Chapter 18

EIGHTEEN

I spend the first half of Saturday cleaning. It’s not as if all four of us live in a constant mess, but usually everybody’s busy, so cleaning tends to take a back seat and belongings pile up where they shouldn’t. Right now though, it’s a welcome distraction because I’m still busy being a raging idiot.

Sutton hasn’t texted me at all today.

Which is normal.

What’s not normal is me being so aware of the fact that he hasn’t texted or called.

Hence the spring-cleaning level of commitment to setting the house in order. I wasn’t planning on it, but then I found myself checking my phone every few minutes, and I had just enough brain cells left to recognize the need to occupy myself with something other than obsessing over Sutton and our arrangement.

So I cleaned the house. Scrubbed the bathrooms. Scrubbed the kitchen. Organized shelves and countertops.

It took a few hours and me approaching Remy’s workshop with a sponge before Jordan, Theo, and Remy banded together and kicked me out of the house for the rest of the day “to get some damn peace and quiet.”

I grab my backpack and my sketchpad and head out. I’m pretty sure I hear cheering once the door falls shut behind me.

Fine. I can find other ways to distract myself.

I head to Central Park and settle in on one of the benches. I don’t think what I’m doing technically qualifies as bird watching. I don’t take any notes or even care what kind of birds I see. Maybe bird drawing would be a better term. Well, whatever you want to call it, drawing birds is relaxing for me.

I’m just in the middle of sketching a scarlet tanager when my phone vibrates somewhere in my backpack. I’m so in the zone by now, I almost dismiss it, but then I fish it out anyway.

And the idiot that I am, I smile when I see the name on the screen.

Sutton: How are the birds?

Me: The scarlet tanagers are back.

Sutton: I’d say good for them, but I wasn’t even aware they’d been away. Don’t tell them.

Me: They head to the Amazon for the winter.

Sutton: Lucky bastards.

Sutton: Send me a photo.

Me: Of the bird?

Sutton: The bird. Some nice park shots. Go crazy.

I send him a few photos.

And then he doesn’t say anything after that.

After a few moments of staring at the silent screen, I put the phone away and get back to my drawing.

I’m concentrating so hard on getting the beak just right that I jerk in surprise and send my sketchpad flying when somebody puts their hand on my shoulder.

“Shit,” I say when my head snaps up.

And my eyes land on Sutton.

I blink to try and work out whether I’ve now lapsed into hallucinating him.

“Aren’t you supposed to be on your orgy yacht for a few more days?” I finally ask once I’ve determined that he is, in fact, real.

I pick up my sketch pad, while he sits down on the bench next to me and stretches his legs out, crossing one ankle over the other, all casual, like it’s not anything out of the ordinary that he’d randomly stroll by the exact spot where I am, in a city of millions.

“You know, I woke up this morning, and while I was looking around my yacht of debauchery—made of gold—at all the naked bodies around me, I caught the eye of my loyal manservant, Grimsby, and thought, ‘I might be orgied out for now.’ So I came back early.”

“Poor Grimsby has probably seen some things.” I can’t keep my smile at bay when I look at him. I try. But I can’t.

“He does everything for me. Dresses me. Vets the orgy guests. Helps hide dead bodies.”

“Seems like an indispensable employee.”

“I wouldn’t know how to function without him. He’s hiding behind that tree right there.” He nods to his left.

I give up the fight and grin at him.

“Does he also stalk people for you, or did you just accidentally stumble upon me?”

“I do all my own stalking,” he says. “You sent me those photos, so I figured out where you were, and since I was close by anyway…” He shrugs.

I’m way too happy to see him. I know I am. I shouldn’t be, but I also can’t seem to stop the bubbles of joy from popping in my chest like I’m filled with a fizzy drink.

Sutton plucks my sketchpad out of my hands while I’m busy smiling at him like an unhinged lunatic and starts leafing through the pages. He doesn’t say anything, just slowly works his way through the book, concentrating on each page with the focus of a scientist who just found an important document.

And while he’s studying my sketches, I have time to study him. For a person who, by his own admission, has been taking some time off, possibly on a yacht, he looks tired. Almost like he hasn’t slept properly in a few days. There are shadows beneath his eyes, and his gaze lacks its usual sharp humor.

Once he’s through the book, he closes it and moves his fingertips over the cover almost reverently.

“You’re very good,” he says.

My cheeks heat, and I start to wave him off, but then I remember the lesson about compliments.

“Thank you,” I say.

He grins. Still tired, but sort of happy, too.

Maybe he’s glad to see me?

I do my best to push the thought away as soon as it jumps into my head, but here’s the thing with thoughts: you can’t pretend they weren’t there when your own brain cooked them up in the first place.

“This is the scarlet tanager?” he asks when he’s flipped to the sketch I was working on earlier.

“A summer tanager. It’s similar to the scarlet tanager, but the males are bright red all over, and they’re a bit bigger than scarlet tanagers. They’re the only completely red bird in North America. They’re sort of fascinating, too. See, they eat bees and wasps, and they’re pretty vicious about it. They catch the bee midflight, and first they’ll beat them against a branch, then they’ll rub them against the branch to get the stinger off. There are a few of them here, up high in the trees. Do you hear those sort of slurred whistles that come in series? It has these short, melodic units it repeats in a constant stream.”

He nods, then leans back and drops his head back, eyes on the branches above us, legs stretched out, fingers linked on his chest.

“That one?” he asks after another sequence of whistled notes.

“Yeah.”

“That’s cool.”

His eyelids turn heavy after a little bit. I watch him for a moment before I turn so I’m sitting sideways. I put my left foot on the bench, knee bent, and open my sketchpad to a blank page before I take the pencil and start to draw.

He jerks awake after about twenty minutes and looks around with a dazed expression until his gaze lands on me.

I quirk my brow at him.

“Tired?”

He sits up straighter and rubs his eyes.

“Slept like shit the last few days,” he says through a yawn.

“How come?”

He closes his eyes again.

“Family stuff,” he mumbles.

I still. These are scraps, but I’m picking each one up greedily.

“You went to see your family?” I ask.

He doesn’t say anything at first, but then…

“My mother and her husband.”

“Your parents are divorced?”

He nods. “For years already. She remarried about ten years ago. Her husband is very nice, so basically the polar opposite of her first husband.”

“Your father?”

His jaw tightens before he nods.

I eye him silently.

“I have two stepbrothers. Brian’s sons from his previous marriage.”

“How old are they?” I ask.

“Teenagers. Sixteen and fourteen.”

I tilt my head to the side. I can’t really draw any conclusions based on his tone.

“Do you get along with them?” I eventually ask.

He shrugs.

“Brian is a social worker, so they’re all very mature and well adjusted.”

I study him for a bit.

“Is that a bad thing?”

He looks extra contemplative for a moment before he shakes his head.

“It’s just extremely different from what I’m used to.” With those words, he abruptly gets up. “I’m starving. Let’s go find something to eat.”

“Oh,” I say, startled by the sudden change of direction. “I sort of said I’d—” I stop and consider it for a quick second. “You could come to dinner at my place?”

He’s probably going to say no.

Even if I suddenly desperately want him to say yes.

He does look surprised by the offer, but not totally put off.

“Friends do eat dinner,” I say. “Sometimes even when the friend’s family is there.”

He still hasn’t said anything.

“They’re pretty cool people,” I add before I shut my mouth.

He’s going to say no.

“Okay,” he says. And then, “Sure.”

Relief.

I’m not going to address a single moment of that rush through my body that makes my mouth curl into a wide smile.

“Okay,” I say.

Casual.

Cool.

Nothing to see here.

He sends me a knowing smile.

“Lead the way.”