Chapter 13

THIRTEEN

I’m completely useless the next day. I do my best to concentrate, but I’m pretty much wandering around in some sort of euphoric post-sex haze the whole Sunday, while trying to hide it from my family. I have to suppress the urge to skip, for fuck’s sake. I’m like a Disney princess who just got laid for the first time, and if I’m not careful, soon I’ll be heading to the nearest park to sing under a tree.

I get lucky because Theo is out with friends, Jordan is working, and Remy has some sort of project going on in his workshop he’s so obsessed with he barely shows his face the whole day, so I get to hide in my room and not answer any nosy questions.

On Monday, I accidentally sleep in, so I run out the door without breakfast and with a lot of swearwords trailing in my wake because I’m an idiot. An idiot who jerked a guy off recently. But still an idiot.

The rest of the Monday follows in the same vein. It’s like somebody peered down on me and thought, “Hey, he seems cheerful. Can’t have that.”

I forget the charger of my laptop, and the battery dies sometime in the middle of my second class, so I’m forced to scribble notes on the margins of my textbook because of course I don’t have anything to write on. I grab a sandwich and a coffee from the deli at lunchtime and somebody walks straight into me, so I don’t get to so much drink my coffee as wear it.

I have a meeting for the group project after school, which goes to hell because Cooper and Jill, the two people I’ve been assigned to work with for this, are also a couple. And when I walk into the room we’ve booked in the library for this, they’re in the middle of yelling at each other because one of Jill’s sorority sisters proposed a threesome and Cooper took too long to say no. So instead of working on the project, I somehow become an unwilling spectator, until the library kicks us out an hour later because of noise complaints.

By the time I’m finished with work, I’m very much not in any type of haze anymore, other than exhaustion.

At least Remy managed to fix my bike during the weekend, so I don’t have to find alternative means of transportation.

Unless… Considering how things have been going for me today, there’s a good chance there’s been an earthquake or a flood or a freak snow storm while I was inside mopping, and the world is in chaos or something. I’m not saying I think that has happened. I’m just saying I won’t be totally surprised if it has.

I’m preparing myself for the prospect so thoroughly that I’m actually startled when the only thing out of the ordinary when I step out the door is Sutton lounging on the front steps, legs stretched out, scrolling through his phone.

There’s an actual moment where I blink because I’m thinking I might be hallucinating him.

“Hey,” I say and my forehead wrinkles as I take him in. “What are you doing here? I thought you were done with your punishment.”

I take him in. He’s once again dressed to the nines. The suit is probably Armani or Burberry or some other luxury brand so exclusive I haven’t even heard of it. He’s loosened the tie, and the suit jacket is casually dropped on the steps next to him.

I lift my chin toward him. “What’s with the fancy getup?”

“Drinks with some of the most tedious people you can ever imagine. I had to fake an emergency to get out of there.”

“Poor little rich boy,” I say. “What brings you by?”

He makes a non-committal noise and instead of answering the question, takes me in, eyes moving up and down. I’m suddenly very aware he’s seen me naked, but it doesn’t feel like a bad thing right now. Because he’s seen me naked. So he knows what’s going on underneath the clothes. And by the way he’s looking at me, it seems like he wouldn’t mind seeing me naked again.

“You look tired,” he says, which kind of ruins the seen-me-naked effect, even though he’s probably right.

I rub my palm over my face before I drop my backpack down and sit down next to him. I stretch out my legs, lean back on my arms and close my eyes. I draw in a deep breath of the cool night air and feel my shoulders start to relax slowly.

“I’ve had a day,” I say.

“What happened?” he asks.

I peer at him from one eye. “You ask a whole lot of personal questions for somebody who claims not to give a shit.”

“This is purely self-interest at play,” he says. “We still have a lot of ground to cover when it comes to sex, and I need you not to be distracted for it by everyday bullshit.”

I laugh and let my head drop back and tell him about my day, and he actually seems to listen and not just pretend he is. By the time I get to the part where I got kicked out of the library thanks to Jill and Cooper, he’s laughing out loud.

“Tragic,” he says with very little sympathy.

“I can’t even get new partners because we’re not allowed to switch groups.”

“Well, that’s bullshit,” he says.

“It is!” I say with a fervent nod. “It absolutely is. Those two were already useless when they weren’t fighting because they both just backed whatever inane idea the other came up with because how can Jill disagree with the absolute brilliance of Coopie-schmoopie-sweetiepie?”

“Is that an actual nickname that was being used? Because oof.”

“Their couple’s name is Coji,” I say.

“That’s definitely a choice. Look at it this way, if they break up at least the terrible pet names will stop,” Sutton reasons.

“Whoopie,” I say drily, and he laughs.

“How did you end up in the same group with Coji?” he asks.

“Just some shitty luck,” I say with a sigh. “And now I’m stuck with them until the end of semester. I’m just glad this project only counts for fifteen percent of the final grade because between the fucking nicknames, idiocy, and fighting, I can feel my braincells dying whenever I’m near those two.”

“Ah. Good old college days,” Sutton says.

I send a curious look his way.

“Did you go to college?” I ask and then roll my eyes. “Well you have money, so that’s probably a stupid question, right? Let me rephrase. Where did you go to college?”

“The Holland family has a longstanding tradition of attending Harvard,” he says.

“Of course you do.”

“So I made sure I stayed far, far away from that place,” he continues, and he does it with this flippant air that only underlines how different the two of us really are. He’s someone who can look at Harvard and go, “Harvard? Pfft. No, thanks. Pass.”

“Did you not stay far away from some other place?” I ask.

I have to wait a bit while he debates the merits of bestowing this national level secret on me.

“UCLA,” he finally says.

“Really?” I ask. “What did you study?”

This pause is even longer.

“Guess,” he then says.

I let my eyes wander up and down him and purse my lips.

“Business?”

“I wouldn’t be that predictable.”

“Finance?”

“Terrible. You get one more guess, so make it count.”

I widen my hands. “I don’t know. Law?”

“Wrong again. I’m afraid you’ve flunked out of the game.”

“Uh-huh. I’m devastated. So what did you study?”

“History,” he says.

I did not expect that.

“That’s definitely not predictable,” I say. “Why history?”

He shrugs carelessly. “Had to pick something and one of the professors was unbelievably hot.”

I send him a look until he caves.

“It’s interesting,” he says. “We as a species tend to always repeat the past. Same mistakes. Same patterns. Over and over and over again.”

He gets a kind of far-away look in his eyes that is accompanied by a frown that deepens as he speaks.

He then shakes his head and meets my gaze again. “But mostly the professor thing.”

“Why UCLA?” I ask in my dogged determination to get to the bottom of him.

“Because it was on the other side of the country, so far away from New York. It was the main appeal.”

I tilt my head to the side. “You don’t like New York?”

“I wouldn’t say I don’t like it. It’s fine,” he says.

I consider that for a little bit.

“But if you don’t love it here why stay?” I ask.

“Trying to get rid of me?”

I shake my head, but the exasperation that’s supposed to accompany this doesn’t seem to be here tonight.

“Just wondering. You have the means to do whatever you want. Go wherever you want. And you said it yourself, you don’t have any obligations. Why stay?”

He sends me a funny look. It lacks the usual carelessness and arrogance. Instead, if anything, he seems startled.

“Do you like New York?” he asks instead of answering.

“Yes,” I say immediately before I shrug at the questioning look he aims my way. “It’s home.”

“So sentimentality is what keeps you around?”

I have to think about that for a bit because I’ve never actually analyzed the whys of how and where I choose to live my life.

“Partly. But I don’t think it’s just that.” I pluck a blade of grass that’s stubbornly managed to pick a tiny opening in the concrete as its growing place. “My grandparents had a farm in Wyoming. My mother took us there for the summer when school was out from when I was”—I seesaw my hand—“five, I think, until twelve, when they passed. They lived near Rawlins. Seven thousand people in total. I felt like I was under a microscope. The moment I stepped foot in town, everybody immediately knew who I was. And it feels like people thought it was a human right to know everything about what everyone else is doing. And the information network for spreading gossip? Let me tell you, CIA could take lessons. My last summer there, I climbed a water tower with a couple of local kids. By the time I got home fifteen minutes later, my grandparents had already found out about it and had decided to ground me.”

He laughs softly.

“Okay, so you’re a city boy. Why New York and not somewhere else?”

I slide my thumb over the blade of grass I’m still holding between my fingers.

“I mean, it is home. And… New York gives me faith in humanity,” I finally say.

“You’re gonna need to elaborate because we are not known for that.”

It’s my turn to laugh. “Right? New Yorkers. Aggressive, unfriendly, don’t give a fuck. But it’s not really true. There are random acts of kindness everywhere. People just aren’t demonstrative about them. People help and move on, so you have to pay attention. I see people grabbing the front of a random stroller to help carry it up or down the subway stairs almost every day. People offer directions when somebody looks lost. People open doors for each other. People leave quarters at the laundromat.”

I’d go on, but he’s staring at me with a funny look, so I stop and feel relieved that it’s dark enough that he can’t see my flushed cheeks.

“You’re thinking I’m being na?ve,” I say.

“No,” he says slowly, still with that funny look on his face. “No, I think you’re sweet.”

I roll my eyes. “Sure. Just… Next time you’re out and about pay attention, and you’ll see. There are random acts of kindness everywhere here. Efficient random acts of kindness. And those are much better than the ones where people make a big deal out of it and shout it from the rooftops. ‘Ooh! Look at me, look at me! I helped.’”

His lips twitch at the rant, but then he sobers.

“I guess I’ll keep my eyes open, then,” he says. “For those efficient random acts of kindness.”

“You should. All the hope in human kindness is right here if you just take the time to look.”

He shakes his head and chuckles softly.

“You’re…” he says and shakes his head again.

“I’m what?” I ask.

“You’re Wren,” he finally says like that’s some sort of well-known description that makes total sense and sums up everything that I am.

“That is my name,” I say. “Well done.”

“You really are a smartass,” he says.

“I keep telling you, you bring it out in me.”

He looks one hundred percent delighted at that.

“Am I corrupting you?”

“No,” I scoff.

“I’m absolutely corrupting you,” he says with a smug grin, and the flirty, cocky Sutton is back.

“At most, I’m letting you corrupt me.”

“You did ask for it,” he muses, and now his gaze is running up and down my body before our eyes meet. Something jumps inside my stomach.

Anticipation.

When his eyes move to my lips, I know exactly what he’s planning to do.

Me.

And I’m very much on board with that plan.

Wanting somebody is a bit of a novel experience, to be honest. I didn’t think it’d feel so… consuming. Especially since Sutton himself is not really my type at all. At least I don’t think so. If I’m being honest, I don’t really know what my type is for sure, but in the past, most of the people I’ve been attracted to have had some general things in common. Kindness. An air of humbleness.

Not cocky and smug and too flirtatious.

And then there’s the excessive wealth, which is kind of a turn-off. And the fact that by his own admission, he has no job or goals or seemingly no desire at all to do something with his life other than just have fun.

I frown. I can’t put my finger on it, but something feels off. It’s like there’s a chasm between what he says about himself and how he behaves. I don’t really know how to explain it, and I’m really not even sure if the gut feeling is telling me the truth or if I’m just trying to make him look better.

I’m not even sure why I’m wasting my time thinking about this. It’s not like I need to figure him out. We’re having sex. Maybe we’re sort of friends. But that’s it. He’s been very clear about what he wants, and what he wants most is not to have a relationship. Not with me. Not with anybody. I mean, calling me his friend might even be a stretch for him.

And anyway, it’s not like I’m trying to make him fall head over heels in love with me. He’s doing me a favor. I don’t want to be in a relationship with him either. Yeah, we get along well, and he’s easy to talk to, and I somehow, against all evidence not to, trust him. But that’s the extent of it. That’s all it will ever be.

“That’s a thinking face if I ever saw one.”

I snap my head up at Sutton’s voice.

He taps his index finger against my forehead. “What’s going on in here?”

Oh, no. I’m absolutely not going to reveal any of that to him. I get up and wipe my palms over the back of my sweats.

“It’s getting late,” I say.

His eyes follow my every move.

“In that case we should definitely get you to bed.” His voice has dropped an octave, low and husky now, and my insides feel burning hot.

“You know where to find one?” I ask.

He gets up, all graceful and smooth and prowls closer until the toes of his shiny, black shoes are against my battered sneakers.

“I may have an idea.” His fingertips go underneath my jaw, and he tilts my head up. “My place?” he asks, lips hovering an inch away from mine.

It’s impossible to answer. My mouth is dry, and my throat is thick with lust.

I only manage a nod.