Chapter 6 #2
A moment passes between us, as if we are peering through a looking glass at the friendship we once had. I blink and it evaporates.
We’re interrupted.
The guys crowd their small kitchen, breaking into the other boxes of pizza and wings. They layer and stack their plates exactly as I expected. I slide the box of pizza I got for Sutton away from their greedy and grabby hands.
Chase makes a plate for Elliot, adding the crust he tore off his slices to her plate. I watch as he walks over to her. She’s sitting next to Sutton, laughing about who knows what.
Even through her loud laugh, I hear Sutton’s. Whatever remnants of anxiety from earlier today vanish at the sound, relieving the tightness in my chest, and I swear she’s better than the ashwagandha tea I stomach at night.
“We were playing ‘put a finger down’ before you got here,” Jaxon says with a mouthful of food. He swallows and wipes his mouth with a napkin. “We should restart. Sutton was the only one with five left anyway.”
Sutton tosses him a fake smile, tilting her head with a slight shake back and forth, a hint of annoyance in the curl of her lip that she masks with playfulness in her bright eyes.
Everyone puts up five fingers. I use my other hand to devour my slices, forgetting to pluck off the tropical fruit.
The back of my neck, the skin that is exposed underneath my hat prickles, and I turn enough to see from my peripheral that Sutton is watching me intently.
When she catches my gaze, she quickly looks away, cheeks tinted.
I go first.
“Put a finger down if you’ve been to Europe.”
Everyone else drops a finger. Sutton goes next.
“Umm…” She searches for a statement. Picks up her wine glass and takes a few sips, then blushes. “Put a finger down if you’ve had sex in public.”
“Does a car count?” Dawson asks.
“Oh.” Around the room, everyone drops a finger unanimously. Sutton drops her hands to her lap, masked by the coffee table. “This is awkward.”
“Why?” Elliot asks casually, nonchalantly.
“I assumed there had to be someone else that hadn’t—”
“You and Nathan never—” Jaxon starts about her freshman year boyfriend.
“No. We, uh, yeah, we did stuff. We just never—”
“I knew I couldn’t stand him. That twatwaffle should have spent less time with his head in a textbook, and more time between his girlfriend’s legs.”
“Jaxon!” Elliot warns, bonking him upside the back of his head.
“Ow,” he lets out, at the same time, I bark out, “Don’t talk about her like that.”
“Sorry!” His hands fly up in front of him. “Just reminding everyone how much he sucks.”
“Apologize to Sutton,” Elliot demands with a snap and point.
“I’m okay, Elliot,” she pipes up, slipping her game hand out from under the table, her thumb folded down.
But I notice the half moons up and down her pointer finger.
It’s a nervous tick she’s had since we were kids.
There’s a scar on her left palm from pushing into the flesh so hard that it bled.
It’s barely noticeable, most probably don’t even see it, given how faint the crescent is.
I’ve always thought of Sutton as the sun—personality, her attire, everything really—and myself as the moon.
Especially lately. You can’t have one without the other. The moon doesn’t shine without the sun.
Sutton clears her throat, and I quickly rip my gaze away from her when I realize I’ve been staring. “You go, Chase,” she follows up with.
He immediately goes, catching the rise of my brow and silent plea for him to get us out of the conversation. “Put a finger down if you’ve hooked up with someone in this group.”
You’d think we’d all know each other by now. Three years of friendship between all seven of us, plus my sister and her roommate, Xanie. They were easy additions when they started at Lakeland, both on the women’s hockey team.
But the response to Chase’s turn is a reminder that there is always something you don’t know about a person…or that we all keep secrets.
It’s as if the music being streamed on the television glitches and the AC turns off with how quiet and palpable the tension in the room becomes.
Eyes bounce from one person to the next. Lingering a millisecond longer on me and Sutton as if something has happened between us.
I wish I were putting a finger down.
Sutton laughs sardonically, head tipping back, exposing her throat, untamable curls falling down her back. It’s my least favorite of her laughs—not that I have them ranked or anything.
“One day,” I joke. My voice, the playful tone I’ve mastered.
Jordan eyes me from the kitchen where she’s pulling the cheese off a slice of pizza. If I knew she was coming, I’d have gotten a dairy-free one for her.
Distracted with my own patheticness, I blink and miss how subtly Elliot and Jaxon drop a finger down. No one missed it. There’s a concert of surprised responses floating around the living room.
“You and Elliot?”
“What the heck? When?”
“No way.”
“Seriously?”
“Really? You and Elliot?”
“Alright. Come on now, don’t say my name like I’m not the best he’s ever had,” Elliot says, pulling her hair back and starting a braid when Chase takes over, weaving the three strands.
All heads turn to Jaxon who is wearing the cockiest shitting eating grin.
“Tell me I’m wrong,” she taunts.
“You are.” He takes a sip of his beer. “I’m”—Jaxon points the neck of the bottle in his direction—“the best you’ve ever had.”
“Honestly, I don’t even remember it.” Elliot levels him with a look; eyes narrowed, cat-like, and lips pursed together with the smallest hint of an uptick on the left, her dimple digging into her cheek.
“Come on,” he groans. “Remember when you ro—”
“Ha. See.” Elliot thrusts a waggling finger in his direction, cutting him off from whatever juicy detail he was about to reminisce on.
“Whatever.”
“Can we go back to the question of when did this happen?” Dawson asks, mouth slightly agape. “And why is this the first we’ve ever heard of it?”
“I don’t tell you about everyone I’ve slept with,” Jaxon lies knowingly.
“Last semester for like a month,” Elliot admits.
“A month?” Dawson’s mouth falls all the way open.
They both nod. Elliot casually responds, “It was supposed to be a one-time thing. We were both a little drunk off one too many tequila shots. I got ditched at a party, and Jaxon walked me home.”
“I had to carry her, she couldn’t walk in her heels any longer.”
“He’s forgetting to add the part where I didn’t want him to carry me, and I tried to jab said heels into his ass.” Elliot huffs, rolling her eyes at herself. “But when he held the door to our apartment open for me, I thought it was the sweetest thing and kissed him.”
“Apparently, you did a lot more than kiss him,” Chase says, his shoulders wear his regret in asking.
“Did you know about this?” Dawson turns to Sutton.
Her hands are up in front of her. “I plead the fifth.”
Jordan and Xanie sitting down pulls the conversation away from Elliot and Jaxon.
“No cheese?” Jaxon asks, picking it off her plate. “That’s pretty boring, little Carmichael.”
She glowers at him. “Sorry my dietary restrictions are boring. How about I eat the cheese, and then you have to deal with the consequences.”
“You know I’ll take care of you anytime. Just say the word.”
Jordan ignores him, and we return to the game.
Dawson takes his turn next, and we play for another half hour. Whenever someone loses, we reset and keep going. No one repeats a statement, but Sutton wins every time. She never loses more than a finger or two.
Quietly, she excuses herself from the group. No one else notices, busy watching whatever game is on and complaining about classes.
My eyes trail her as she places her plate in the sink, rinsing it first, and disappears down a hallway.
I follow her lead, I stand up and take my plate to the kitchen. In their cabinets, I find a mug to start a cup of tea. While the water is boiling, I wash the plates in the sink from tonight.
Sutton hasn’t returned.
A door closes, or opens, then there’s another almost unnoticeable closure.
I pad down the hallway toward her bedroom. My hand burns from the hot porcelain, and when I turn to knock, hot tea splashes over the side.
“I’ll be right out,” she sniffles.
Is she crying?
There’s a skip in my heartbeat, a hollowing out of my stomach. It’s like there’s a faucet in my brain and someone turned the handle just enough that it drips. Each drip forms a puddle of panic that settles in my stomach.
“Dave, it’s me.”
“Go away, Cooper.” Does she have those three words queued up or something?
I knock again. Sutton cracks the door open.
“What do you want?” Her facial features match the sharpness in her voice. Sutton spins around, walking away from the door she left open. The crack is big enough that I can see in. She sits in the middle of her bed, pulling her knees up to her chest, and rests her forehead on top of them.
She changed. She’s not in her dusty pink sweater with cherries all over it and vintage denim overalls over top. They are traded for green pajama bottoms tucked into white ruffled socks with dogs on them and an oversized shirt.
On my next exhale, I push open the rest of the door with the back of my shoulder. Sutton doesn’t pick her head up.
The mattress dips underneath my weight, causing her body to lean toward me. I scoot in next to her, careful to not spill the tea on myself or her purple comforter.
“Here.” I offer her the tea, turning the handle in her direction, so she doesn’t burn her hand.
She looks at me, then bounces to the mug.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
We must be in the twilight zone because she answers. Truthfully.
“No.” She takes a sip, and I hope I remember how she takes it correctly. “Honey and lemon with a splash of milk?”
“Yeah.”
Sutton raises the mug to her lips, the rim fitting between them. She breathes in deeply and out through her nose. “Sometimes I make this just for the smell. I don’t even drink it, just sit here and breathe. It reminds me of Mom.”
“I didn’t know that,” I admit.
“Now you do.” She rests the mug on her knees. “I think about her and Dad a lot.”
“Is that why you’re crying? You left your phone in the living room. I can go get it and we can video them.”
“Yes.” I shift to get up. “No, not that. Yes, they are why I’m crying.” She shakes her head and curls fall forward, hiding her away. Mindlessly, I reach out and push them behind her ear so I can see her, read her eyes. “Partly.
“I get jealous of their love. That they found each other so young and make it all look so easy. Tonight reminded me how I’ve never had anything like that and probably won’t.”
“You’ve dated, what? Two guys.”
“That flopped miserably. Mom had one boyfriend. Dad.” Hazel eyes roll at me, and I can’t help but crack a smile. “Now, I can’t even talk to a boy.”
“You talk to all of us.”
“That’s because I don’t have a crush on you goons.
When I was dumped for the second time, I thought of myself as…
” Sutton trails off, letting all the air out of her lungs.
Then takes a large whiff of the steam rolling off the tea.
“It’s like that stole something, and I can’t figure out how to get it back.
It’s been way over a year, and I’m fumbling over my words and emotions, not to mention my own two feet.
My crush talks to me, and what do I do?” She lets out a groan.
“Embarrass myself. Zach probably regrets giving me his number now.”
“I can help you,” I blurt before my better judgment can catch up to my heart that’s slipping from her back pocket.
When it does catch up, it’s screaming at me. A flashing jumbotron that reads What are you thinking?
Sutton chokes on her sip of tea. The mug on the verge of tumbling from its delicate position. “Help me?”
“We’re friends.”
“We aren’t.”
“We’re friends,” I repeat with more confidence, and since she’s being truthful, I lie down a few of my cards even though I know it might hurt and say, “You are the most confident person I know. You deserve the love you want, and if you need help getting it, then I’ll help.”
“And how would you do that?”
Once again, this wasn’t well thought out. I shrug. “Think of me as your dating tutor.”
That earns me a laugh, number three on the list of favorites.
Why would I want to help her fall for someone else?
Insanity?
Stupidity?
A desperate need to make up for my mistake? The part of me that is okay with never having her if it means she’s happy?
“What do you get out of this? If I agree.”
“You take me back as your student athlete in your case study.”
“That’s you helping me twice, and I don’t want to owe you Carmichael.”
“Is it?” I smile. Softly, almost too nervously.
“You were right. I need to help myself.” I let my guard completely down.
Reveal how bad of a place I’m in. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but it’s getting worse.
I’m having issues skating and getting out of bed.
Any mention of the future is a boulder on my already thin ice.
If I don’t take care of this, get help, then I don’t know—”
“Cooper,” she whispers my name. Pain wells in her hazels.
“Don’t pity me, Dave. Agree to this. We can help each other.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.”
“Now, leave.” She shoves at my shoulder. I stand, but not before tugging on a curl like I used to do as a kid. “I don’t need anyone to think any monkey business is going on back here. This deal between us doesn’t change anything. I still hate you.”
“We’ll see about that,” I toss over my shoulder, walking out of her bedroom and returning to our friends. “Tomorrow.”