Chapter 49
FORTY-NINE
SUTTON
I was already searching for the spare key when Cooper texted me. Their game wasn’t his finest display of athleticism—honestly, anyone’s. The entire team was off tonight.
Somehow, probably my shaking hands and heart, I broke the pot they keep their Barbie pink key in. Lucky for the fake plant, it’ll survive.
Hot pink and groovy style flowers, this is the house puck bunny key. They will tell a girl where it is, and after she leaves, they change its spot.
Inside, I grab a sports drink from the kitchen and raid the secret snack stash. A bag of white cheddar Cheetos Puffs and a pack of fun-sized M I had every intention of returning the bracelet to her. Maybe even be her hero for finding it. Sutton loved this bracelet.
Stupidly, I only attempted to give it to her once. A smarter man, or someone who wasn’t rounding the corner of puberty, would have tried again.
We were going over to her house for Sunday dinner. Mom and Dad loved to do family dinners, and since the Davises have always been family, we did them together. Rotated weekly which house we went to.
Our dads—attractive professional hockey players that never lost a tooth and can whip up a mean potato gratin and roasted chicken—cooked. Even though I believed Mrs. Davis prepped everything.
It was almost a month after our big fight and her injury.
Sutton hadn’t uttered a word to me in the weeks following, blatantly ignoring me and turning the opposite direction at school, switching assigned seats in class.
When we showed up that week to her house, I wasn’t supposed to be there, but our team bonding was cancelled.
As soon as Sutton saw me, she bolted upstairs as quick as someone on crutches could.
Her bedroom door slammed shut. Meave chasing after her.
Five minutes later, they were back down the stairs, Meave hot behind her, trying to convince Sutton to stay.
Sutton told her parents she forgot she had a school project that needed a poster board, and left with keys tight in her fist.
Her bracelet was snug in the front pocket of my jeans. I slipped one of my hands in the pocket and played with the beads—a weird tick I still have. Honestly, probably why I’m attached to it the way I am now.
“Really fucked that friendship up,” Jordan said, kicking me under the table.
“Jordan. Language,” Mom scolded.
Sutton’s mom laid her hand over mine. “She knows the injury isn’t your fault. That day upset her and…don’t worry about it sweetheart, it’s only an association. She’ll get over whatever happened between you two.”
Yeah, I’m afraid not. That’s what I wanted to tell her mom then, and little did I know that it would take over five years for her to be remotely over it.
I didn’t want to lose or misplace the bracelet. Terrified to accidentally wash it, I started wearing it. It was dainty enough that it fit under long-sleeved shirts and sweatshirts. The only time I took it off was to sleep, shower, or play hockey.
One day, I forgot to take it off and had the best game of my life. When I took off my gloves and gear in the locker room after, I saw it there on my wrist.
I’ve worn it every game since—except tonight.
When the stress of the game and my future blurred my love for hockey, the bracelet became more than luck.
I’d run my fingers over it or slip it off and play with it during a press conference after games, at home on the couch, and reading a new article about my insufficiencies. I clung to it to steady my racing mind.
There’s always been a steadying aura with Sutton, even when she wanted nothing to do with me.
Finding ways to insert myself into her life might have made her loathe me more, but at least she was feeling something toward me.
Gave me pieces of her energy, her mind…of herself along the way. Whether she realized it or not.
These years, I’ve watched her grow. Experience challenges. Fall in love with new dreams. I hated doing it from the sidelines, but at least I was in her orbit somehow.
Maybe now I realize I’ve been selfish and should have given it back. I don’t know.
My eyes lift to hers, and they’re looking at me as if I’m hurting her.
“Dave…”
She shakes her head, puts a hand up. “Do not Dave me. Or Sutton baby.”
“Can I explain?”
Sutton laughs. “The same way you explained what happened in high school?”
“You said it didn’t matter anymore.”
“Izzy was right.” She shakes her head, disappointed. What does she have to do with this? From what I know, they haven’t spoken in years. “Were you lying the night you told me you love me? Were we only ever some type of game to you?”
“This—we,” I correct and emphasize the word, “aren’t a game. You aren’t some prize that I’m trying to win.”
Sutton stands from my bed. “I need a minute to breathe.”