Sutton had the presence of mind to reach up and slap her hand over her friend’s mouth before throwing Lucy’s door a look. “My daughter issleeping.”But in the beat of silence that followed, she didn’t hear a peep from inside of the room.
Regan grabbed Sutton’s hand and yanked it away from her face. “Yeah, and your perfect daisy child sleeps like the fucking dead when she’s tuckered out.”
Sutton allowed a nod; Regan wasn’t wrong.
For several long moments, they stared at each other. Sutton took a strange satisfaction in the knowledge that Regan was very obviously just as shocked and confused and unsure as she was.
Regan had pulled Sutton into Sutton’s own bedroom then, giving Emma a quick phone call to let her know that she had to stay with her best friend for the night.
And in the hours since, they’d cycled through the entire conversation and dissected every possibility.
“Are you sure you heard her correctly?” Regan had asked early on.
Sutton had scoffed, shoving at her shoulder. “What else could she have possibly said? Those words aren’t commonly mistaken for something else.”
“Well, I don’t know!”
Regan had tried again: “Maybe she said she won’t… but she didn’t meanrun for president. Maybe she was referencing something else that you’d talked about?”
Honestly, Sutton had considered that. She’d had to; nothing else about Charlotte’s statement made sense.
But… “No.” She’d shaken her head firmly. “There was no way she was referencing anything else.”
Even if it could have been a conversational mix-up—which it definitely wasn’t—the look on Charlotte’s face afterward would have been enough to tell Sutton what she’d meant.
Hours later, all a beleaguered and very exhausted Sutton could believe was: “She couldn’t have really meant it.”
It was theonlything that made sense, and she’d repeated it to herself at least four times.
Regan was quiet for a long moment before she grabbed Sutton’s phone from the bedside table and offered it up to her. “Text her.”
Sutton recoiled, staring dubiously at her friend. “You want me to text her at 2:27 a.m.? That’s—no.”
Regan kept her arm outstretched, insistent. “Text her senatorial ass right now, Sutton Victoria Spencer, or I will. And youknowI will.”
Before the very viable threat fully left Regan’s mouth, Sutton snatched her phone out of her grasp. Just in case. “Don’t you dare.”
Her phone felt five times heavier than it really was as she gripped it, still not unlocking it.
“You’re not going to be able to sleep until you talk to her, even if it’s just for her to confirm that she’d said it in the heat of the moment. And, what? You thinkshe’sasleep? After she saidthat?” Regan’s eyes rolled so hard Sutton worried they’d stick that way.
“No. I don’t think she’s sleeping.” Sutton’s heart thudded in her chest as she stared down at her phone. With no texts or calls or any other notifications from Charlotte, Sutton knew she wasn’t asleep either. SuttonknewCharlotte was awake right now, just as haunted by her statement as Sutton was.
She swallowed hard as she looked back at Regan, unable to really decipher or put a name to the feelings pummelling through her. “But…”
“What are you so afraid of?” Regan asked softly as she stood up from Sutton’s bed and looked down at her. “If she didn’t mean it, which is the most likely scenario, then nothing changes. Then it’s exactly what you thought was the case. It sucks, but it is what it is. And if shedid, then?—”
“Then I have nocluewhat to do from there,” Sutton cut in, feeling a claw of desperation low in her stomach. “You’re always telling me that I need to get out there? That I need to date?”
Regan had encouraged her to find someone new to share her life with so many times over the last few years. Sometimes she was gently encouraging, sometimes energetically bolstering; sometimes her pep talks had bordered on forceful.
“Because I know you’relonely,” Regan spoke softly, reaching out to grab Sutton’s wrists in a gentle hold. “Because I know you aren’t someone who’s ever wanted to go it alone. Sutton, you’re—and I say this as your best friend in the entire fucking world—annoyinglyperfect.”
There it was. That word made this ugly, revolting desperation churn her stomach. It pushed her breath out harshly, and she tugged her wrists out of Regan’s grasp so she could drag them through her hair.
“There! Right there! ‘Perfect.’” The word dripped from her lips, colored in disgust and disbelief.
Regan’s bafflement was palpable. “What?”
