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She sighed. He made her crazy happy, too.
Chapter 14
Sutter made her crazy happy for a week.
A week of picnics by the Ranch’s beautiful lake, of line dancing at Dixon’s in Porter’s Corner, of movie caterpillars and warm bottoms and morning sixty-nines. Although Saoirse was too nervous about crossing an imaginary line between her professional and personal lives to have him stay overnight in her apartment at the Ranch, she invited him over for dinner. They ate in the Ranch’s cafeteria, too caught up in each other to pay attention to the scenery, or the food, or the other diners. When Sutter stole a few bites of her dinner while she was distracted by a joke he’d told, she discovered Sutter’s Achilles’ heel: a slight allergy to cilantro. Two bites in and he began sneezing so hard Chef Connor came running to check on him.
Despite the sneezing debacle, they were both in good moods when she took him back to her apartment and introduced him to her stuffies. Sutter solemnly learned the name of each one, and when they went back to his place for the night, she had Frances the Frog tucked into her overnight bag.
When Sutter left for New York on Saturday, he gave her a friend for Frances, a squidgy-soft Northern Leopard Frog stuffie.
She named it Allan.
On Saturday night, she cuddled with Allan on one side and Frances on the other and sucked on the monogrammed paci Sutter had commissioned from the Ranch for her. She stared at the ceiling, silently reminding herself that she’d managed to sleep without a Daddy for thirty-two years.
But the bed was cold without Sutter. The room was too silent without his breathing. After an hour, she got up and pulled her swaddling bag out of her closet. She spread it on her bed, crawled into it, and pulled Frances and Allan in with her. It was warmer, even without Sutter, and after a few tears slipped out to wet her pillow, she finally fell asleep.
Her first thought on waking was that she’d see Sutter again in seven days. Her second thought was to berate herself for her first thought. She was a grown woman with her own life. A life that didn’t revolve around a man she’d been dating for barely two weeks.
Then she picked up her phone and saw the string of messages from Sutter that had come in while she slept.
2:22Can’t sleep. I miss you too much, baby.
2:47I’ve been looking at adult-sized cradles online. Would you like to try one? I’d like to rock you to sleep when you nap.
3:17I’m driving myself crazy thinking about you, little miss. If you were here with me, I’d wake you up and spank you for tormenting me.
3:36I’m so hard for you.
4:34I’m watching the sun come up over New York. It’s beautiful. Wish you were here.
5:10I’m going to sleep now. Only six more sleeps until you’re here with me.
Saoirse dashed away the tears that had gathered and sent him a reply.I couldn’t sleep without you, either. I miss you like crazy. 9,000 minutes until I see you again. I’m counting down.
She started the stopwatch on her smart watch and dragged herself out of bed and into the shower.
When Sutter video-called her after work, she showed him the timer, counting down from 9,000. It made him chuckle as he set a similar timer on his own phone. They ate dinner together on the call. Saoirse made a quick stir-fry while Sutter got dinner delivered from an Italian restaurant a few blocks from his new apartment that he swore had the best lasagna in the city. After they ate, he showed her around the apartment: clean, contemporary, with huge windows looking out at a leafy street lined with brownstones.
Saoirse imagined sitting at one of those windows in the long, golden light of a fall afternoon, eating a crunchy apple from the Columbia Greenmarket, cuddled up in a fuzzy sweater, with Frances and Allan at her side, while Sutter read to her. When she relayed this vision to Sutter, his eyes lit and they spent the rest of the call planning a window seat that Sutter promised to have installed before she arrived.
Sutter signed off to attend a meet and greet his uncle was holding for him with some of the company’s distributors. He said he’d try to call her before her bedtime to read her a story. But she fell asleep waiting for his call and woke at two in the morning with a full bladder, still clutching her phone.
When she went to the bathroom, she noticed her hand shaking on the toilet lid. She looked up at the overhead light and saw the red halo. She waited for a moment to see if the pricking at the nape of her neck would start. When it did, she grabbed a towel, folded it quickly and stuffed it between her teeth, then lay down on the floor in the recovery position.
When she came back to herself, the puddle of pee beneath her was still warm. The bathroom light shone clear overhead. Every muscle ached from locking during the seizure.
She dropped the saliva-wet towel into the bathtub, sat on the closed toilet, and cried. She hadn’t had a full seizure in over a year.
I let myself get so wrapped up in Sutter than even a day without him has me losing my shit, she thought.
In some more logical corner of her brain, she knew it was a combination of stressors. The recent time changes and jet lag. Leaving the Ranch where she’d felt safe and welcomed and had made some true friends. Moving back across the country. Even the return to Blunts, where she hadn’t always felt safe.
But in the front of her brain, where her Little was banging on the door in a frenzy, screaming to be cuddled in Daddy’s strong arms, she could only blame herself for falling too hard, too fast.
Sutter pickedup on her distress less than a minute into their video-call that night.
“Baby, what’s wrong? You always look beautiful to me, but I can see the circles under your eyes. Couldn’t you sleep last night? I’m so sorry I didn’t call to tell you a story. The meeting turned into drinks and I didn’t get home until after midnight.”
