Fourteen

David

“I don’t know how many other ways to tell you. I’m not coming home,” I told Katherine on the phone.

She’d called a half hour ago to try to convince me to come back, but that was out of the question. She knew I wasn’t coming back.

“David, be reasonable,” Katherine said.

“This is me being reasonable. I’m on the phone with you. I don’t have to be. I have other things going on in my life.”

“Will you talk to Mom?”

“No,” I said emphatically.

“She’d really love to hear from you. It’s been so long.”

“I know that you’re on their side, Ren, but I’m not.”

Katherine exhaled noisily in frustration. “Have you at least decided about the wedding?”

“Are you actually going through with it?” I joked.

Her response was feral. “I don’t talk about your poor life choices. You don’t have to talk about mine.”

“Fine, fine.”

I could practically see her eye roll. “So, just come home already. Fuck.”

“You know that’s not happening. Why must you keep bothering me about it? I have a new job. I’m happy here. I’m seeing someone. Don’t drag me back into your shit.”

“You’re seeing someone?” Katherine asked. Her voice shot up an octave. “That’s new.”

Well, fuck. Now, I’d done it.

“Yes. It’s very new.”

“Details. I’m still a girl here.”

“She’s my boss’s sister. She’s younger than me. Younger than you actually.”

“Robbing the cradle?”

“No,” I said with a laugh. Talking about Sutton actually lightened my entire mood. It was so much easier to talk to Katherine about this than to discuss our parents. “No, she’s definitely an adult. She has a two-year-old son.”

“Whoa! Wait, hold up,” Katherine said in disbelief. “You’re dating a single mom?”

“Yeah,” I said cautiously.

“That’s crazy! I never would have pegged you as the type.”

“What type is that?”

“God…not type. But I just didn’t imagine you as a dad. It’s super weird to think about. I still see you as you were in high school. Thinking of you with a kid…that’s just…surprising. Are you really ready to be someone’s dad?”

Dad.

Whoa.

Okay, so I hadn’t thought about it in those terms. Yes, I wanted to date Sutton. Yes, I loved Jason. Yes, I knew they were a package deal. But the word dad had never really crossed my mind. And, with my fucked up past…it wasn’t really a word I was comfortable with. I was not close to my father. Not by a long shot. My past was complicated. Adopting a kid…well, I knew that had a lot of its own difficulties.

I swallowed back the rising panic in my chest. I knew I was getting ahead of myself. It wasn’t like I was going to marry Sutton tomorrow and pick up right where Maverick had left off. That was a horrible notion to even consider. She was hardly ready for a relationship. There was no way we were going to move into that route anytime soon.

But thinking about it was…not rational. I needed to shut down those insecurities. Because that was what it was…my own fears about my upbringing. And, if I wanted to see where this would go with Sutton, then I needed to give it a fair shot.

“You know what? That’s really none of your concern,” I finally said to Katherine.

“Okay. Fine. Whatever,” she grumbled. “Maybe I can see you and meet this girlfriend of yours?”

No chance in hell.

“Maybe,” I said instead.

My phone buzzed in my ear, and I pulled it away to glance at the text that had come in.

I hate doing this in text, but…I really don’t think we’re a good idea. It’s not fair to Jason, and I have to make him my first priority. I thought I was ready, but I’m not. I’m really sorry.

My heart stopped beating for a second, and I held my breath as I read and reread the text.

What the hell?

Where had this come from?

I just…

I had no idea how to even explain this text message.

Yesterday, we’d have an incredible day together. Everything had been great with Jason. Better than great even. Things had gotten heated, but I hadn’t pressured her to do anything. She’d wanted what was happening.

And, now…

Now, we were through?

If she really wasn’t ready, then okay.

But this…

Christ, this didn’t sound like Sutton.

I didn’t know what to think. Because I wanted to listen to her. I wanted to believe what she’d said. I wanted to hear her call for help and her cry of pain. If anything, I just wanted to be there for her. We didn’t have to get physical if that was too fast.

But all of this because of Jason?

Something was wrong. I couldn’t accept this explanation through a text message. She was hiding. She didn’t want to confront me in person. I couldn’t think that she would say the same thing if we came face-to-face. Maybe I was stretching, but that was my story, and I was sticking to it.

“David? Hello? Are you still there?” Katherine asked.

“I have to go. I’ll talk to you later.”

“Uh…okay. Everything okay?”

“Not sure. I have to take care of something.”

“All right. Later then.”

I said good-bye and then hung up the phone. My hands were shaking. I took a deep breath and then shook my hands out. It was perfectly reasonable for Sutton to feel upset after what had happened last night. I didn’t want to think so, but that was ego, not logic.

Logically…that was probably her first sexual experience since her husband had died. That’d probably freaked her out. It had probably taken her a minute to come to that conclusion, and now, she was pumping the brakes.

I needed to talk to her and figure this out. Because we could figure this out.

I hastily pressed the button for her number and put my phone to my ear. It rang three times before abruptly ending. I cursed and tried again. No go. She was avoiding me.

Okay. Drastic measures.

Without a second thought, I grabbed the keys to my Ferrari and was out the door. It normally took me ten minutes to get to Sutton’s house, but I was glad there weren’t any cops out today. I broke every speed limit on the way over. The Ferrari was made for the long stretches where I could open up and blow past everyone else in sight.

I parked out front and dashed up the sidewalk to her front door. I didn’t know if she was home, but it was as good of a place as any to try. I knocked on the front door and waited for someone to answer. I couldn’t seem to stand still. I kept pacing back and forth in front of her door.

When she didn’t answer, I knocked again. “Sutton? Are you in there? We should talk about this.”

I waited a full minute before I heard the lock slide open. Sutton creaked the front door open and peered out. She looked like a different woman from last night. Her hair was in a topknot, she wasn’t wearing any makeup, and she was in yoga pants and an old tank. I still thought she looked beautiful, but I hated that she was beating herself up.

“Hey,” she muttered.

“Can I come in?”

“Actually…that’s not such a good idea.”

I ran a hand back through my hair. “You can’t send me a text like that and expect me to just be okay with it.”

Her eyes narrowed. “I think I can do precisely that.”

“Yes,” I said, blowing out a harsh breath. “You can. You can if you want to. But I thought we were on the same page. Are you okay? Did something happen?”

“No,” she whispered. Then, she glanced off to the left. So, yes, something had happened. “I need to think about Jason here.”

“What changed between last night and tonight?”

She paused before saying, “Nothing—I don’t know—everything.” She chewed on her bottom lip. “I thought I was ready to date, but I’m not. It’s still too hard. I was married a year ago and happy. Now, I’m alone and miserable, and I don’t know when that’s going to change.”

“I’m sorry. I can’t imagine this is easy.”

“It’s not. And it’s not easy for Jason either. Being intimate around him…even holding hands…I mean, what is he supposed to think?”

“We don’t have to be,” I assured her.

“I think you should leave,” she whispered with no conviction.

“Sutton…please, if this is about sex, I’m okay with waiting.”

She bloomed a bright red color. “No, it’s not about sex. It’s about Jason and…and me. Can you please go? I’m sorry.”

“I don’t want to leave you here right now. You look like you’re having a mental breakdown. I could take you to get dinner, or I could bring you dinner if you want to stay in with Jason.”

“Jason isn’t home. He’s with his grandparents.”

A lightbulb flashed in my mind. His grandparents. That must be Maverick’s parents, considering Sutton’s parents were both deceased. That meant that she had spoken to Maverick’s parents today. Had they somehow found out about us? Were they upset? Projecting?

“Did they say something?”

She choked on her next words. “I’m a mom, David. You don’t have kids. You can’t understand what kind of responsibility that is. I have to protect him. If I don’t, who will? Can you understand that?”

I nodded numbly. She was really set on this. After a year of waiting for this moment, I had only gotten a few weeks with her. I’d second-guessed whether or not I wanted Jason long-term when I was on the phone with Katherine. And maybe she was right; I wasn’t ready to be a dad. But it had only been such a short period of time. I was ready to be here for Sutton if she needed me, and I could grow into the other responsibilities. I hated that she felt that she had to protect Jason from me when he and I had been so close before this.

“Sutton…”

She shook her head. “I’m sorry.”

Then, she shut the door in my face, leaving me standing on her porch, feeling like a total idiot. If she didn’t already have some fear about us, then Maverick’s parents couldn’t have gotten into her head. I thought it was reasonable to be afraid. I didn’t think this would be easy or perfect overnight, but I’d been willing to try.

Now, she was going to throw it all away, and there was nothing I could do to change her mind.

Because she was right; Jason did come first.

And, if she felt it was better for me to not be near him, then by all means, I respected her decision.

But I didn’t have to like it.