Doctor Dash

Chapter 16

"I still can't believe you never told me anything," Danny complained, still in shock even though the news came to him several days ago. "How could you and Jazz both stay silent about this? For three years?"

Tucker chuckled awkwardly as he rubbed at the back of his neck. "It all started kind of suddenly. It was," he frowned, lowering his gaze to the floor, "two months after Sam's death, and we both still grieving about it. We kind of, well," his cheeks darkened as he remembered how things went, "drank quite a bit. When we woke up, we were in bed together."

"I don't want those details!" Danny rubbed at his forehead. He was happy that his sister found someone and that his best friend was getting married. The fact that they were marrying each other was mind blowing, but Danny was happy for them. He really didn't want to hear anything about his sister sleeping with someone though. That was simply too much for his mind to handle.

"I wasn't going to give you a detailed explanation of what happened." Tucker nudged him in the ribs with a laugh. "Well, I don't really recall much about what we diddo that night. I mean, we were both pretty drunk, and I guess one thing led to another. We might not have actually gone all the way that time. Anyway, we both decided it was probably a mistake, and we should make sure something like that never happened again."

"Except that it did?" Danny offered, frowning at his friend. The idea that his sister and best friend hooked up because of one drunken night was somewhat unsettling to him.

"Oh yeah," Tucker answered, grinning, and Danny was positive he didn't want to know the thoughts going through the techno geek's mind at that moment. "I always liked Jazz. I mean, it wasn't that same kind of infatuated crush like I had on Paulina and Valerie where I was pretty much just attracted to their looks. Jazz was always pretty and smart, but back when we fourteen, she was just like an older sister to all of us. I didn't really think about her fully in that way, I guess. Not really. I mean, she was there, but I always kind of wrote her off because I didn't think she'd ever be interested in her younger brother's friend. Am I making any sense with this?" He laughed, shaking his head.

"Uh, I think I'm follow you," Danny said, though the rambling was sort of circling in his head.

"Right. Uh, anyway, I guess it was more toward the end of sophomore year, before Jazz's graduation, that I really started seeing her as an attractive woman, but it seemed a little too late then since she would be heading off to college." Tucker shrugged. "I guess what I'm trying to say is, when that happened, I thought maybe I did have a chance with her. And when I kept thinking about it weeks down the line, I didn't want to forget about it. I didn't want it to be just some mistaken drunken night. So I got in contact with Jazz, and well, we talked for a while. Jazz still wasn't certain about the whole thing. I think there was some guilt about it. I mean, we got together that night because we were both still sad about what happened to Sam. But I urged her to at least give us a try. If we dated for a while, and things didn't work out, we'd go our separate ways and forget about what happened. But at least we'd know if there was anything real between us. I didn't want to give up that chance."

"Dude, I couldn't be happier for the two of you." Danny slapped a hand to Tucker's back. "But you two could have told me about this. Why all the secrecy?"

"I guess we didn't want to jinx it." Tucker winced, hunching up his shoulders. "Then it kind of became exciting, you know, having a secret romance going on. Sharing glances right under people's noses."

They reached the bottom of the stairs, and Danny headed over to the storage unit set up along one wall of the basement. "Secret romance? Sneaking around?" Danny chuckled as he opened the storage unit. "I never got that. Probably because everyone thought Sam and I were a couple long before we ever started dating."