Chapter 26

TWENTY-SIX

I get home from work, toe off my shoes, and drop my backpack on the bench by the door.

Everything is quiet.

Guess Sutton isn’t back from his premiere yet. He promised to be Quinn’s sister’s date for it and has been bitching and moaning about going for days now. I got him out the door with a promise to be waiting for him naked when he gets home, so it’s nice that he’s not here yet, and I can keep that promise. My cock jerks in my pants at the idea.

I’m about to head to the living room when there’s a muffled bang from somewhere. I stop and frown.

“Sutt?” I call out.

“Darkroom,” he shouts back. “Give me five more minutes.”

I shrug and go put my stuff away. Sutton in the darkroom is nothing unusual anymore. He spends so much time taking photos lately that he’s run out of shelf space. Whenever we go somewhere, he takes his camera with him. I don’t even want to know how many photos he has of me, but I suspect the number might be approaching four figures by now.

I go to the kitchen and pour myself a glass of water, then I lean my ass against the counter and wait.

Sutton comes into the room a few minutes later. He doesn’t stop, just walks straight into me. He cradles my face and kisses me like he hasn’t seen me in weeks, as opposed to a few hours. My heart gallops in my chest, as I wrap myself around him and kiss him back.

“Hey,” he says with a crooked smile once we finally manage to come up for air.

“Hey yourself.” I grin back.

Next thing I know, he’s grabbed my hand and towing me away from the kitchen. I laugh and follow, already mentally undressing him, but instead of the bed, he steers me toward the living room couch, where he pushes me down before he puts his hands on his hips.

“I’ve got something to show you,” he says, eyes shining.

“Okay?”

He holds up one finger then strides out of the room, but he’s back in a matter of seconds. He’s got one of his photo boxes in his hands, and I smile as he hands it to me.

He sits down next to me, practically vibrating with excitement that feels almost like an aura surrounding him. I’m tempted to poke him with my finger to see if I can touch it.

He nods toward the box. “Open it.”

I don’t know what to expect.

But I don’t expect… myself.

They’re the photos from the other day. The ones he took of me on his bed.

I stare at the one on top without blinking.

Me, sitting cross-legged on the bed, head turned to the side, eyes aimed at the window, the white curtain mid-flutter in the early summer breeze.

I slowly flip to the next photo.

Me.

Cross-legged on the bed.

Looking straight at the camera with a wide smile.

My fingers start to shake.

Next photo.

Me.

Head thrown back mid-laugh.

Next photo.

It’s difficult to breathe, and it gets more and more difficult with each passing shot I look at. My blood feels boiling hot, running through me.

I blink and blink and blink, trying to get rid of the wet curtain in front of my eyeballs.

“Wren?” Sutton says.

I lick my lips and open my mouth.

My throat is bone dry.

I look up.

At him.

“You made me look beautiful,” I blurt. Choke out. That stupid water curtain becomes a waterfall.

The photos rain down all around me as Sutton catches my face between his palms, thumbs sliding over my cheeks, wiping the waterfall away.

“No. You’ve always been beautiful. All of you. You’re so fucking beautiful, Wren. And strong and brave and smart and… everything. You’re everything.”

I wipe the back of my hand over my face and press the heels of my hands into my eyes to stop myself being this fucking stupid.

Sutton pulls my hands away and kisses me. Mouth. Cheeks. Eyes. Until I let out a wet snort of laughter.

“I’m a snotty mess,” I say.

“A beautiful snotty mess,” he corrects me.

I laugh some more.

And take a few breaths.

And slowly calm down.

“Thank you,” I say when the waterfall has finally dried up, and I can look at him.

He picks up one of the photos from the floor and looks at it before he puts it on the table in front of us and taps his finger against it.

“This is what I see when I look at you,” he says.

It crashes over me like a tidal wave.

Over me.

Through me.

Around me.

It’s everywhere.

I can’t deny it or ignore it or bury it.

It’s there.

It’s a part of me, knitted into my whole being so tightly that unraveling it would only leave scraps behind.

This is Wren, who loves Sutton.

I can’t put it in a box and force the lid shut.

I can’t hide it.

I don’t want to hide it.

“I love you.”

The words come with a rush of relief.

I’m finally speaking the truth.

This is me, letting Sutton see everything .

This is Wren, who loves Sutton.

Hi.

Nice to meet you.

And then…

Silence.

Complete and total silence.

The kind of shocked silence that follows when you’ve detonated a bomb and the debris has finally stopped falling.

The silence of the aftermath.

I don’t think Sutton is even breathing anymore. He’s that still.

Even so, somewhere deep inside me there’s a tiny, tiny part that rolls his eyes.

Come on.

This can’t be that much of a surprise.

He must’ve seen it.

Suspected it.

At the very least, considered the possibility.

I haven’t hidden it that well.

At least… I don’t think so.

And there’s no turning back now.

“I love you,” I repeat. It comes out more hoarsely than I’d necessarily like. “I’m in love with you.”

He looks away then, clutching the soft fabric of the couch.

Silent seconds tick by, one after another.

Hundreds of them.

I can feel each and every one like a physical weight.

“Say something,” I whisper.

He digs his fingertips into the back of his neck.

Looks at me.

Looks away.

And…

“Take it back,” he blurts. “Take it back. Take it back.” Each word is more frantic. Each word feels like a shot in the chest. “Take it back. Fucking take it back!”

I shake my head. I’ve been honest. That’s all I’ve done. That’s what’s keeping me calm and upright right now.

“I can’t,” I say softly.

He whirls off the couch and in front of me. He’s on his knees, hands on my thighs.

“You can,” he says. “We’ll pretend this didn’t happen. Okay? It was something stupid. A slip of the tongue. You didn’t mean it, so we’ll forget about it.”

I stare at him. At the wide eyes, and the frantic look in them.

The plea.

I don’t understand.

And I’m starting to feel numb.

“I love you,” I say again, because it’s the best argument I have at my disposal.

“No, no, no, no, no!” he says. Frenzied. Agitated. “Please, don’t. You don’t love me. You don’t. Don’t ruin it. Please, don’t. You and me? We’re okay. We can get past this, and we can go on and just… just be . Like we have. Okay?”

I feel like air. Like I could disintegrate at any second now. Fly into thousands of pieces.

“No,” I say. “Not okay. I love you.”

He staggers backward.

“Stop saying it!” He starts pacing. Back and forth and back and forth.

And I watch him with a strange calm that settles over me.

I shake my head. “There’s nothing wrong with me loving you.”

He whirls toward me.

“There’s everything wrong with you loving me. Fuck’s sake, I told you! I told you you couldn’t. There was one fucking rule, Wren! One!”

“Not to fall in love with you.” I nod. “I know. I did anyway.”

His chest heaves.

His fingers curl into fists.

He’s practically vibrating.

But it doesn’t feel like anger.

No.

It looks like panic.

Pure, uncontrollable fear.

And I don’t understand.

He whirls toward me.

Clenches his jaw.

“Then we’re done.” He chokes the words out.

Yet another shot in the chest.

And now the calm numbness has a tear in it.

“Just like that?” I ask, disbelief coloring each word. “We’re over, just like that.”

“There was one rule,” he says. “You broke the fucking one rule I had.”

“And you didn’t?” I demand.

Sutton doesn’t answer.

Something horrible rises in my chest, a mix of confusion and anger, and that fucking wound in my chest is still throbbing and pulsing and spitting out hurt.

“Seriously?” I say, scared shitless and indignant, all in one. “You’ve been attached to me for months. Fucking months! I sleep in your bed and meet your friends and spend every waking moment with you, but having me actually say the words is where you draw the line?”

He starts pacing again.

“I fucking love you!” I say. “I can’t just turn it off.”

Sutton stands in the middle of the room, gripping his hair. For an absurd moment I expect him to stuff his fingers in his ears and start chanting “Lalala” to himself to block out all that unwelcome love I’m throwing at him.

I let out a hoarse laugh. Stand up. Feet still rooted to the floor.

“What did you think was going to happen?” I ask. “That we’d just go on like this and never have a future? Because newsflash, I want a future. With you. I want us to be together and love together and live together. That’s what I want. And I have the right to ask for it. I have the right to want it. And saying that I love you doesn’t make me a liar. It makes me somebody brave enough to tell the truth.”

He's standing there, in the middle of the room, tense and silent.

“Tell me you don’t love me,” I say and take a step closer. “Tell me you don’t love me too. Tell me to go, and I’ll go. I can’t make you love me, so if you don’t, tell me. Easy solution.”

I wait.

He still doesn’t say anything.

A part of me wants him to do it.

Say it.

A clean cut.

“Tell me,” I say. “Tell me you don’t fucking love me. Tell me! Tell me, tell me, tell me. Fucking tell me!”

“It doesn’t fucking matter!” he roars. “It doesn’t fucking matter if I do or I don’t. I. Can’t. Love you. I can’t.”

There’ll be no clean cut after that. Whatever wound he leaves behind will have ragged edges, with dirt and poison in it.

But even so, hope is tugging in my chest, propelling me forward.

“You can,” I say.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Then explain it to me.”

He heaves in breath after breath, a step away from hyperventilating.

“I will hurt you,” he finally spits out.

I take a deep, calming breath.

“I mean, yeah, there are no guarantees. Yeah, it might not work out between us, but that doesn’t mean we should just give up before we’ve even properly begun.”

He stares at me like I’ve said something absolutely insane and unthinkable.

“I am not going to risk you,” he rasps.

“So you’re going to hurt me now for sure instead of maybe hurting me in the future?”

“I’m not going to risk you,” he repeats.

“There are some things in life worth taking a chance on.”

His gaze gets stuck to a spot on the wall, somewhere above my shoulder. He swallows hard. I watch his Adam’s apple bob.

“There are also some things that aren’t worth taking a chance on,” he says quietly.

After everything that’s been said, this is the one that cuts deepest.

I can’t be here right now.

I’ll bleed all over the floor.

All the anger and confusion and hurt and… everything. It’ll bleed out of me right here and now if I stay here.

For a horrible moment, I feel like I might cry.

I turn on my heel and march out the door.

And nothing is calm anymore.

It’s just storm.

Violent, raging, destructive, devastating storm.