It was raining, and I’d forgotten a damn umbrella again.
I darted out of Wright Construction and straight toward my shiny red Ferrari. By the time I made it into the car, I was soaked through. Just fucking awesome.
I hated the rain in Lubbock. It’d come out of nowhere in the middle of the afternoon like a beach thunderstorm, poured until all the streets flooded, and then stopped just as suddenly. Except today it hadn’t freaking stopped, and my Ferrari really hated the flooding. I really hated the flooding. The entire city hated the flooding. And there was nothing we could do about any of it.
The drive to Sutton’s was full of people who acted as if they’d never seen water fall out of the sky. That meant I was constantly weaving in and out of traffic while everyone else drove like morons. In New York, I’d never had a car or even driven anywhere, and I’d still been a better driver than this shit.
Luckily, it was only a fifteen-minute drive, I picked up a pizza, and then I was parked outside of Sutton’s house. I was excited about today. Letting me back into Jason’s life was a big step for her. And I was ready for it. I adored her son. It’d been surprisingly difficult to be locked out of his life, considering I’d babysat him for the last year before Sutton and I even started dating.
I rushed across the flooded sidewalk, and my shoes squelched as they filled with water. I knocked on the door, shaking the water out of my hair, and hoping the pizza was okay as I waited for Sutton to answer.
But there was no reply.
I knocked again.
Still nothing.
Is no one home? She’d told me to come over after work when Linda was gone. Is Linda still there? Did I need to come back?
I pulled out my phone to text her right when the front door popped open. And there stood Sutton. Still in her work clothes with puffy, red eyes.
“Hey, what’s wrong? Are you okay?”
She sniffled and shook her head.
“Okay. Let me come in and dry off, so I can hug you.”
She opened the door wider, put her finger to her lips, and gestured to the living room. I stepped inside and saw what she was referring to. Jason was passed out on the couch.
“I don’t think he got a nap with Linda. He fell asleep right away when we were lying down,” she whispered.
I nodded and deposited the pizza on the table in the entranceway. I was careful to be as quiet as possible as I emptied my shoes of water and hung my suit jacket on the coat rack. She gestured to the bedroom, and I followed her, leaving Jason to take his nap.
“So, what happened?”
Sutton sighed and sank onto the bed. “I accidentally told Linda who you were when she was on a rampage about me dating.”
“Okay…”
“And she’d heard of your parents.”
“Pretty much everyone has.”
“Well, she kind of flipped her shit. She was already upset about me leaving two weekends in the last month. And I guess she’s pissed that I have a nanny.”
“You work full-time.”
“I know,” she whispered. “But I guess that’s not good enough for her. I think she wants to watch him full-time, and she was upset that I hadn’t asked her, but she never said anything. So, now, I’m left with her anger.”
“Okay, that seems like it’s all on her though.”
“Yeah. It is. But…she accused me of not putting Jason’s interests first. Then, she said you were dangerous.”
“Dangerous?” This didn’t sound good.
“A criminal. Or whatever.”
“I am not a criminal,” I said in disgust. “Why the hell would she say that about me? She doesn’t even know me. We’ve never even met.”
“Yeah. I know. I told her you weren’t. But then she just freaked out. She threatened to take Jason away from me.”
“She did what?”
I didn’t think that she could have surprised me more if she’d punched me in the face. Linda must have been completely out of her mind. How could she threaten something that outrageous?
Sutton wiped at her tears again. “God, I was so strong when she was here, and now, I’m such a mess. She said she’d take me to court. When she said it, something in me combusted, and I told her I didn’t want her in Jason’s life if she was going to threaten me.”
“Good. That’s the nicest thing you could have said to her.”
I reached out to try to comfort her, but she ripped away from me and stalked across the room.
“No, that’s awful. I can’t believe I told her I didn’t want her in his life.”
“Sutton, she threatened you and your son.”
“I know, but we should have been able to figure this out. She just reacted, and we should have been calm and acted like adults and talked it over. I want her in Jason’s life. She and Ray are the last parts of Maverick that Jason has.”
“You did everything right here. You gave her every opportunity to be a part of his life. But you can’t let her walk all over you.”
Sutton paced the room. I could see the machinations of her mind going in a million different directions. “This never would have happened if I hadn’t gone to New York.”
“Are you hearing yourself?” I asked in dismay. “This is not because you took one weekend off. This has been brewing since the one-year anniversary. They’re grieving.”
“I’m grieving!” she shouted at me.
I held my hands up and took a step back. “I know. I understand that. But he was their son.”
“He was my husband,” she countered.
“I know,” I said soothingly. “But I really don’t know why you’re even listening to a thing that she said.”
“Because what if she’s right?”
“Right about what? You’re not a bad mom. You don’t neglect your son. You’re not dating a criminal. She’s trying to get a rise out of you, and you’re giving it to her.”
“She’s not just trying to get a rise out of me. She adamantly believes what she’s saying. And maybe, if I stopped for a minute and considered it, I’d see where she was coming from.”
“Why? Why do you have to see where she’s coming from? You’re happy. We’re happy. Why won’t you let yourself be happy?”
“Because he’s gone!” she cried. “He’s gone, and I’m here. And, sometimes, nothing about that makes sense.”
“That’s survivor’s guilt talking. It’s okay to feel that way, but that’s not reality. We just had an amazing weekend. That’s where you are right now, and Linda is manipulating you to feel bad about that.”
“No one is manipulating me. I know exactly how I feel.”
“And how do you feel, Sutton? Because, from where I’m standing, I feel like we’re in the same damn place we started.”
“I don’t know. I don’t know. This all just happened. And I don’t know.”
“You don’t know,” I said, monotone.
I shook my head in disbelief. I couldn’t believe the words coming out of her mouth. After New York, after I’d laid everything out for her, told her things no one else knew, groveled…after everything, she still didn’t know what we were doing here. She was still letting other people and fear dictate her own emotions. I knew this part of the grieving process, yet it felt insane that we were standing here, in this moment, when things had been utterly perfect only a few short days ago.
“What do you want me to say?”
“It doesn’t matter what I want you to say,” I told her. “Do you still want to be with me?”
“That’s not it at all, David,” she said. “Of course I want to be with you. I just think I should take other people’s feelings about this into consideration.”
“You want to take other people’s feelings into consideration about how you should feel and who you should date? That makes no sense. What that sounds like is that you don’t really want this. That you can’t actually make up your mind one way or another, so you’re using Linda and probably Austin to justify it.”
“No, that’s not it,” she murmured.
“I want this. I told you about my parents and my biological parents. I confided in you about Holli because I thought you’d understand where I was coming from. I even had you meet my sister and then my mom. I’ve never put myself out there like this before. Not with anyone.”
“I know; I know. This is about Jason.”
“I think this is about you.”
She ran a shaky hand back through her hair. “Maybe it is about me.”
“I’m all in, Sut,” I told her, “but, fuck, are you?”
She didn’t answer me right away, and that seemed like answer enough. I clenched my jaw and nodded.
“Okay,” I said. “Okay. Why don’t you think on that and get back to me? I don’t think I can grovel any more than I already have to get you to see where I’m at with you. This is what I want. I put it all on the line. If that’s not what you want, then…I don’t know what else I can do.”
I turned and walked out of her bedroom. I heard a sob escape her, and it took everything in me not to turn around and comfort her. Because I wanted nothing more than to make her happy. To make my butterfly spread her wings. But I couldn’t prostrate myself before her any more than I already had.
I loved her.
She was the only person I’d ever wanted.
But she needed to make that choice. She needed to be the one to decide if this was what she really wanted. It would kill me if she decided that, in the end, she didn’t want this, too. But I couldn’t have the tug-of-war. Not anymore. Not after New York.
I snatched my jacket off the hook, glanced once more over my shoulder, and then carefully left the house and the love of my life behind.