Chapter 22

22

SUTTON

W innie had been elated to have another sleepover in the big house tonight with Grandpa and Grandma, but my dad was definitely suspicious when I dropped her off. She gave me a quick hug, her thin little arms squeezing me as hard as she could.

“Bye, Mam! Sleep tight. See you in the morning.”

As soon as she released me, those red curls sailed out behind her at the speed with which she turned and ran inside, but my dad stood in the doorway, his gaze looking me up and down.

“Where are you off to?” he asked, obviously noticing that I was dressed up. “You look much too nice to be staying home.”

“I’m just going downtown for drinks with a friend.”

It wasn’t a lie. Hawk was a friend and I was meeting him for a drink, but the way my dad’s eyebrows arched told me he knew I wasn’t being entirely truthful. Before he could ask, however, Mom called out from inside.

“Leave her alone, David. Get in here. Winnie’s getting Scrabble ready for us.”

He held my gaze for another beat before he shook his head, but didn’t say another word as he shut the door, calling back to my mom that he’d be right there. As I left, I wondered why he was being so weird right now.

Sure, Hawk had broken my heart, but that had been over ten years ago and I was looking at things now with a fully developed frontal lobe. I was already fully aware that none of this meant anything, and while it was true that my heart was involved again, my eyes were wide open.

Since Thanksgiving was next week, downtown Portsmouth was glimmering with lights and decorations that made it feel like something out of a movie. There was a small night market going on in the square, and that was where I was meeting Hawk.

Trying to put all my worries about my dad out of my mind as I approached the beautifully decorated streets, I decided to just take everything day by day. With Calen’s potential visit coming up, Dad’s concern, Mom’s weird encouragement, and Winnie’s hope that her role in the play would make her father love her again, there was just too much going on for me to take it all onboard at once.

What I could do, right now, was to appreciate my hometown’s love for Thanksgiving and to enjoy being in the States for it for the first time in years. When I got to the market, I walked around a little bit, but it didn’t look like Hawk had arrived yet.

Grabbing a hot cocoa complete with sprinkles, whipped cream, and tiny marshmallows, I admired the lights and the decorations, stopping at every little stall to see what treasures the locals were producing these days. I was actually enjoying myself until a too-sweet voice rang out from behind me.

“Sutton! There you are.”

I groaned internally, twisting to see Hailey racing to catch up to me like we were old friends. God, why does she have to be everywhere?

Dressed in a pink pea-coat and white jeans with cute little ankle boots, her golden hair shone under the warm lights strung up in the square. She looked like a freaking vision and instantly she made me feel like the ugly duckling again.

“Congratulations on Winnie’s lead role,” she said, over-the-top sweet again. The syrupy smile on her face was contradicted by the ice in her eyes, though. I had no idea why she was even pretending. “Clancy is crushed not to have gotten it. I just hope Winnie can perform on the day.”

I frowned, really not liking the way she’d said it. Almost like it’d been a threat. Taking a step closer to her, I folded my arms and cocked my head, looking her right in the eyes. “What is your problem?”

“I don’t have a problem.” She batted her lashes innocently before sending me a cold, pitying smile. “I wouldn’t give someone like you a single thought, actually. Let alone to give you enough thought to develop a problem with you.”

I saw the malice glinting in her eyes as she stepped forward, though. Holding my gaze, that fake-ass smile spread a little bit wider. “It’s so nice having Hawk back in town, isn’t it? The prom king to my prom queen. We were so perfect together.”

“Maybe you should go tell your husband that,” I said snidely, immediately ashamed of myself for sinking to her level, but fuck this bitch.

Feeling horrible about the encounter as well as my own behavior, I stared at her for another beat. When she opened her mouth to speak again, I ignored her. Instead of waiting for her response, I turned and stormed off, deciding to just go home.

“Sutton!” Hawk called to me from somewhere, but I didn’t even bother to turn and look. “Hey, where are you going? I’m sorry I’m late.”

Footsteps crunched on the dry leaves behind me. Suddenly, he was there, his voice light and easy as he fell into step beside me. “Emery and the boys kept me for a minute, but seriously, where are you even going?”

I felt his gaze on the side of my face as I kept looking straight ahead. My hands were in fists at my sides as I continued my march away from the market. “Sutton? Are you okay? What happened? You look really upset.”

“Of course, I’m upset.” I spun to face him, my heart shattering as I looked into those clear blue eyes. I’d known it was coming, though. I’d simply thought I had more time. “Why are you even talking to me, Hawk? What changed that suddenly made you want to be around me again? In public, no less.”

His lips popped open and his jaw slackened, but I’d only just hopped onto my high horse. There was a lot more where that had come from.

“I’m still the nerdy girl with my head constantly in books,” I snapped, breathing hard. I took in his windblown dark hair and the hurt suddenly flickering in his eyes. I wished I could stop myself but I couldn’t.

All it had taken to push me over the edge I’d been trying to keep myself balanced upon had been that last interaction with Hailey. It wasn’t enough that she’d been coming after me since my freshman fucking year of high school.

Now, she was even threatening my daughter and I couldn’t take it. It was too much, and I had no doubt that hanging around with Hawk would make it even worse.

“I’m not as pretty or as skinny as someone like Hailey or the models you date, and I’m never going to be.” Tears brimmed in my eyes, my voice catching. I thought about the pictures I’d seen online earlier. I walked backward away from him, stuffing down a rising sob. I threw my arms out to my sides and held his gaze. “I have nothing to offer you, Hawk. I’m a single mom with a daughter whose heart is already broken because the man who should love her no matter what has abandoned her. I can’t put her through something like that again, and you know what? I can’t go through it again myself either.”

“First, I’m not Calen,” Hawk said, his voice low and serious. He stalked toward me, only stopping when he was a foot away. “Second, what the actual fuck is happening right now?”

“Just leave me alone,” I spat, starting to turn.

He grabbed my wrist in a gentle grasp and spun me back to face him again. “Do you really think I think that little of you? That I ever have?”

“Yes,” I forced the word out, but the best I could manage was a whisper. “You didn’t want me, remember? You wanted Hailey and I can’t help but wonder if you’d be spending any time with me now if she was still single, but you know what? I’m pretty sure she’d leave her precious Ben for you in a heartbeat if you told her you still wanted her. So go. Find her. She’s at the market somewhere.”

I tugged at my arm to free it from his grasp, but instead of letting go and rushing after his dream girl, he tightened his grip on me. Aggravation rolled through him, frustration shining from his eyes and widening them. He shook his head at me.

“For fuck’s sake, how many times do I have to apologize for that?” he asked, his voice still low but surprisingly gentle. Those eyes were burning with the hottest of flames. Then his features softened and he hung his head, but his gaze remained on mine. “I’m sorry, okay? I am so fucking, insanely sorry that I took Hailey to prom, but I didn’t want her then and I don’t want her now.”

“Excuse me? If you’re going to lie?—”

“I’m not lying,” he suddenly roared, his chin coming up again. Those eyes still seared into mine. “I’m not fucking lying, Sutton. I have never wanted that girl. Not even for a second. I asked her because I thought it made sense for the hockey player to go with the head cheerleader. That’s it. That’s all there was to it. Ask me what she was wearing that night.”

“I’d rather not know.”

“Ask. Me.”

I sighed, giving up on fighting against his grasp. I tilted my head back to look at him fully. “What did she wear to prom?”

“No fucking idea,” he snapped irritably. “It could’ve been a paper bag for all I knew. Now ask me what you were wearing that night I came to tell you I’d asked her. Ask me what you were wearing the last time I spoke to you before we both got home a few weeks ago.”

“Hawk—”

“Ask me, Sutton.”

“Fine.” I exhaled harshly through my nose, my heart pounding violently against my ribs. “What was I wearing?”

“That ratty old navy blue sweater you’d had since you were fourteen. You bought it in the boys’ section of the store because you thought it looked comfortable and you insisted it was the best purchase you’d ever made. Your hair was up, but not all of it. About a third had come out of your ponytail in the wind that afternoon when we’d walked home from the bookstore together.”

I blinked hard, feeling the tears build behind my eyes. He was right. I remembered all that vividly myself. I just didn’t know yet what he was trying to prove by scratching open all these damn wounds.

“You had on your jeans with the rips at the knees, and you hadn’t bought them that way. Most of those rips came from being at the port and on the boats with me. The biggest one was when you caught them on the edge of the treehouse at Luke’s place. Do you remember that?”

I dipped my chin in a nod, but I still didn’t speak because I couldn’t. Instead, I just stared at him. He shoved his free hand into his hair and lifted his gaze away from mine, closing his eyes for a beat. He cursed under his breath before he looked at me again.

“I didn’t take you to prom because I didn’t want to admit to myself that I was in love with my best friend. My safe place. I was too afraid that I would lose you, and then I lost you anyway and I have never felt that bad in my entire fucking life.”

My heart felt like every one of his words was tying another rope around it, tethering me to him so securely that the stupid organ would belong to him. Forever.

“I didn’t even feel that bad when my mom died, because that wasn’t my fault. Cancer took her from us, but this? Us? That was my fault and I hated myself for it, but I made a mistake, Sutton. All those years ago, I was a fucking teenager and I made a mistake.”

The tears finally welled in my eyes and a sob wracked through me. Hawk’s face collapsed and he tugged me to him. He wrapped me up in his arms and held me so tightly, it felt like he was physically holding me together.

“You have been on my mind every second of every day since I’ve come home, and when I told you earlier that I haven’t settled down because I haven’t thought about it? That was a lie. Sort of. I haven’t thought about it for years, but the real reason why I haven’t thought about it again is you were gone, Sutton. You were gone, and you were it for me.”

He pulled his head back then so he could look into my eyes, but he kept me gathered in his arms. Hot tears spilled down my cheeks in an unstoppable flood. “If I could go back, I’d do things differently. I would’ve taken you to prom. I would’ve married you, had a life with you, and I would’ve been Winnie’s father. I hate that the asshole put you through what he did, but I hate myself even more for driving you so fucking far away that you fell for some dick on the other side of the world in the first place.”

By the time he was done, he was breathing hard. His hands came up to catch my face. As I looked into his eyes, I didn’t doubt a single word he’d said. I just had no idea what to do about it.