There Is No I In Love

Tucker jolted awake suddenly. He hadn’t even felt himself start to fall asleep. It was so strange to him that one minute he was propped up on his elbows watching TV on his bed, and the next minute he was dead asleep.

He sat up, rubbed his eyes, and looked over to the other side of the room to see if Nate was still there. Tucker smirked when he saw Nate’s sleeping form, curled up on his floor. They both had apparently fallen asleep without knowing it.

Tucker didn’t want to interrupt Nate’s nap so he figured he’d occupy himself for a while until Nate woke up.

The blond quietly got off of his bed and stood up. It was only a little after 8 o’ clock, so Tucker was slightly confused as to why they had passed out like that.

Nate’s phone vibrated on Tucker’s desk. At first Tucker was going to ignore it, but curiosity got the best of him and he picked up his friend’s phone. He bit his lip and quickly changed his mind. It was none of his business.

Why was he so nosy anyway? What did it matter who it was from?

He didn’t want to admit to himself that he wished it wasn’t Chase. It wasn’t that he wanted Nate to himself; it wasn’t like that, he just was intimidated by this new guy that Nate thought was so cute and funny. Tucker was jealous, only a little bit, he just wasn’t ready to accept it yet.

He put Nate’s phone back where it was and sighed.

After sitting around for a few minutes, he started to reflect, like he usually did. He started to think what if he didn’t have a stupid internal battle with himself. What if he wasn’t so afraid of his father and he could just tell him everything. How different would his life be?

But only in his fantasy world could he tell his family that he was gay and they’d be okay with it, and then his life would be easier.

Nate stirred in his sleep and woke up with the same confused expression as Tucker.

“I can’t believe I fell asleep. Wow, and it’s not even late,” he said looking at the clock on Tucker’s dresser. “Why didn’t you wake me up?”

Tucker laughed. “Because I fell asleep too. I just woke up like 5 minutes ago. I think we’re stressing ourselves out too much with all of this school work. We should take a break for a few days.”

Nate nodded and got up off of the floor. He straightened out his shirt and fixed his beanie.

“That’s a good idea. I don’t know why we try so hard. We’re both smart,” Nate said, and walked over towards Tucker. “We’re kind of dorky if you think about it.”

Tucker smiled. “Yeah, we are. A pair of losers. At least we know it.”

Nate took his phone and put it in his pocket. Tucker wondered why he didn’t press the screen to see if he had any messages. It was funny how Tucker didn’t have many friends yet checked his phone every ten minutes to see if he had a text meanwhile Nate had an abundance of friends and didn’t really care if he had a text or not.

“This is a complete change of subject but can I see the yearbook from last year? I want to find out what grade Chase is in.”

Tucker tried to keep his face from looking irritated as he nodded. He bent down and dug under his bed and pulled out a few books. He had one from each year even though it was pointless. He owned all three of them because Nate did. Nate always got everything; he almost had to have everything. But it wasn’t a spoiled brat need to have everything, he just had an indescribable desire to own a lot of things. He liked having things…he liked shopping and buying and stuff of that nature. Tucker was the complete opposite.

Tucker could go shopping for clothes/ stuff for his room once or twice a year and be satisfied with the amount he bought. Nate would die.

“I hope he’s not a freshman. Not like it would matter that much, but still,” he said, flipping through the pages.

Tucker folded his arms while trying to resist the urge to go out for a cigarette. He never smoked in the house for many reasons. He respected the fact that he lived with 3 other people, one of which was only a baby. He also knew that Nate wouldn’t ever come over if his room smelled like smoke all of the time.

“Oh here he is. He’s a sophomore. Well in this yearbook, so he’s actually a junior. That’s cool. Here do you want to see what he looks like?”

Tucker hated how excited Nate sounded.

“Yeah sure.”

He glanced over at the picture Nate was pointing to. “I’ve seen him once or twice around school I think.”

Tucker thought that Chase was good looking, but he didn’t want to say anything about his appearance; he didn’t want to encourage Nate.

Nate closed the book and put it back under Tucker’s bed with the others.
“I’m probably going to text him tomorrow. Just to see what he’s up to. I don’t want to be annoying or anything. He probably doesn’t care whether I do or not though.”

Tucker unfolded his arms and shrugged. Nate’s attitude about Chase changed, and he wasn’t sure why. He was definitely more interested in him than he was the other day.

“You won’t know until you do it. So why not?”

Tucker was going to try to think of something else ‘supportive’ to say but he was saved by his sister crying.

“Do you want to come with me to see what’s going on with her?”

Nate had been over Tucker’s house thousands of times over the years but he hadn’t seen Kacee all that much since she was born. Nate wasn’t bad with children he just wasn’t that good with them either. It was only because he didn’t have much experience.

“Sure. I haven’t seen her in a few weeks. I bet she got big.”

“Yeah she’s growing so fast it’s crazy,” he said as he walked out of his room and into his mom and dad’s.

Nate loved watching Tucker with Kacee- it was so fascinating. He came off so hard and bad-ass but once he looked at his sister everything about his personality flipped. He became a different person when he was with her.

“Hey there little Kacee. Come here,” he cooed and picked the crying infant up out of her playpen.

He kissed her forehead and held her close as he rocked her. She continued to cry and cry and soon Tucker realized that being held is not what she wanted.

“She’s hungry I’m guessing. Do you want to hold her while I run downstairs and get her bottle?”

Nate held up his hands. “No no, I’ll probably drop her. She won‘t like me I-”

Tucker gave Nate one of his signature ‘smug’ looks. He rubbed Kacce’s back and slowly handed her to his friend.

“Just hold on to her tight and make sure her head doesn’t roll back. See, just like that.”

Nate smiled. “She’s so warm. And she smells like a baby- I mean that in a good way…she smells amazing.”

Tucker smiled. “I know right! I love her. Hey look, she’s settling down a little. She likes you. Stay put and I’ll be right back.”

Nate held the baby’s head gently with the palm of his hand and rocked her slowly, trying to imitate what Tucker did.

“You’re so lucky, Kacee. It must be nice to be loved by Tucker. He’s great, you know. You’ve got one heck of a big brother. You like him now but you wait until you get a boyfriend. Then you won’t like him as much. Trust me.”

The baby yawned mid-cry and coughed. “Weirdo,” Nate said and continued his rocking motion.

Tucker came back and handed the bottle to Nate.

“What? You act like I know what I’m doing here,” the brunette protested.

Tucker laughed. “It’s not rocket science, it’s feeding a baby. She’ll do most of the work, I promise. Actually, she does this cute new thing now, sometimes she’ll hold onto the bottle with one hand and like drape her arm over her forehead. She’s a little drama queen already.”

Nate smirked and maneuvered Kacee so she was in the correct feeling position. She looked up at Nate with her big bright eyes as he fed her.

“She’s so cute. Are her eyes going to stay blue?”

“I think so. I mean, they can change. But Francine’s eyes are blue and my dad’s are hazel so it could go either way. I hope they stay this color though, they fit her. Right Kacee?” He asked rhetorically, touching her cheek with the back of his index finger.

Kacee wiggled her toes and closed her eyes after taking a few more sips of her bottle.

“You’re really good with her. It takes me at least 15 minutes to get her to sleep while I feed her. And there you were thinking you didn’t know what to do.”

Nate instantly felt good about himself. “Well I didn’t- you told me everything. But thanks. I’m just glad she doesn’t hate me.”

“How could anyone hate you? You‘re the best.”

Just that one sentence made Nate’s heart skip a beat. And he hated every second of it.