“Babe, if Sutton doesn’t want to talk about what’s going on in her life, wedon’t make her,” Emma cut in as she came up behind Regan, cupping a hand on her jaw to tilt Regan’s head up, ducking down to plant a soft, quick kiss on her lips. Sutton watched as Regan so naturally moved with the touch, a warmth lighting up her face as she tugged the chair next to her out just in time for Emma to sit.
“Sorry I’m late, I just had to meet this deadline?—”
“For thePostarticle, I know.” Sutton waved Emma off, smiling in genuine happiness and relief at the sight of her. “How did it go?”
Regan shook her head, staring between the two of them. “Ohhh no.” She reached down and took Emma’s hand in hers in an easy, natural move, their fingers intertwining on the table as Regan used her other hand to point to Sutton. “Sorry, light of my life, but we all know this is one of my biggest and best skills: being able to tell when something is going on with Sutton and getting her to talk about it so that we can help with it!”
“And one ofmybiggest skills is making you stop,” Emma reasoned, arching an eyebrow at Regan as she tilted her head in challenge.
Regan turned to face her, mouth falling open. “I know it is, butlook at her! I’ve tried to let it go for the last half hour; I really have!”
Regan gestured at Sutton, who shot them both alookeven as she felt her cheeks flush. She couldn’t hide things from the people who knew every single tell she had; it just wasn’t possible.
Emma sighed at Regan, squeezing her hand as she obligingly looked across the table at Sutton. Sutton took a deep breath and met her gaze head-on. In a mere handful of seconds, Emma allowed begrudgingly, “Yeah, okay. There’s clearly something going on.”
Regan lit up, turning to face Emma and leaning in quickly to pepper her cheek with kisses. “Thank you!”
“It’snothing,” Sutton insisted.
“It’s Charlotte,” they said in unison, Emma matter-of-factly, Regan with aGotcha!tone to her voice.
Sutton groaned. Just thementionof her name brought back the mental images. And with the images came all her messy feelings.
There was the achingwant, the alarm at her own actions—because she hadn’t intended on doing that. Not atall. But when she’d been there and overwhelmed by the feelings Charlotte’s kiss had invoked in her days earlier and Charlotte had leaned against her desk looking powerful and sexy and,ugh. Then there was the embarrassment, the guilt—because she hadn’t evenasked. That definitely wasn’t like her.
“Yes, fine, it has something to do with Charlotte, but I don’t want to hear that you knew this would be a bad idea or anything like it!” she said, dragging her hands through her hair.
“I can’tbelieveyou had sex with Charlotte Thompson! Whatyearis it!” Regan all-but shouted, “J’accuse!”
Sutton reached out to knock away the finger Regan was using to point at her. “Enough! We aren’t— We—we’re…” God, her cheeks wereburning, and she groaned as she buried her face in her hands. “I didn’t mean to. And I amnottalking about it again.”
Regan absolutely cackled at that, but when Sutton looked up, Emma was looking at her in a much more muted amusement.
A minute later, when Regan managed to take a deep breath, she slid the omelette she’d ordered to Emma’s side of the table, along with the orange juice. “I got these for you,” she managed to get out through little bursts of chuckling before she looked back at Sutton. “So, if you didn’tmeanto, did you slip and your fingers fell into her?”
That set her off all over again even as Sutton pursed her lips. Shewouldn’tlaugh. She wouldn’t.
“You assume it was fingers,” Emma murmured as she took a sip of her juice.
Regan cackled loudly, leaning heavily into Emma. And even Sutton had to crack a smile at that, amid the tumult inside of her.
“You two are the worst.”
Sutton tooka deep breath when she found herself outside Charlotte’s townhouse later that afternoon.
She’d done everything she could possibly think of to keep herself busy after brunch. She’d returned to her house, folded and put away all of her and Lucy’s laundry, vacuumed the floors that didn’t need to be vacuumed, and graded the remaining two papers she had left to give back in her Victorian Literature intro course, even though the class only had handed them in two days ago. But she’d gotten very little sleep last night, so. There was that.
The entire time, she had vacillated as to what to do regarding everything with Charlotte.
Sutton hadn’t felt like she’d been on even ground since she’d seen Charlotte for the first time nearly two months ago. JustseeingCharlotte had thrown her off-kilter, which had been followed by walking on eggshells after Charlotte had asked Sutton to write her biography, as she tried not to divulge any personal information and stick toonly business; there was the whirlwind of a week they’d had with the kiss, and then, last night…
If shecould, she would avoid it all. If she could, she would bury herself in anything else tonotthink about this. And yet…
“You can do this,” she encouraged herself, trying to shake out her nerves before she rang the doorbell.
The thing was, how everything had played out between them last night was all very, very simple, when it was boiled down.
Charlotte Thompson made her burn up inside. She made Sutton ache and want and desire things that Suttonneverthought she would want. Things that shedidn’twant; not with anyone else, anyway. She made Sutton question her own sanity, with the things she was willing to do to be with her.
