8. Sully
CHAPTER EIGHT
sully
This one’s for you, Nat. Cheers to beating that asswipe in court last week.
Isnapped a picture of my beer sitting beside Theo’s bourbon at the bar and shot it off to the sibling group chat. Natalie maintaining full custody of Chloe and shaking off her ex in court was the only cause I had to celebrate this week—or really, the only thing that had made me smile in many weeks.
NAT: Thanks, Sul. Are you guys out at North Star? Wish I was there to celebrate with you!
Yep, we’re here to watch Noah’s game. Maybe if he beats LA’s ass, we can celebrate him, too.
BLAKE: Pressure’s on, Noah. Don’t let Grayson show you up on the field.
NOAH: Guys, I’m not even playing tonight.
NOAH: Grayson will have to wait for his ass kicking until later this season.
I snorted. Grayson Everett, a wide receiver for LA, was Noah’s college teammate and one of his best friends. We loved watching games where they were matched up against each other; it was fun to catch their little on-the-field antics that probably went unnoticed to most people.
Wait, did you get cut? Who’s going to fund my extravagant lifestyle now?
NOAH: Maybe you should move out to Cali. I’ve heard there are some places in Silicon Valley that pay big bucks for computer whizzes like you.
My stomach dropped. Fuck, man, I hated when my ribbing backfired on me. Glaring at my phone, I typed harder, as though I could take my frustration with my brother—and my goddamn miserable life—out on the screen.
When did you become a smartass?
BLAKE: You know, I was just talking to someone about Silicon Valley the other week…
BLAKE: What was her name again?
NOAH: Oh, yeahhhh. Was it Allie?
BLAKE: Nooo, that’s not right.
NOAH: Kellie?
BLAKE: Close, but…
I hate all of you.
I did. I really, really fucking did. At least right now.
Normally, my siblings didn’t dare bring up Ellie, even though I knew how much they loved her, how much they missed her and wished we would get back together.
But seeing her again seemed to have opened the floodgates.
Maybe they thought that since I’d survived Noah’s engagement party, I could survive the teasing.
Maybe they figured that since I’d managed—for the most part—to act my usual, good-natured self in Boston, I hadn’t been fucking dying inside all night.
I was still dying inside. The last few weeks, after walking away from Ellie in her dark hotel room, had been hell. I’d left a part of myself behind—in that bed, with her—and the hollowness that had been existing inside me for the last five years grew bigger. A pit I couldn’t escape.
So yeah, I really didn’t feel like dealing with their shit.
NAT: What did *I* do?!
Nothing today, but you did bring my ex-girlfriend to our brother’s engagement party without telling me. So, I reserve the right to be mad at you, too.
NAT: Alright, fine. I’m sorry about that. I thought by now it wouldn’t be so bad.
I couldn’t imagine there would ever be a time when it wouldn’t fucking destroy me to see Ellie in a crowded room and not be able to walk up to kiss her.
And if, God forbid, I ever saw her in a crowded room and someone else came up to kiss her?
That might just be the goddamn end of me.
The worst part was, I knew it was bound to happen eventually. Eleanor Summers was gorgeous, intelligent, funny—every man’s fucking dream.
My fucking dream. Still.
I might call her my ex-girlfriend, but in my head, she was everything but that. Even when we were together, I never found a label that fit what we really were. And now that we were apart, I still didn’t know how to categorize what she meant to me.
The only thing that ever really mattered before was that she was mine.
And now, the only thing that I ever really thought about was that she wasn’t.
Because she left. And it didn’t look like she ever planned on coming back.
NAT: I mean, it went fine, right?
I snorted into my beer before taking a long gulp.
Fine.
Yeah, sure, it went fine.
Fuck that.
It had been so much better than fine and so much worse, all at the same time.
Let’s talk about you, Nat. You dating your hotshot lawyer yet?
NAT: Yeah, actually. That’s why Juniper took over the case before we went to trial.
I knew that. And Natalie knew I knew that, but I’d been desperate for a subject change, and she was being nice enough to allow it.
I glanced over at Theo, who’d been completely ignoring the group chat, his phone buzzing on the bar top beside his bourbon. His eyes were on the TV screen mounted on the wall in front of us, even though the game hadn’t started yet.
“You are absolutely no help,” I muttered.
“What?” he asked without looking away.
“Our siblings are being assholes.”
“Even Natalie?” He lifted a disbelieving brow, raising his beer to his lips.
“Well, she did bring Ellie to Noah’s house.”
“It’s been, like, a month, Sully. You cannot stay mad about that forever.”
“Fucking watch me,” I said beneath my breath.
Truth was, I couldn’t be mad about it. Because even though the last several weeks had been a nightmare, I wouldn’t give up the night I’d spent with Ellie for anything.
I couldn’t think of a single thing that would make me regret having her like that one more time.
Being inside her, being so goddamn close to her, was everything I remembered and more, even if it had been different, too.
And sure, it made it that much harder to get over her, set me back a few—or a million—steps, but who was I kidding? I was probably never going to get over her. If I hadn’t managed it in the last five years, it simply wasn’t going to happen. I’d miss her, love her, ache for her until the day I died.
So, there was no real point in denying myself having her, even if it had only been for one night.
Even if it distracted me in development meetings to the point that I’d embarrassed myself for losing track of the conversation.
Even if my showers suddenly lasted twice as long because I’d end up with my hand around my dick, memories of her body spurring desperate tugs.
Even if I got so lost in my head most days that I forgot to eat until my stomach started screaming at me.
Or until Theo suggested we grab a bite at the North Star.
Like tonight.
So far, I’d only been able to stomach alcohol, though. I liked to pretend it dulled the ache in my chest.
It didn’t.
“You still haven’t told me what happened that night.”
Theo’s voice was so low, I almost didn’t catch his fishing comment.
I raised a brow. “Neither have you.”
The reason I’d gone back to the hotel alone after Noah’s party was because I hadn’t been able to find Theo, and when I’d texted him asking where he was, he told me to head out without him.
It was odd, but I hadn’t pressed him for the details, mostly because I was hoping for a return favor. I didn’t need him asking why he’d run into me in the elevator the next morning, wearing the same clothes I’d had on at the party.
“That rough of a night, huh?” he’d muttered, raising a brow.
I’d just shaken my head. For some reason, I had liked the idea that he thought I’d been out all night brooding, or maybe even fighting with Ellie, compared to the truth—that I hadn’t even lasted a couple of minutes in the same space as her before I’d thrown her over my shoulder and found the first available bed to fuck her in.
Goddamnit.
“Touche?.”
Theo dipped his head in acknowledgment, and we clinked glasses.
Cheers to secrets, I suppose.
“Hey, guys, what’d I miss?”
Cooper dropped into the seat on the opposite side of Theo. As usual, his long hair was thrown into a sloppy but weirdly perfect bun, and he wore one of his favorite band T-shirts, some folksy artist I could never really get into. There really was only so much banjo I could take in my life.
“Nothing.” Theo shrugged, giving Cooper the briefest glance. “I guess Noah’s not even playing tonight.”
“Yeah, he got cut,” I said.
“He didn’t get cut.” Cooper rolled his hazel eyes. “It’s just the preseason. They’re saving his chops for the regular season.”
“Yeah, that makes way more sense.”
Cooper snorted, shaking his head. “What’s with the mood on you two? Come on, look alive. Monday Night Football’s back, you’ve got a cold beer, it wasn’t as blistering hot as fucking usual today.”
I nodded and took a swig of my IPA. Cooper was right; we were being mopes.
And this was our first night back at the North Star, watching football in our normal corner of the bar, where Fletch, our favorite bartender, basically reserved us a TV to watch Knights’ games, which weren’t always on the rest of the screens, not unless Noah was playing more of a regional team.
“Sully’s just pining,” Theo said, and I scoffed.
“Okay,” I drawled, “way to deflect from your own piss-poor mood, you fuck ass.”
“I’m not in a bad mood,” Theo argued. “This is just how I am.”
I narrowed my eyes at my older brother and then shrugged. He wasn’t entirely wrong about that.
At times, I envied him for that. Blake, too.
Neither of them felt the urge to, I don’t know, mask their moods the way that I did.
I did it less around Theo and Cooper because they knew me well enough that it didn’t seem entirely possible, but sometimes, I wished I could be like that all the time.
I wished I could lean into what I was feeling without it overtaking me.
Cooper Roberts, though, was the opposite of my brother.
He was outgoing and charismatic, often matching my energy, but seeming to do it without care.
Everything Cooper did appeared easy—it had been like that since he and Theo became football teammates, and then friends, in high school. And I envied him for that, too.
I just wished things were fucking easier.
“Listen, I don’t know what happened to the two of you in Boston earlier this summer, but…” Cooper heaved a sigh and flagged down Fletch. “Shit’s been weird ever since.”
Fuck, was he right about that. Although weird only really skimmed the surface of what I’d been feeling. I badly needed to shake the fuck out of it.