Sometimes, in rare effervescent moods, Cade had teased Tuck about how he wore his heart on his sleeve. Speak for yourself . The only difference between them was the way Cade’s heart hung loose with ripped stitches and frayed edges, and Tuck had learned how to sew his on tight.
    He wasn’t the best man in the world. But he wanted to be