Special Episode: Bear Hug
This episode is part of a larger story, Soft Touch. If you haven’t yet, you can go back and read it from the beginning right here.
Tucker sits alone on the couch, in the light of the fire. Softly, absently strumming at his guitar. Lost in thought.
Come to think of it, he never could quite understand Nolan. At least not completely. That’s all part of what he likes so much about him, though.
Nolan came into his life the same way he goes everywhere. Timidly, quietly, trying to make himself invisible the whole time. Tucker had seen him wandering around the woods like a ghost, more than once. A pale slip of a thing roaming the forest trails aimlessly, gazing around like he didn’t know what exactly he was looking for. Always alone.
Tucker had been to the cafe before and spotted Nolan working in the hotel, so he’d guessed who he was. He knew from Eduardo that the owner had a son, and from the trails he always saw Nolan walking on he knew he’d come from the hotel, at hours when any other employee would have gone home long ago.
Tucker left him alone for a while. He was wary of any interaction with any Morden. He knows what that hotel is about. But there was always something so lonely and sad about the figure that Nolan cut, walking through the woods on his own. Tucker’s heart just wouldn’t let him not at least see what the guy was like to talk to.
When he stepped out onto the trail Nolan looked up, and they got their first real glimpse of each other. Tucker saw a tall and slender man. Young, but with tired bruises around his eyes. Pale, but with otherwise strikingly dark features aside from the light green of his eyes, which were inlaid with one or two irregular shadowy spots.
Tucker was afraid he was setting himself up for some nastiness talking to anyone from that family, but Nolan’s eyes held no symptoms of that. They were sweet and sensitive and forlorn, and they widened for a brief instant as they gazed at Tucker.
Tucker plucks softly at his guitar, smiling to himself. He meets a good amount of people in his work, but he usually only knows them very briefly. The names and faces can start to get blurred and forgotten. Not that first meeting with Nolan, though. Tucker can perfectly envision every detail, from the way Nolan nervously caught his underlip between his teeth to the soft wall of summer forest landscape behind him, to how the breeze was coming in quick little gusts that made the wild blue gentians tremble on their stems and break free to bluster past Nolan’s legs.
It was the hour between daylight and nighttime, when purple dusk was falling but the landscape was still lighted by what was left of the deep orange sunshine. That lighting threw all of Nolan’s features into sharper relief. His dark brows, his sharply outlined lips. He left a perfect print of himself in Tucker’s memory, unbeknownst to him, unbeknownst even to Tucker until he went back to the outpost later and thought about it.
He seemed sunk deep in his thoughts, and his tired gaze was roaming hopelessly over the trees. As soon as his eyes were on Tucker, though, they stopped and stayed there.
Tucker said hello. Nolan said something inaudible. Tucker introduced himself, first and last name. Nolan introduced himself just as Nolan. From that alone, Tucker felt he understood him a little better.
“I hate that name, Morden,” Nolan would tell him later, as they shared a coffee together at the outpost one morning. He scrunched up his face as he said the name, like it tasted sour. “It’s all tied up in my mind with everything that I - I just hate it.”
Tucker had thought about it, then asked - “Is your dad still alive, Nolan?”
“No.”
“Oh,” Tucker said sadly, caught by surprise. “I’m sorry.”
“No, it’s okay,” Nolan quickly reassured him. “He passed away when I was really little. I didn’t know him too good. All I remember are a few piggyback rides.”
“Well - Morden is your mother’s last name, right?”
“Yeah, and she insisted I take it. Something something legacy blah blah blah…”
He made a revolted, scowling face, and Tucker laughed.
“Okay, then what was your dad’s last name?”
“Long.”
“Nolan Long,” Tucker suggested, gently nudging Nolan’s arm with his elbow.
“Nolan Long,” Nolan repeated, tilting his head to the side thoughtfully. Then he gave a little jolt and shook his head, laughing nervously as he reached for his coffee. “Oh, she’d kill me.”
Nolan is a bunch of seemingly contradictory surprises. He’d told Tucker himself that he wasn’t brave, but there he was a few months later, showing up at the ranger’s outpost with the official name change paperwork in hand to show Tucker. Beside himself with anxiety, but beaming from ear to ear all the same.
“I realized I can just not tell her about it!” he said, trembling and laughing.
Seeing him look so breathlessly eager and excited made Tucker’s injured heart work pretty hard.
Maybe that’s why Tucker has been thinking about their first meeting so much. He’s trying to understand if he could have foreseen in that moment anything that was going to follow, or any of the surprises there were to discover about Nolan.
The hotel is exactly as he thought it was, and so is its proprietor. On the lone occasion when Tucker called the hotel - worried about Nolan after not hearing from him for a little while - he’d gotten only a few words into asking if Nolan was there before an icy voice cut him off.
“You have the wrong number,” she’d said sharply, and the line went dead.
Just what he’d expected, but Nolan isn’t anything like what he expected. He grew up in that place, but he’s understanding and soft-eyed and gentle, warmly responsive to anything Tucker wants to say to him. There’s actually no one else Tucker would rather talk to about anything.
He never takes anything the wrong way, at least not on purpose. He always seems to want to hear what’s on Tucker’s mind. Whenever Tucker walks into a room Nolan looks up and smiles and waits silently for Tucker to say something. And he usually just does, because Nolan’s eager expression makes it genuinely seem like hearing what Tucker has to say is infinitely preferable to anything else he could be doing.
He’s so quiet, too. Like if he’s not intruding, no one will tell him to go away. Even his laughter tends to be silent, expressed solely through his eyes and his shaking shoulders. He gets self-conscious and shy pretty often, which Tucker can’t understand. He sure thinks Nolan is a handsome little thing. His features are so fine and delicate that Tucker is worried he’d crush him if he ever gets to hold him the way he wants to.
Tucker does have a vague guilty feeling like it was probably against the rules, offering a job here to someone because he has a crush on him. Looking back on it, though, he’s not sure that was the driving motivation when he offered. It was more about how Nolan was sitting in the armchair by the fireplace, crying his eyes out, tears glittering on his dark lashes and sliding down his cheeks. Apologizing in anguish over and over again for ‘coming here and making a scene’, shame-facedly stammering his way through the explanation of how he’d lost his job, he was going to lose the apartment he’d only just gotten, he was going to have to move back into the hotel…
Tucker was standing there with his fingertips to his temples, restraining the impulse to take Nolan’s delicate chin in his hand and tilt his face up and kiss him until he felt better. He couldn’t do that, of course, and it wouldn’t have solved anything. But offering Nolan the job did, so - he can’t really bring himself to regret it.
And he couldn’t bear to see Nolan swallowed up by that hotel.
He stands up and sets the guitar aside, then holds still and takes a few deep breaths, listening to the chirping of the crickets and the frogs outside, the rustle of the trees. Taking a second to steady himself out before he crosses the office to the bedroom.
He just really didn’t expect to find… anything like this. He’d have to find someone who was okay with him living in the ranger’s station full-time, already a deal-breaker for most people. That someone would have to be willing to get involved with him knowing about his heart. Also someone who loved and wanted him, specifically, and he’d have to feel the same way, and - all told it sounded like a tall order. A very far away dream.
He’d quietly given up hope on this front, eventually gotten used to the fact, and stopped thinking about it as much. There was no point in wasting precious time being sad about it, he reminded himself, sometimes to more effect than others.
Then Nolan showed up. Now it’s like something that was ice-crusted within Tucker just melted with all the heat and force and energy of a newborn star. He can’t think why Nolan always looks like he wants to apologize for himself. To Tucker, he’s something heaven-sent.
Heaven-sent, he unconsciously thinks again, stopping in the doorway of the bedroom to look at Nolan.
He’s in his sweats and a t-shirt, sitting curled up in the bed with a book spread open on the blanket in front of him. Clearly he’s got a voracious hunger for everything his mom would never let him read. He’s already finished one book from Tucker’s shelves and helped himself to another. Without Tucker even offering a suggestion, this time. He’s pretty sure Nolan chose one at random.
Nolan is blushing and fidgeting with a strand of his dark hair as he reads. One of his ankles is twisting in a slow circle, over and over again.
He looks up and hastily sets the book aside when Tucker comes in.
“Hey!” he says, a little out of breath. “What’s up?”
“Just came to see how you were doing.” Tucker sits down on his bed, giving him a searching smile. “Seems like - better?”
Nolan gives him a shy, clear-eyed smile in return. He really does look so much better, and Tucker thinks it’s due in part to him getting some real, good sleep.
The first night after the Ghost Office guys left, Nolan kept violently jolting awake in bed, snapping upright like a watchman who fell asleep on duty. The second night he slept like a rock, and for a long time, but woke up groggy and befuddled, seemingly more tired than he had been before. It was cute to see him all dopey, especially since his dark hair, which he used to wear swept back severely over his brow, is just starting to grow out long enough to look silly when he’s got bedhead. Tucker ended up nudging him into bed around 7:30 PM, where he promptly passed out and slept until nine o’clock the next morning.
He woke up with bright, clear eyes, looking like a man reborn. It was the first time Tucker had ever seen him without the dark exhaustion circles around his eyes, or so glowingly well-rested, or with such a peaceful, uncomplicated smile on his face. It stopped Tucker right where he was in the doorway. He just stood there holding the two cups of coffee, staring blankly at him.
All day long, as they went through their ranger responsibilities, Tucker couldn’t stop stealing glances at him. The strange thing was he felt like Nolan was stealing glances at him, too. He could swear he felt those green eyes lingering on his profile more than once, and Nolan kept darting quick, furtive looks at him as they drove back to the outpost.
There’s something about the way he’s looking at Tucker right now, too. Something that makes Tucker breathe a little faster.
“Yeah, I feel much better,” Nolan says earnestly, pushing a strand of dark hair out of his eyes. “I’m so glad the haunting is over. Knowing the ghost was out there had me really on edge. But it wasn’t a ghost, it was - something else. A friend. It’s hard to explain.”
Tucker breathes out a soft laugh, smiling at Nolan in baffled adoration. I can’t figure you out, strange one.
He fights back the urge to gather Nolan up into his arms, but with extreme difficulty.
If there was some ranger’s award for admirable restraint, he thinks weakly, I’d have it by now.
He sternly reminds himself that he doesn’t know how Nolan feels, that Nolan has never used the bear flag on the desk to open up that line of conversation, that Nolan is going through a lot right now and probably feeling pretty vulnerable, so this isn’t the time, if there is a right time at all.
Although - that’s kind of difficult to square away with how Nolan looks right now. He seems raw from everything, definitely, but this is the calmest and happiest that Tucker has ever seen him. He looks like he’s in a better place right now than he ever has been before. His gentle green eyes have never looked clearer or brighter or more focused.
So - maybe -
No, that doesn’t change the fact that you don’t know how he feels! shouts a panicked voice inside of Tucker, as he starts to lift a hand to take Nolan’s.
He quickly drops it back onto the bedding, then clears his throat.
“So, digging into my books, huh?” he asks playfully, picking up the one that Nolan left open. He puts his thumb into it so he won’t lose the page, then closes it to look at the cover. “Which one were you read-?”
He stops when he sees what it is. A book of poetry by Constantine P. Cavafy. That’s probably why Nolan was blushing when Tucker came in here. It’s pretty erotic stuff; the book is called Passions and Ancient Days. Without thinking, Tucker slowly opens it up again, to read the piece of poetry that Nolan was reading.
To have been so close so many times
to the eyes of love, the lips
to the body dreamed of, loved.
So close so many times.
Nolan’s gaze fell to the poem on the page as Tucker read it, so they both look up from it at the same time. Their eyes lock together across the book.
They both quickly glance away from each other. A deep blush is burning in Tucker’s cheeks, and he can see the same on Nolan’s. He tries to breathe more slowly as his heartbeat picks up.
Nolan is carefully gazing off through the window, picking at the blankets. He steals a swift glance at Tucker from beneath his dark lashes.
“Hey, did you smoke tonight, Tuck?”
“Uh oh. Was I not supposed to?”
“No, no, I-” Nolan begins, then stops, his eyes sparkling and his shoulders shaking with a soundless laugh.
Tucker tilts his head to the side inquiringly. “What?”
“Nothing. I just - I like your oops face.”
“I only smoked a little, I promise!”
“No, it’s fine,” Nolan says, in that way he has. So tender, so reassuring. “I was just wondering if you had a relaxing night, but it sounds like you did, so, good.”
He’s being strange again, Tucker notes fondly, realizing that Nolan is trembling all of a sudden.
“Hey,” Nolan says, his words spilling out in a breathless rush. “Thanks for lending me your books. Feel free to read any of my rescues from the hotel.”
“Oh, I’ll take you up on that! You know I’m always looking for something new. The lost and found doesn’t always deliver. People don’t tend to take their most beloved books out with them on camping trips.”
“Yeah, figures.” Nolan’s trembling fingers fidget with his lip, then quickly swipe over his eyes. “Well, if you’re looking for something new, maybe - maybe you should start with this one.”
He reaches over to the night table and grabs something, then presses it into Tucker’s hands. Blinking in confusion, Tucker turns the indigo-blue book over, and realizes what it is.
“What - isn’t this your journal, Nolan?”
“Mhm.” Nolan’s gaze is darting all around the bedroom, looking at anything but Tucker. “You don’t have to read it if that sounds boring. No pressure. But I - I really don’t know how to tell you how much I appreciate everything you’ve done for me. This kind of seems like the only way.”
Tucker draws back in surprise, then shakes his head, offering the journal back to him. “Hey, don’t feel like you have to-”
“No, no!” Nolan quickly reaches out and folds Tucker’s hand over the journal. “I w-want to. Honestly.”
“Okay…” Tucker takes it back, deeply moved, also a little flustered by the spark of electricity he felt when Nolan’s slender hand was curled over his. “Thank you, Nolan. For trusting me with this. I’ll give it a read.”
“Read it at your own pace, obviously.” Nolan is still inexplicably trembling, but smiling nervously. “And skip anything that you don’t find interesting. Seriously, please do skip all the hypothetical arguments I’ve had with my mom in there. Those are no good to anybody.”
Tucker laughs softly, then stands up, holding the journal in one hand. “Okay, I will. I’m gonna have one more cup of chamomile, I think. Are you going to bed?”
“Mmm… yeah, I think so. Why am I still so tired?”
“Think you’ve still got some full nights of sleep to go before you refill that reservoir, Nolan.” Tucker smiles down at him, running a hand over his beard. “I’m just glad you don’t seem to mind my snoring.”
“No, of course not,” Nolan answers, half-laughing. “It helps me sleep, actually. It’s a reminder that you’re right there.”
Tucker pauses, holding the journal tightly. He hangs his head to hide his smile as he turns away.
“Goodnight,” he murmurs, longing to say something a little more intimate, like sweet dreams.
“Goodnight,” Nolan answers, with a faint tremble in his voice.
Tucker softly switches off the lights in the bedroom. Nolan settles down into bed, puts the poetry book aside on the night table. Tucker stops in the doorway to watch him pull the blankets up over himself. His heart stumbles in his chest, aching as his eyes linger on Nolan’s curled-up form.
He clears his throat and slowly goes out into the front office, shutting the door after himself. He leans his palms on the kitchen counter as the water heats up for the tea. Nolan’s journal is on the counter next to him. After a moment he picks it up and flips through it.
To his surprise and delight, there are little drawings woven in with the words. Sketches of flowers he and Nolan encountered together in the woods, a bowl of oatmeal dusted with cinnamon that Tucker had made for him, Tucker’s flannel jacket hanging up on the back of the bedroom door.
An irrepressible smile slowly spreads across Tucker’s face. Looking at the drawings calls back a flurry of warm memories.
He settles down in the armchair by the fire with his cup of chamomile. He thought he might wait until morning to start reading Nolan’s journal, so he’d have more time. It’s already getting late. But his curiosity has quickly gotten the better of him at the sight of all the little sketches. He just realized that if Nolan drew pictures from the days they’ve spent together, he probably wrote about them, too. There’s probably some stuff about him in here.
That’s actually why Nolan gave it to him, right? It wasn’t just a sweet gesture of trust, it was so Tucker could read what Nolan’s written about him. So there must be at least a bit…
Tucker hesitates, debating using the drawings as a way to quickly find all the parts about him and Nolan together. He gives it some thought, then changes his mind and opens the journal to the first page. He’ll probably read the whole journal, anyways. Better to start at the beginning, even if he’s not mentioned for a while.
He reads the first few sentences, then stops, blinking hard. Much more slowly, he reads them again.
Thank god for Tucker. I’d go crazy without him. I always go to him when I feel like I’m about to capsize, and most of the time he doesn’t even know it, because I try not to let him see it. But somehow he always steadies me out. No one else has ever done that for me, not the way he can and always does.
Tucker blinks very fast, blushing a little. He sets the tea aside and curls up with Nolan’s journal, reading in silence as the fire snaps beside him.
I went to the outpost after we wrapped at the police academy for the day. I was on the verge of tears the whole way there. I got there and Tucker was looking after a duck who’d gotten hurt down by the river. It was feeling better, so we watched it waddle around the kitchen, and Tucker made me a bowl of oatmeal with cinnamon and brown sugar and really soft raisins. We were laughing because the duck stole a few of the raisins while Tucker was cooking. That was all that happened. We didn’t even talk about what happened at the academy, I didn’t even bring it up. But I felt so much better just being there with him. It was snowing, and the fireplace was lit. The air tasted like winter out there, piney and a little sweet. Tucker told me my scarf looked nice. We talked about the book he was reading. I forgot about everything else.
If the reason I’ve had no friends all this time is because I was waiting for him, then I think it was worth it.
Tucker reads faster, his heartbeat picking up.
He reads and reads in rapt silence. The fire slowly, gradually burns down, its light going from a rich orange to the deep, low red glow of embers. The trees rustle outside in the breeze, releasing gold and copper leaves with each gust. They make a papery sound against the windows as they bluster past. The moonlight moves across the room. The teacup is slowly emptied.
A gentle rainshower falls for a short spell as the sun begins to come up. The droplets on the windows glow with color as peachy light begins to spread over the forest.
Tucker has been reading almost without a break, all night long. But he’s still wide awake, leaning over the journal, his eyes on one of the last pages that’s filled in. He holds his breath as he reads:
I don’t know how to tell Tucker how I feel. I can’t just tell him that I’m in love with him, can I?
Tucker drags in a deep, shaky breath, reading faster.
What effect would that have on his heart?
Tucker couldn’t possibly come anywhere close to describing the effect this is having on his heart.
The only way I can think to tell him is to give him this journal, but I probably won’t do that. If I did, I’d want to take out the mortifying stuff about the police academy. And a lot of the parts where I wrote angry stuff about mom, because I don’t know what Tucker would think of that. From what I can tell he loves his parents very much, and they love him too, so it might be hard for him to understand where I’m coming from.
But I can’t really take any of that stuff out, because then I’d also have to take out all the times when he made me feel better or it wouldn’t make any sense. So it would have to be the whole journal that I give him, and just thinking of that makes me so nervous I can barely take it.
Okay, so then what do I do? I’m going to go crazy if I don’t tell him. I don’t want to spend another winter sitting across from him and wishing I was cuddled up with him. It’s on the tip of my tongue all the time. My heart feels like it’s bursting. I feel like I could never actually give him the journal and put it all on the line like that, but every time he looks at me I think about doing it. I’m afraid that one of these days he’s just going to look at me that way he does, that way I really love, and I’ll just hand it over.
Tucker slowly sits back, running a trembling hand over his beard.
He sits still in the armchair for a long time, gazing out through the window as dawn colors up the sky and birds begin to chirp and warble outside.
In blank silence, he puts on a pot for coffee, then makes up two cups, one for himself, one for Nolan. He drinks his, takes the other, and quietly slips into the bedroom.
Nolan is curled up beneath his blankets. It looked like he was sleeping soundly, but he stirs in the bed when he feels Tucker sit down on it.
“Mmm - did I oversleep?” he murmurs drowsily, his fingers curling over the blankets by his cheek.
“No,” Tucker says softly. “Not at all. It’s actually our day off. Thought we could just spend it together. Do whatever we feel like.”
“Yay,” Nolan mumbles, drawing a small smile from Tucker.
“Coffee’s on your night table.”
Nolan sits up a little, sleepily takes a big sip of his coffee. He rubs his eyes and looks at Tucker, then freezes, half-raised on his elbow. Their gazes meet, and linger locked together.
Nolan swallows, running a hand over his Adam’s apple, then sits up some more, looking searchingly at Tucker.
“You - you look like you barely slept,” he murmurs, with a hint of a question beneath his voice.
“I’m okay,” Tucker hears himself answer. “I’ll let you wake up. Be out in the front office.”
“I - alright…”
Tucker goes back into the front room and waits while Nolan takes a shower and changes into his clothes. Nolan ventures timidly out into the office a little later, his dark hair damp and glossy, his lips dark from being nervously bitten. The sunlight slants across his face, glowing on his long lashes and across the delicate bridge of his nose.
He stops hesitantly in the doorway. Tucker is sitting on the couch with the journal in his hands.
Nolan stands there breathing shallowly for a few seconds, then comes over to sit on the couch beside Tucker.
“Tuck, don’t tell me you - did you seriously stay up all night and read the whole-?”
Tucker sets the journal aside, turns to Nolan, and wraps his arms around his waist. He kisses him exactly how he’s always wanted to, softly but deeply. Nolan gives a little jolt, freezes up, then melts against Tucker, winding his arms around his neck.
When Tucker draws back, Nolan keeps his eyes closed for a long moment, breathing hard. He slowly lets them flutter open and gazes deep into Tucker’s eyes. He’s gripping Tucker so tightly, like he’s afraid he’s going to faint. His cheeks are more flamingly red than Tucker has ever seen them.
He leans back in and kisses Tucker again, moving closer to him on the couch. Tucker responds instinctively, and finds himself clasping a warm, trembling armful to his chest. Nolan’s lips taste like coffee and brown sugar, and his kisses are full of hungry, breathless enthusiasm.
Nolan gazes up at him radiantly when he breaks the kiss off and draws back, smiling like Tucker has never seen him smile before. His light green eyes are practically glowing, even in those little dark spots.
The eyes of love, Tucker thinks dazedly to himself, leaning in to kiss him again.
~~~~
Even pushed together, the twin beds make a pretty small surface area. Tucker doesn’t mind, though. He’s happy to have Nolan pressed right up against him.
They’re both still panting and red-cheeked. Nolan’s bare body is curled over Tucker’s, with one hand sprawled on his chest, his fingertips trailing softly over his chest hair.
“That - that happened fast, huh?” Tucker stammers, half-laughing, more than a little stunned.
“Yeah,” Nolan pants, hiding his face against Tucker’s neck. “I - I was already all - and then I read all that poetry last night!”
“My god, it corrupted your mind, just like your mom tried to warn you about!”
“Oh, noooo,” Nolan laughs, his voice overflowing with warm bliss. “How terrible!”
Tucker pants his way through a laugh, then gently pushes his fingers into Nolan’s hair, searching him with his eyes. His body is still trembling, and he’s still breathing unsteadily.
“Are you okay?”
Nolan lets out a happy, ragged laugh, snuggling up against him. “Yeah.”
Tucker can feel him smiling against his neck. He breaks into a warm smile himself, then wraps an arm around Nolan, hugging him close. He trails his fingertips slowly up his spine, kisses the top of his head.
“I love you, too,” he murmurs softly.
Nolan freezes, then buries his face against Tucker’s neck again, where he can’t see it. It tickles, and Tucker laughs, holding him tightly. He can feel Nolan’s heart still fluttering and beating hard, but his own heartbeat hasn’t felt quite this mellow and relaxed in ages.
“Am I hugging you too tight? I can-”
“No!” Nolan blurts out, a little wildly. “No, not at all! Don’t - you don’t need to change anything!”
He says it so fiercely and immediately that Tucker’s eyebrows arch up, and his hard-working heart floods with a whole new wave of warmth. Such a strange but sweet little thing, this one.
“Nolan,” he murmurs, toying with a strand of his hair. “Have you thought about what you’re going to do, now that the ghost is gone? From reading your journal, I was hoping…”
“Yes,” Nolan whispers back. “I really want to stay, if you’ll have me. I promise I’ll become a better forest ranger, now that I’m not deathly afraid of the forest.”
“Yeah, that ought to-” Tucker laughs, then stops abruptly. “Wait, really? You want to stay? Like, indefinitely, or…?”
Nolan raises his head to nervously look down at him. “If that sounds okay to you, then yeah.”
Tucker closes his eyes, then slowly opens them again, smiling up at Nolan. “Mhm, that sounds okay to me.”
“Well, good.” Nolan tenderly kisses his neck, protectively tightening the arm he has wrapped around him. “Someone’s got to make sure no ghosts come anywhere near you. I’m not having that. I won’t let them.”
Tucker breathes out a dazed laugh, shaking his head as he holds Nolan to his chest. “My strange one.”
He didn’t mean to say that out loud, but Nolan, as usual, doesn’t take it the wrong way. He smiles, hearing the love in Tucker’s voice.
“Yes,” he whispers, snuggling deeper into his arms. “Yours.”
Want to leave a comment? I would love it if you did, and you can do so on the Tapas episode!