Chapter 17
seventeen
. . .
LANE
Annoyance radiated off Sutton in waves when she and Trey approached me and the rest of my family, Trey’s arm slung casually over her shoulder.
I wanted to punch him in the face for touching my girl like that, but I could sense there was something else happening there.
Sutton’s irritation clashed with my own until my lungs were thick with the scent of it, like breathing in thick smoke.
I supposed it was my fault for not making Mama aware that the status of my…relationship with Addie had changed.
Mama had a heart of gold and wanted everyone to feel included. Despite having been there when I woke up in the hospital and hearing me ask for Sutton multiple times, she likely thought she was doing me a favor. I couldn’t fault her for that.
But I could fault Addie for showing up here while I had made it clear as day we would never be anything more than, at best, colleagues from here on out.
Maybe I hadn’t made it clear enough.
Unperturbed by the gathering of the entire Lawless clan, many of them glaring daggers at her, Addie sidled up to me and pulled me to the side.
“I’m going to head out. Walk me to my car?”
“Sure,” I said. I wanted to have a little chat with her anyway.
Before heading out of the barn, she pulled Mama into a hug, and I didn’t miss the way Aspen and Reagan wrinkled their noses in disgust. Trey’s face was a careful mask of calm, not his usual relaxed expression.
What the fuck is going on?
Addie said goodbye to my brothers, Aspen, and Reagan as we walked away, but none of them said it back.
“This was fun,” Addie said happily when we reached her SUV. “I’m glad your mom invited me.”
She rose onto her tiptoes, hands finding my shoulders, inches away from kissing my cheek before I pushed her away.
“What are you doing?”
“I thought…” Her blue eyes instantly filled with tears, and I fought the urge to roll mine.
“I told you when you came to see me in the hospital that this wasn’t happening between us. We’re friends. No, we were friends. Now we’re nothing.”
“You don’t mean that,” she said, hand finding mine, attempting to lace our fingers together.
I pulled free. “I really, really do.”
“I tried to give you time,” she said. “I thought in the hospital, you were acting crazy because you’d just been shot and the drugs were clouding your judgement. But I see it’s so much worse than that.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
She jabbed her finger in the direction of the barn. “She has you under some kind of spell. She put up this big fuss when you got shot like she’d been mortally wounded herself, and you fell for it.”
“I didn’t fall for anything. Not that I owe you an explanation, but I’ve loved that woman since I was nineteen. Not a day has gone by where I haven’t.”
Addie reared away from me like she’d been slapped.
“Even when we—” She cut off, and I nodded.
Not long after we met, Addie and I had given into our urges. Both of us were nursing emotional wounds, and it had been too easy to fall into bed together. Afterward, we agreed it had been a one-time thing, and we’d proceed by keeping our relationship strictly professional.
Over the years, of course, while we’d never slept together again, the lines between colleagues, sometimes friends and more blurred. Hence inviting her to Crew’s wedding, a massive mistake on my part.
Addie’s hand found her mouth, eyes widening in horror.
I couldn’t tell if it was all an act or if she was genuinely hurt by my words. I was getting the sense it could go either way with her.
This whole thing had gotten far too messy for my liking, and I needed her to go and never come back.
“Please leave, Addie. And leave me and my family alone. You owe me that.”
Those final four words got her, a reminder that she owed me a life debt. The least she could do was respect my wishes now.
As her expression cleared, shifting from pain to something akin to determination, I once again marveled at how quickly her moods shifted. It was terrifying to watch.
Without another word, she threw herself into her SUV and peeled away from the ranch, leaving deep, tire-shaped gouges in the grass of the lawn in her wake.
Emotionally exhausted, I walked back to the barn, rejoining my family near the bar. Though my brothers shot me concerned looks, I subtly shook my head, silently begging them to let it go.
Before I said anything to them, I needed to talk to Sutton.
After the party wound down, my brothers, Aspen, Reagan, Sutton, and I stayed to help Mama clean up. The women hauled the leftovers into the house while my brothers and I put away the tables and chairs.
Soon, we were saying our goodbyes and climbing into my truck to head home.
Sutton was quiet the entire drive, but the tension between us was damn near suffocating.
Once we were inside, I pounced.
“Before you go up, can we talk?” I asked.
Sutton paused with her foot on the first stair tread, shoulders hiked up to her ears. I thought she’d refused, but she sighed, long and low, and turned to face me. Dragging her feet all the way to the couch, she took a seat on one end, and I dropped down on the other.
“What happened earlier? Did Addie say something to you?” She nodded. “What?”
“Nothing worth repeating.”
“Then why are you acting like this? It obviously upset you.”
“It’s not important, Lane. Can I go to bed now?”
“No,” I said firmly. “If you won’t tell me, I’ll just ask Trey.”
“Why don’t you just ask her? Since you’re so close and everything.”
“We are not close.”
Sutton snorted. “You should tell her that.”
“I did.”
Some of the bravado left her. “You did what?”
“I told her to leave me the fuck alone. Now tell me what she said to you.”
She was quiet for long enough that I was sure when she did open her mouth again, it would be to tell me to fuck off, to not worry about it, to let it go.
But she surprised me by doing none of those things.
“She told me to stay away from you,” Sutton replied, her voice barely above a whisper. “Seemed pretty confident you’re ‘meant for each other.’” She hooked her fingers in air quotes around the words. “That’s a direct quote, by the way.”
God, that fucking woman. Doing her level best to ruin the one good thing I had in my life—even if I didn’t quite have it.
Yet.
I hated what that confrontation had done to Sutton, how she’d withdrawn into herself and wouldn’t meet my eyes.
“Sutton, look at me.”
Though she didn’t move her body, she obliged, angling her head to face me.
“There is nothing happening between me and Addie.”
“Does she know that?”
“I made it pretty clear tonight, yeah.”
“Then why…?” Her eyes grew wide as the question died on her lips, like she’d come to some sort of realization that scared the shit out of her.
“I don’t know what her deal is,” I said, trying to steer us away from a conversation I didn’t think either of us were ready to have. “But don’t worry about her, okay? She’ll never bother us again.”
Sutton merely nodded, looking a bit dazed. Then she seemed to shake herself out of it and got to her feet.
“I’m heading to bed.”
“Sure, of course.”
“You’re going to the game tomorrow, right?”
“Yeah. Did you want to maybe ride together?”
Why did asking that simple question feel like asking a girl out on a date for the first time? This was not my first interaction with a woman, and going to the state championship game together was not a date.
But this was Sutton, and Sutton wasn’t just any woman.
She was the woman.
“Yeah, that’d be great,” she said, offering me a weak smile before leaving the room.
And suddenly, I felt like I’d won the lottery.
All Idaho high school football state championship games were played at Boise State’s stadium. I hadn’t been back to my alma mater in years, and to be returning now with Sutton at my side was a bit of a mindfuck.
We arrived bright and early, pulling into the lot shortly after eight a.m. Because Dusk Valley was in 1A, the smallest division, they were playing in the very first game of the day at ten a.m. Larger divisions would follow until this evening and spill over into tomorrow.
Somehow, we were the first to reach the spot we’d planned to meet at, so Sutton and I went about getting the grill unloaded, the coolers filled, and tables and chairs sent up.
Finn, Reagan, and West were bringing the tent we’d erected outside the barn yesterday, Mama was bringing some of the leftovers, and Aspen and Crew were on drink duty.
They arrived in a quick procession, and once we were all gathered round, we passed the time until we headed in with food, drinks, and conversation.
I had to admit, I missed my sister. Having music blasting and it not be accompanied by her singing along to every word was strange.
She’d wanted to come home to support Trey, but she’d recently landed a gig at the bar where she worked, and she couldn’t turn down the exposure or, quite frankly, the money. Still, she made us all promise to FaceTime her when Trey’s team won.
Yes when, not if.
Finally, the time came to head into the stadium, and after packing all our stuff away, we joined the queue. The energy was electric. It might only have been high school, but people around here took their football seriously. Especially in small towns like ours and the Spuds’ opponents’.
Thanks to our connection to the coach, we got great seats in the family section near the fifty-yard line, only a few rows back from the bench.
At capacity, this stadium sat over thirty-six thousand people, and I was impressed that over half of them were filled with fans coming out to watch the days’ games.
Like the whole state of Idaho had shown up to support these boys.
After going through the pregame and lineup announcements and the national anthem, it was finally game time.
On their first drive, Trey’s quarterback, a junior who, I had to admit, reminded me a lot of Owen back in his day, led the team ninety yards for a touchdown. On their opponent’s first drive, the defense held them to a three-and-out, including a third down sack that really fired the crowd up.
It was early yet, but I had a good feeling.
That was, until the appearance of a certain brunette woman between the first and second quarters burst my bubble.
At first, I’d thought it was Sutton, that she’d somehow gotten up and snuck away without me noticing until she came back.
I hadn’t realized before how similar Addie and Sutton looked.
Apparently, I had a type.
Not the point, Lane.
These days, my type was Sutton, and Addie’s appearance pissed me the fuck off.
Why wouldn’t she take a fucking hint?
I risked a glance at Sutton. Her attention remained firmly on the field, as though deeply enraptured by the game.
I knew better. She was avoiding looking at me, probably to spare us both the tongue lashing she wanted to give me because it looked a hell of a lot like I’d lied right to her face last night.
So badly, I wanted to reach for her, to assure her I didn’t invite Addie here, had made it abundantly clear I didn’t want her anywhere near me or my family, but I couldn’t handle it if she rejected me.
“Hello, Lawless family!” Addie said brightly. “I was hoping I might see you here.”
“Addie!” Mama crowed, oblivious to the tension Addie’s appearance brought. “What are you doing here?”
“One of the guys on my team has a kid playing for Wallace. We’re stalled out on a few of our active cases right now, so we wanted to come show our support.”
It was entirely possible she was telling the truth; I didn’t detect any lies in her words. But she’d known we’d be here, and after our conversation last night, it annoyed the fuck out of me that she’d gone against my wishes to make her presence known to us.
“Do you want to join us?” Mama asked. Either she hadn’t noticed the rest of us hadn’t spoken a word, or she was choosing to ignore the rudeness of her children by making up for it with the extended invitation.
“Oh, no, I wouldn’t want to impose.”
At least she was smart enough to decline, but of course, Mama wouldn’t hear of it.
“There’s plenty of room,” Mama assured her, turning to glare down the line of us until we all shifted around, conveniently leaving a space open at my right side. Sutton was on my left.
As badly as I wanted Addie to go away, I wasn’t about to argue with my mother and make a scene on Trey’s and his team’s big day.
Addie squeezed in next to me, and for much of the second quarter, I sat still as a statue, not bothering to engage in the conversation she was having with Mama.
I was, however, encouraged by the fact that none of my brothers, nor Aspen or Reagan, indulged Addie either.
We were all sensing the same wrongness about this. None of them knew that I’d laid down the law with Addie, but they were all on my side.
When the clock reached the first half’s two-minute warning, Sutton stood suddenly.
“I’m going to get hot chocolate,” she said to no one in particular, not waiting for a response before climbing up to the concourse level and disappearing.
Trey’s team held off Wallace’s drive, heading into the locker room at halftime with a two-touchdown lead. Shortly after the teams left the field, Addie got to her feet.
“I should get back to my team before they send out a search party,” she said with a laugh, then bent to hug my mom. “Thanks for letting me hang out for a bit. It was great seeing you all.”
“You too, Addie,” Mama said, oozing good manners. “Don’t be a stranger.”
Addie hummed noncommittally and left—without having looked at or spoken a word to me.