Chapter 14

14

SUTTON

I wasn’t sure why I felt like I was sneaking out of my house to see a boy. Nearly thirty and a mother who had lived abroad for years, it wasn’t like I was hiding a bottle of cheap booze in my purse or wearing low-cut jeans from Hollister.

Yet, I felt like I might as well have been as I adjusted my outfit in front of the mirror.

Wearing a simple, powder blue cardigan and a pair of warm, fleece-lined navy pants, I’d put on some light makeup and left my hair loose, even making a few waves in it with my curling iron. Through it all, my heart kept hammering and I couldn’t stop myself from glancing at the door every so often, hoping that my parents wouldn’t appear.

Winnie was in the main house having a sleepover with them, which she loved. When her grandmother was involved, my daughter was the absolute center of attention at all hours, and even though I hadn’t asked for the sleepover, I still felt slightly guilty that my parents were watching her while I went out.

Once I was ready, I left the apartment as quietly as I could, still not understanding why I felt like I was sneaking out, but I was also still glancing around and swallowing hard, genuinely nervous about getting caught.

Hawk and I were meeting up at a wine bar across town and I was glad I’d told him not to come pick me up. He’d offered to walk over with me, but I’d declined, already suspecting even right after agreeing to go out with him that I was going to feel this way.

Hurrying down the street in the brisk evening air, I only breathed again as I reached downtown. When I arrived at the glass-fronted bar overlooking the pier and the port where I was meeting him, I stared through the windows. Butterflies woke up in my stomach when I saw that Hawk was already there.

His dark brown hair was cast in a warm, golden glow on account of the fire roaring in the charming fireplace at the center of the bar. The soft lighting of the huge, exposed globes above added to the cozy feel inside. Sitting by himself at an intimate table for two, he nursed a drink that looked like whiskey, his strong upper body encased in a hunter-green, V-neck sweater.

Paired with jeans and gray sneakers, he was as effortlessly stylish as ever. I sighed. That outfit probably cost more than my entire wardrobe put together and yet he looked so darn good in it that the sight of him made tingles shoot through me.

Finally making my way into the bar before he started thinking I’d stood him up, I smiled and sat down. “Hi.”

Surprised at how nervous I sounded, I cleared my throat, but Hawk looked up from his drink and my mouth dried up completely when those blue eyes focused on mine. “Hi.” He paused for a beat before he leaned forward, gaze locked on my own. “Can I be honest with you?”

“Sure?” I said, not quite knowing why I sounded so completely unsure. “What’s up?”

“I’m really surprised you showed,” he said, a ghost of a smile on his lips. “Pleasantly surprised, obviously, but surprised nonetheless.”

I laughed. “Can I be honest with you ?”

“Sure,” he said, sounding a heck of a lot more confident than I had. “What’s up?”

“I think I may be more surprised than you are,” I admitted.

“You had second thoughts about meeting me here?”

I shook my head. “I should probably have, but no. I was glad when you asked.”

“So was I.” He paused for another moment, those eyes moving from one of mine to the other before he chuckled. “Okay, one last bit of honesty.”

“Last bit?” I asked. “That doesn’t sound good. What are you going to do after that? Lie?”

“No, but this isn’t exactly light chitchat,” he said before he leveled with me. “Your dad told me to stay away from you.”

So that’s what was going on the other day. “He straight up told you that, and you asked me out anyway?”

“I’ve never been good at following instructions. Unless, of course, you want me to stay away too, in which case, I promise I’ll listen.”

“My dad was probably right,” I said, my eyes boring into his from across the table. “It would definitely be better for both of us to stay away from one another.”

“True,” he agreed, surprising me. “Can I buy you a drink?”

“That’s why I’m here,” I said, ordering a whiskey for myself when the server came around. When Hawk arched an eyebrow at me, I frowned. “What? I spent almost a decade in Scotland. A girl picks up new habits when she does something like that.”

He chuckled. “Fair enough. Lagavulin, huh? It seems like you picked up a few good things, especially for a girl who used to get tipsy off half a light beer.”

I pumped my eyebrows at him. “I can drink at least one whole full-strength beer now.”

“Is that so?” He laughed. “I’d like to see it sometime.”

“And by a whole one, I mean a keg,” I joked. “Calen’s family would’ve disowned me otherwise.” At the mention of my ex, I shut up abruptly, exhaling a sharp breath through my nostrils. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. It’s such a downer every time I mention him.”

“Don’t be sorry. He was a big part of your life for a long time.” Hawk’s eyes latched on mine once more, holding them intently. He stared at me like he was trying to see into my soul. “Do you still love him?”

“No,” I said honestly, pulling in a breath and releasing it slowly. “Part of me will always love a part of him, I suppose. We had some good years together and he gave me Winnie, but I don’t love him the way you’re asking. I’m not in love with him anymore.”

“You still love him even though he hurt you so badly?”

I shrugged. “People are complicated. Calen did an incredibly shitty thing to me, and mostly, I hate him for it, but it’d be lying to say that there’s not even one small part of me that appreciates the good we had together.”

“Would you go back to him?”

“Never.” I shook my head. “That ship has sailed. It’s taken me a whole year to be able to say that, but I don’t want him back.”

“Right.”

The server brought my drink and I picked it up and sipped it. As I chatted with Hawk about lighter things like the village I lived in and the layout of his house in LA, Hailey suddenly dropped in on us. The girl was as blonde and beautiful as she had ever been and the sight of her still put a damn rock in my stomach.

“Hawk,” she said happily, laying one of her hands almost possessively on his shoulder as she came to stand next to our table. Her gaze slid to mine and I saw the ice in it, but her tone was syrupy sweet. “Sutton. How cute that you two are here together. Catching up?”

“Uh huh,” I hummed and gulped my drink in the hopes that she’d realize I had nothing to say to her.

“Hailey,” Hawk said politely, but I noticed him twisting in his seat as if doing so only to face her, but dislodging her hand with the swift motion. “Where’s your husband?”

She ignored his question, those calculating eyes still on mine. “Where’s Sutton’s? Oh, right. You’re divorced.”

“Happily so.” I nodded. “Thanks for the reminder.”

She smiled sweetly. “You’re welcome. It must be so hard to suddenly find yourself all alone. I don’t know what I’d do if my Ben suddenly just up and left us.”

“You’d figure it out,” I replied, but I was getting real tired of this conversation, laced with enough sugar that I couldn’t tell if she was being mean or not, and yet, it was still making me feel horrible.

Hawk must’ve noticed because he suddenly tossed back the rest of his drink, dropped some cash on the table, and shoved his chair back with a bit of a meaningful thud. “Actually, we were just leaving, Hailey.”

She tried to stop him, but he came around to my side of the table, eyes only for me, and took my arm. He helped me back into my coat before placing his hand firmly in the small of my back and guiding me out of there.

“My Lagavulin,” I lamented as we stepped out onto the sidewalk. “What a waste.”

“I’ll buy you a bottle,” he promised, his palm still on my back as he glanced at me. “Why do you let her talk to you like that?”

“Like what?” I asked, a little shocked by the question. “Like we’re still in high school and she’s still superior to me?”

He scoffed. “In what universe has Hailey James, or whatever her last name is now, ever been superior to you?”

“Oh, I don’t know. You did take her to prom instead of me.”

A long groan rattled out of him. “Not this again.”

“What do you mean again ?” I asked sharply, realizing that I was getting worked up over stuff that had happened a decade ago, but shit. I’d never gotten to say any of this, and seeing her with him while she still seemed to be out to get me had taken me back a little too far. “We’ve never talked about it, Hawk. There is no again . The fact is that you chose to take her to prom even though you were supposed to have been with me.”

“Okay, fine. It was stupid. I’ll admit that, but I was a kid.”

“A kid who basically kept his relationship with me a secret from everyone because he was embarrassed of me.”

“That’s not what happened.”

I stopped walking. “Are you delusional? Senile?”

“No.” He stopped too, coming to stand right in front of me on the sidewalk and looking deep into my eyes. “I regret what happened, okay? I was a kid and I made a mistake, but I wasn’t embarrassed of you.”

I snorted, folding my arms over my chest. My heart started smarting all over again. “My dad was right. We should’ve just stayed away from each other.”

As I started to turn away from him, he caught my hip in a gentle grasp and flexed his fingers just hard enough that I knew he wanted me to stop.

“Can I please just say this without you walking away from me?”

“Fine.” I spun back to him, hating how much I liked having his hand on my hip like that. In a way that was almost as possessive as Hailey’s touch had been earlier. “What do you want to say, Hawk?”

“That I’m sorry,” he said, his voice raspy but honest, almost like he was struggling with the words, meaning them but not quite believing he was actually saying them out loud. “All I wanted back then was to keep what we had to myself, but it was never because I was embarrassed of you, Sutt. It was because the only time I could just be myself was when I was with you. I had to be the all-star hockey player with everyone else, but you let me just be me. I wanted to hold on to that.”

He drew in a shuddering breath, but he wasn’t done yet. “I didn’t realize what I was doing to you until it was too late. By the time I figured it out, you were just gone. You didn’t return my calls. You wouldn’t come to the door when I went to your house.”

“I never wanted to see you again,” I admitted, tears stinging the backs of my eyes. “You hurt me, Hawk. Badly.”

“I know,” he said, eyes still drilling into mine. “Your disappearing act was no picnic either. Coming home sure would’ve been a lot easier if you hadn’t been here.”

We stared at each other for a moment, and I knew I wanted him to kiss me but I refused to admit it. The way he was looking at me made me wonder if he felt the same way. As if he was trying not to act on his feelings either.

But we both lost the battle at the same time, crashing into each other like we’d spent the last ten years waiting for the opportunity to do it again.