Read Make a Right for Free Online Page B

stare that demanded returning, but with a little begging he wasn’t too proud to be ashamed of. “She missed them the way I miss you. I’m tired of dancing around the elephant in the apartment; fuck knows there’s no room for one. I’m sick of fighting, Cade. Talk to me. Just talk.”
    Cade nodded. Tuck watched him gathering up everything he had inside him. Not much strength left to draw on, but stubborn enough to milk it to the last drop. “I couldn’t forget what you said. Earlier. Literally. I can’t get it out of my head.”
    The purple smudges under his eyes had darkened until they looked like bruises; Tuck saw that plainly when he rubbed beneath them. God, he wanted to take care of Cade. Wrap him up in a blanket and make sure he got a good meal, a decent night’s sleep, and someone warm to wake up with. Cade was falling to pieces by himself—and though he saw it happening, he wouldn’t stop it.
    Unless this was the start of stopping. Fuck help him if he knew if he was doing the right thing, but Tuck nodded and let Cade go on.
    “I should say ‘no,’ full stop, to what you’re asking of me, even if it’s just for the girls. It’s wrong. There are so many ways it could go nuclear. I’d need extra hands to tick off the reasons.”
    Tuck could tell he wasn’t done. “What else?”
    Give Cade his due for looking Tuck in the eye when he said this, even if the deep-down hurt and denied longing in those eyes would shred a man to pieces. “And I’d have to be with you twenty-four seven for days, pretending I still love you.”
    Tuck shut his eyes and breathed. He didn’t believe Cade; he could tell when Cade was lying even when Cade believed what he said.
    But that was the bitch about this kind of love, wasn’t it? It went hand in hand with understanding what made a guy tick both inside and out. It gave them both sure and certain knowledge of just where to stick the knife when they wanted. “You know how to hurt me like no one else, I’ll tell you that much.”
    “As do you.”
    They sat in silence.
    Cade broke first. “So why can’t I stop thinking about it and wanting to say yes?” He let his hands fall open, palms up, on his knees. “Why is that?”
    Tuck bit at his lip and raised one shoulder.
    “Talk me out of it.”
    “I can’t.”
    “Can’t or won’t?”
    Fair enough, and as easy to answer as it was hard. “Okay,” Tuck said; he knew he’d never known when to stop. “I won’t.”
    “Why?”
    “You won’t like hearing it,” Tuck warned.
    Cade hadn’t broken the two-way stare yet, though he’d gone—almost—cold and still. Not entirely. Tuck could see the flickers of more than immobility deep inside him, lashing themselves down one by one. “Let me have it anyway.” Like he wanted to be hurt.
    So be it. “You’re not wrong. There’s a thousand different ways this could go wrong.”
    Cade nodded, listening intently.
    “The girls would be okay. Eventually,” Tuck said. He shrugged. “They’re tough. They might even forgive us. But see, here’s the thing. Back at Pius, we promised them we’d be there when they needed us. Always. Shit happened, and we dropped the ball with them too, these past couple of years. I’ve fucked myself over with one person. I don’t want to up the count to three. Not if I can do something about it.”
    The invitation must have caught a rogue breeze. It fluttered, threatening to slip loose of the magnet.
    Cade said nothing. Did nothing. There was a world of trouble in his hush, a whirling tide pool in his breathing that’d suck him down or spit him out.
    “Your ten minutes were up five minutes ago,” Tuck said. It was harder than he’d anticipated—and he’d counted on it being about as easy as slicing into his flesh—to say this next: “Your call. Are you leaving or staying?”
    The slanted glance Cade shot at Tuck confused the hell out of him before it warmed unexpectedly into a lopsided smile. “Ten more minutes?”
    Tuck