Chapter 34
Sutton sat at a corner table at Tomato Time, the warm, garlic-scented air of the Italian restaurant wrapping around her like a cozy blanket she wasn’t sure she wanted.
Plates clattered and glasses chimed all around, waiters weaving expertly between tables, the hum of conversation and laughter filling every corner.
Jo and Vivi were across from her, gossiping softly over their wine, leaning in like they always did when plotting, scheming, or trying to get Sutton to admit the truth she usually kept buried.
Then the door opened and well…
Fuck me.
It was Colter. With Cheryl.
The sight of him stepping inside, tall, confident, the faint glint of amusement in his eyes as he leaned slightly toward his polished, poised date, made Sutton’s stomach collapse. Her chest constricted with a heat she hadn’t expected to feel this strong.
Vivi scooched closer, voice soft but teasing. “Uh-oh. That’s not the look of a casual observer.”
Sutton’s gaze stayed glued to him, watching as he laughed easily, that grin she knew too well lighting up his face, leaning just close enough to Cheryl that it made Sutton’s stomach knot with jealousy and regret.
“It’s nothing,” she muttered, forcing the words through a tight throat.
“Nothing? Sutton, be honest. Has it shifted?” Vivi asked.
Startled, Sutton looked at her friends. “Has what shifted?”
“The way you feel, dumb ass,” Jo said as blunt as a beer bottle to the head.
Sutton let out a reluctant sigh, knowing she couldn’t lie—not even to herself. Plus, if she stood a chance at a full life here, she needed to stop with the lying. And that started with the two women who had become so important in her life.
Sutton hadn’t had many friends growing up. Moving from school to school, foster home to foster home, had taught her how to adapt, not how to put down roots. Just when she’d started to build something in her adult life, she’d gotten pregnant, and survival had taken priority over social circles.
Aside from Nicole—her friend from vet tech school—Sutton had never really had people she trusted like sisters. Until now. And the realization settled deep, part comfort and part terror, because it meant she finally had something worth being honest about.
“Yes,” she admitted quietly. “I like him.”
Jo let out a low whistle. “And here I thought you were going to fight me on that one.”
Sutton shot her a pointed look, but her attention was already back on Colter. “I’m not looking for a relationship. Not now. Not with everything I have to focus on as a mom.”
Vivi rested a hand lightly on hers. “Just don’t lie to yourself, Sutton. Feelings aren’t a crime, even if the timing is tricky.”
Her heart ached, tugged between desire and responsibility, and she knew Vivi was right—she couldn’t ignore how much seeing him like this hurt, how much she wanted, and yet couldn’t have.
Across the room, Colter laughed again, unaware of her eyes following him, the subtle heat of jealousy prickling with every gesture he made toward Cheryl. Sutton took a shaky breath, forcing herself to stay seated, to pretend the knot in her stomach didn’t exist.
Jo, honest to a fault, leaned across the table with a mischievous grin. “And being a mother doesn’t mean you have to shut off the rest of yourself. Stop overthinking it and just bang him already.”
Sutton nearly choked on her wine, cheeks heating.
“Jo!” she hissed, looking around to make sure no one was listening. Thankfully, the no one she was concerned with was leaning on the table in quiet conversation with his date.
“Call it a suggestion. Call it tough love. But you? Sitting here, watching him laugh with some other woman? It’s murder on your nerves. And the best way to blow off nerves is to fu—”
Sutton slammed her hand over Jo’s mouth.
“Yeah, I get it!” she snapped.
Vivi grinned, clearly not backing down. “I have to back Jo up on this one. I mean mind-blowing sex isn’t a bad idea. Hell, I did it myself.”
“Hell, at this point any kind of blowing needs to happen,” Jo said, biting on a toothpick.
Sutton ignored Jo and looked at Vivi. “Wait. What did you say?”
Vivi waved a hand, casual as could be. “I slept with Boone two weeks after I met him. Total rebound sex—well, I convinced myself it was rebound because I’d just broken up with my boyfriend.” She smirked. “Best part? I was shocked at how quickly it worked. All the nerves and awkwardness? Gone.”
“And did it work? Did you get Boone out of your system?”
Jo grinned devilishly. “Oh, she got him in her system.”
Vivi shot Jo a mock glare but couldn’t hide the laughter in her eyes. “Yes, Jo, but only metaphorically. Though, uh, maybe not entirely.”
Sutton groaned, burying her face in her hands. “You two are impossible.”
“And you,” Jo added, poking her lightly in the side, “are about to find out how fun impossible can be.”
Sutton tried to focus on her wine, swirling the deep red liquid like it could calm her spinning thoughts, but she couldn’t ignore the pull across the room.
Colter’s eyes found hers just as he laughed with Cheryl.
A flicker of recognition—of something unsaid—passed between them and Sutton understood in one breathless second that she’d made the wrong decision for all the right reasons.
Her pulse jumped and heat rolled through her chest and up her neck as she held his gaze, a brief, charged moment stretching out, hot and electric. It was everything her brain told her to ignore, every warning she had tried to silence.
Cheryl, following his eyes, caught the same spark and arched a perfectly sculpted brow. That little twitch, that subtle narrowing of her lips, told Sutton everything she needed to know—Cheryl understood. And that realization—that she was hurting someone else—guilt crept in, slow and unwelcome.
She dropped her gaze to her wine again and muttered under her breath, “I can’t do this. He’s on a date with my friend.”
Vivi’s eyes narrowed with knowing amusement. “Oh, Sutton. That’s not it. Spill it.”
Sutton exhaled, shame and frustration mingling. “When he looks at me, like really looks at me, I feel this pull. But Cheryl just noticed it and she knows something’s going on. And I can’t stand that I’m making someone else feel that way.”
“Well, congratulations, girl,” Jo said. “You’ve just confirmed the obvious. You’re playing with fire.”
Vivi nodded, voice low but deadly serious. “Then here’s the solution. Stop screwing around in the half-shadows. Own it.”
“And start screwing around,” Jo said wiggling her brow. “Or a third party will get hurt. You don’t want someone’s heart to end up in a blender, do you?”
“No. Including my own. Or Lynlee’s. Something between us or not, I can’t go there for a very valid reason. Reasons I’m not willing to share yet. But I will, very soon, I promise.”
Colter was halfway through a story he didn’t remember starting when he felt it—that shift in the room, the sudden absence of something he hadn’t realized he’d been tracking all night. It was like the air had been pulled out without warning.
He lost his place, his words trailing off into nothing.
Across from him, Cheryl tilted her head, waiting patiently, but his attention had already drifted. His gaze slid past her shoulder, toward the front of Tomato Time, as if drawn in by this obsession he couldn’t outrun.
Sutton was standing now, pushing her chair back from the table she’d been sharing with Vivi and Jo.
She said something low and quick—too quick for it to be casual—and slung that ridiculously big bag she always carried over her shoulder.
Her posture was tight, like she was holding herself together by will alone.
She didn’t look back at him.
Not once.
The door swung shut behind her, the bell chiming softly, and something in Colter’s chest went sharp and hollow at the same time.
“Well?” Cheryl said quietly.
He dragged his eyes back to her, already knowing what he was going to see.
She was watching him with an expression that was calm, composed—and unmistakably perceptive.
“You have feelings for her,” she said. It wasn’t a question.
Colter straightened in his chair. “I don’t—”
She raised a hand, not unkindly. “Colter.”
He stopped.
The truth sat heavy and uncooperative in his chest, refusing to be rearranged into something more polite. He exhaled slowly, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck.
“I didn’t come here planning to—”
“I know,” Cheryl said. Her voice softened. “That’s actually how I know.”
“How you know what?”
“That you didn’t intend for this to happen.” She offered a small, rueful smile. “Men who plan to be distracted don’t look nearly as startled when it catches up to them.”
He let out a short breath that might’ve been a laugh on another night. “I’m sorry. Truly. You didn’t deserve to be… whatever this is.”
“Collateral damage?” she offered lightly.
He winced. “That.”
She studied him for a long moment, then nodded once. “Thank you for saying that.”
They sat in silence, the sounds of the restaurant flowing around them—silverware clinking, someone laughing too loudly at a nearby table, the faint hum of music drifting from the bar.
Finally, Cheryl spoke again. “I had a feeling at the barbecue.”
His eyes lifted. “You did?”
“Mmhmm.” She tapped a finger against her wineglass. “The way you looked at her. Not obvious, exactly, but attentive, like the room recalibrated when she spoke.”
“I didn’t realize it was that obvious.”
“It wasn’t,” she said. “Not to everyone. Just to someone who’s been on enough first dates to recognize when she’s not actually the point.”
Guilt twisted in his gut. “Cheryl—”
“I mean that kindly. Really, I should’ve trusted my instincts instead of talking myself out of them. That one’s on me.”
“I never meant to lead you on.”
“I know.” She smiled, warm and sincere this time. “And for what it’s worth, you’ve been nothing but respectful. That’s rare enough to count for something.” Her gaze drifted briefly toward the door Sutton had disappeared through. “There’s a lightness to her that is rare.”
“There is.”
“Protect that.”
He didn’t even have to think. “I will.”