Page 104 of Lovefool

Sutton has always made it easier for me to breathe, but right now, I can’t stop my pulse from galloping. Flighty, like the compulsions of prey that’s lived its life in the shadows of outstretched talons.

“The article is live, but I swear I didn’t publish it. I don’t know how⁠—"

“I published the article,” he says flatly.

Four words that nick me with the accuracy of an arrowhead.

My world stops spinning, and my ludicrous thoughts stop reproducing at an ungodly rate. The unbearable ambience of the space suddenly dies a swift and painless death. It’s just me and Sutton, back to square one, where we know nothing about each other. Why would he do that? Why would he risk everything his team has worked so hard for?

“What are you talking about?” I exclaim, wiping at my eyes with the sleeve of my sweatshirt. Fear and its blood-drawing prongs—with a license to kill—snap around me, clamping down until I can feel them in every short-winded breath and minuscule twitch of my body.

Sutton shrinks in on himself, severing our contact so he can slide his hand down his sweaty nape. A spectrum of sorrow and self-directed anger slashes across his expression. “Last night, you left your computer, and I emailed a copy of your article to myself before sending it to Tammy anonymously.”

“Why…why would you do that?”

A muscle in his jaw shifts, and his white-knuckled conviction ricochets off the skyscraping walls to shatter into a thousand pieces right in front of me.

“You were right, Lake. About everything. I’ve spent my whole life trying to please everyone, but when it mattered, I let down the one person I should’ve protected. I’m so sorry for how I treated you. I’m so sorry for not doing the right thing the moment you came to me with this information. All I wanted to do was defend the team, but not at the cost of losing you. That’s something I could never come back from,” Sutton explains.

“When the police hear about this…”

“They’ll open an investigation, and we both know what they’ll find,” he finishes with a nod, stone-faced.

“But Crew—the guys—you all worked so hard to build this team. You don’t deserve to be punished for what Buford did. The public will crucify you,” I argue, clinging to his jersey as if he’ll slip between my fingers at a moment’s notice.

“I don’t care. I told Crew about everything last night, and he was in agreement that we wouldn’t want someone like Buford on the Mustangs anyways. In fact, he should’ve been kicked off the team a long time ago for that tasteless cheating shit he pulled on you.”

Lachrymose, I stop trying to catch the tears as they come, because I know that Sutton’s thumb will be there to wipe them away.

“The second I walked out that door, I wanted to run right back into your arms. I didn’t mean anything I said. You’re the best person I’ve ever met, Sutton. You’re good, genuine, the kind of person I strive to be. I hurt you. I’ll never forgive myself for that. I’ll carry that for the rest of my life.”

I refuse to ever hurt him again; I have to hold myself accountable. If that means I welcome remorse as a long-term resident instead of a passing visitor, then so be it.

His lips reshape into a frown, the lower one quivering uncontrollably. “You have nothing to apologize for. I hurt you too. So badly. I wish I could take it all back. I can’t believe I weaponized the things you told me in confidence. I can’t believe I reprimanded you for wanting to do the right thing.”

“But I was willing to betray the people who meant the most to me. You were just defending your family. I’ve—I’ve never had a bond like that. The team, Merit, Staten, Irelyn—they all mean so much more to me than I ever thought was possible.”

For a long time, I was only one half of my family. Max was the other, and my mother—well, I’d grown convinced that she didn’t love me enough to fit into the picture.

But my world is so much larger now—a small, dilapidated, weed-infested building that’s been upgraded to the nicest plot on a busy street. Rebuilt from the ground up, broken holes that have been eating away at the uninhabitable infrastructure for years now permanently patched.

Sutton smooths a hand down the curve of my back, cradling me, unwilling to let me go even though I have no intention of ever leaving him again. “Don’t change who you are, Lake. Not for anyone—not even me. You’re perfect just the way you are.”

If I thought my crying was unbearable before, I truly don’t see an end in sight now. This may be the first and only time I’m grateful for the constant waterfall of noise surrounding us.

A part of me was certain I’d be alone forever, driving everyone away because I’m too much. Too rough to handle; too unpredictable. I’m loud and defiant and so fucking complicated. People don’t want broken toys.

Sutton never thought of you like that, though. Did he? The same man who made a picnic just to impress you, the same man who divvied up a family-sized bag of Starbursts and picked out all the strawberry ones because they’re your favorite, the same man who adopted your love for protesting because it was an inarguable part of who you are, the same man who jeopardized his hockey career just so he can have the chance to be with you again.

“I’m a better person because of you, Sutton. You came along—with your flirtatious charm and a kindness that I never thought would extend to me—and suddenly, all the pain from my past dulled into this ignorable buzz. You saved me. I’ll never be able to fully express my gratitude, but I’ll sure as hell spend the rest of my life trying to.”

“You saved me right back,” he whispers. “I was barely living when I met you, but the passion you have for helping people—it made me realize that I could be helped too. Every time I saw you, you emanated this light I couldn’t describe. A light that outshone the sun and the moon and the stars. A light that nobody else possesses except for you. Just being near you, I could feel it: the warmth of a love that I wanted to be a part of so badly. I endured all the lackluster moments in my life because I knew you were waiting for me on the other side with a brilliance that could incinerate the darkness I’d grown so accustomed to.”

Congestion gives me an unattractive hiccup that spikes in between babbling wails. From the moment I met Sutton Whittaker, he’s been walking the dimly lit halls of my mind. Always there, even when we were physically apart.

“Oh, Sutton, you saw my heart. You saw the scars and the blood and were never discouraged from trying to mend it. Nobody has ever shown me the love and patience that you have. I never felt broken around you, and that’s saying something, seeing as I’ve spent my whole life trying to piece the shards of my soul back together,” I cry, salt leaking into the corners of my mouth, and an emotional overload blizzarding through my liquifying body.

I smush my face into his front, undeterred by the slight ripeness of his musk from playing for two hours straight, and all I want to do is tear into his skin and carve a nook in his chest so I can hide there, away from the mess of the real world.