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Sutton nods, her eyes gleaming with excitement. “It’s all accurate, and while we wouldn’t use their material verbatim, we can definitely follow the outline of the program. I’ve got all of the necessary materials we can convert over that have been produced by our crisis center. ”
“What do you want my role to be?”
“Well, you are the spokesperson, so most of your work will come on the back end when we start traveling to schools and events, but I’d still love to have your input while I put the program together. As I draft the materials, I could forward them to you for review, and we’ll need you to do some photo shoots for the brochures and pamphlets, videos…that sort of thing. ”
“Will you go out to dinner with me tonight?” I ask, the words popping out of my mouth so suddenly, I have no clue where they came from. Clearly my subconscious decided to overtake my sensibility and make itself known.
Sutton’s eyes go round and her lips part in surprise. Fuck…I’m completely surprised myself that I just asked that.
“As in a date?” she asks carefully. “Or to work on this program further?”
“As in a date,” I tell her while looking her levelly in the eye. “Of course, we can talk more about this if you want, but I’m asking you out on a date. ”
Sutton’s eyes fall to the table and she fiddles nervously with her fork. She sucks her bottom lip in between her teeth and her eyebrows scrunch with consternation. I wait patiently for her to answer me.
When she looks back up, she doesn’t surprise me at all when she says, “Should we be crossing that line? The one that splits the professional from the personal?”
“I’ve never given much of a f**k about labels and lines, Sutton. I do what I want, and I very much want to see you on a personal level. If you have qualms about crossing a line that’s important to you, I respect that and I won’t try to talk you out of it. ”
She glances back down at the table for just a moment, then her eyes come back up and look at me with a hint of mischief. “What if I want you to talk me out of it?”
My lips quirk upward while my heart trips end over end. “Depends. How much convincing do you think you’ll need?”
Sutton brings her index finger up and taps it against her lips while considering my question. “Hmmm. I’m pretty torn up about this. It might take a good effort on your part. ”
She’s teasing the f**k out of me and damn if it doesn’t feel good. If she’s expecting me to come back at her with some teasing of my own, she needs a quick lesson in the fact that Alex Crossman usually goes in for the kill pretty quickly.
Standing up from the booth, a quick step puts me over on her side. With no hesitation I bend over and slip my hand around the back of her neck, pulling her up slightly toward me. A tiny gasp of surprise comes out of her mouth but I see her eyes fill with challenge.
Game on.
I angle my head in decisively and bring my mouth to hers. My kiss is confidently persuasive and she opens up to me. I don’t plunder her invitation though, giving her just a moment where our lips touch, move against each other’s in a whisper, then I pull back and release her.
Standing up, I look down at her and say, “Convinced?”
She nods back at me, her fingertips coming up to lightly touch at her lips, and I swear I can almost feel the touch against my own.
Moving back to my seat, I place my napkin back on my lap and ask again, “So will you go out with me tonight?”
She smiles at me. “Yes, I’d love to. ”
“Great—” I start to say, but then she cuts me off with a slap of her palm to her forehead.
“Shit, wait. I can’t. I have plans already. ”
My hackles immediately rise up high, because I assume it’s a date she has planned. My anger builds quickly but before I can say something, she says, “Unless…you’d want to come with me?”
Blinking at her a few times so I make sure I understand what she’s saying, I ask, “Where would that be?”
“To my parents’ house. Family dinner. ”
My immediate instinct is to say no and several reasons filter through my head. First, I want Sutton all to myself. I don’t want to share her right now. Second, seems kind of lame to meet her parents for our first date—and this could be our only date for all I know—and finally, did I mention I want Sutton all to myself?
Then I remember that I’m leaving tomorrow for an extended away-game schedule and won’t be back for another five days. Suddenly I realize I’ll take Sutton any way I can get her. “Okay. I’m in. ”
“Really?” she asks, looking at me skeptically.
“Yeah, why not?”
“It’s just…seems kind of lame, going to my parents’ house for a first date. ”
“Thought the same thing when you suggested it. ”
“Painfully honest, right?”
Grinning at her, I nod. “Yup. But I realized I’d just like to spend time with you, and if your parents are half as cool as you, I’m thinking this will be fun. ”
“They’re great. You’ll love them. My mom and Jim-Dad have achieved sainthood already in my book. ”
“Jim-Dad?” I ask with a laugh.
“He’s my stepdad. He’s raised me since I was about eight. ”
“What about your real dad?”
“Jim-Dad is my real dad,” she says, not with any censure but with genuine warmth and amusement. “Now, if you’re talking about the sperm donor who is my birth father—well, he’s floating around Raleigh somewhere. He flits in and out of my life on occasion, depending on whether he’s clean or not. ”
My mouth drops open and I stare at her in disbelief over what I think she just implied, and the way she said it with full acceptance and not an ounce of bitterness. “Your dad is a…?”
“Drug addict? Yup. He’s definitely not father of the year, but I try to support him as best I can. ”
“And by support you mean…?”
“Not financial. I mean I try to give him encouragement and emotional support, but it’s hard when I’ve watched him yo-yo back and forth. ”
I’m quiet for a moment, comparing her revelation to thoughts of my own father, who battles with alcohol. No, that’s not quite right. He doesn’t battle. That would imply he’s tried to quit at some point, but he never has to my knowledge. He has succumbed, nothing more.
“Is that why you do what you do?” I ask her.
“Drug counseling? Pretty obvious, right?”
“Pretty f**king impressive, I’d say. ”
Sutton’s face flushes red and she averts her gaze with uncharacteristic shyness. She picks up the fork and starts fiddling with it again while she continues. “My life was very bad when my dad was part of it. His drug addiction brought a lot of suffering down on my mom and me. My mom saved me, though. She got me out of that environment—as best she could. Then Jim-Dad saved us both. ”
Laying the fork back down, she lifts her eyes to meet mine, and she is smiling in a moment of happy reflection and love for her family.
I want to hear all about her story, but I’m actually afraid to. I’m afraid to hear it because of the comparisons I’ll draw to my own life, and I hate thinking about my childhood. I also don’t want to hear her story because something churns a bit in my gut. It appears we both had crappy childhoods, yet Sutton seems to have adjusted just fine. At least from what I can tell.
Me?
Not so much. I’ve let my past shape me into something that a few weeks ago I was pretty comfortable with.
But now?
Now I’m not sure I like looking in the mirror and seeing the reflection. I’m pretty confident that while Sutton has been a beautiful, bright spot in my life recently, she could also cause me a world of hurt by peeling away my scabs. I like her, want to get to know her, want to spend time with her.
Want to f**k her, no doubt.
But I don’t want to get too close. I
think that would cause repercussions that I probably couldn’t bear in the long run.
Chapter 12
Sutton
I can’t believe I’m on a date with Alex Crossman. I can’t believe Alex Crossman just had dinner at my parents’ house. I can’t believe I want him to kiss me more than I’ve ever wanted to be kissed before, and my palms are sweating so badly over the prospect I keep wiping them on my jeans.
The evening has been perfect so far. Alex picked me up at my house. When I invited him in and asked if he wanted a tour, he just gave me a slick grin and said, “Later. When I drop you off. ”
And that was when my insanely slutty side came to light. All I could imagine was him coming into my house and pushing me up against the wall…taking all kinds of indecent liberties with me whether I wanted him to or not. The image was burned so hotly into my mind that I kept revisiting it during dinner.
Sometimes I even had a hard time concentrating on what was going on around me, my mind wandering toward my fantasies rather than my reality.
And the reality was, that dinner was fun and wonderful, and the best part was seeing Glenn’s face when I showed up with Alex. I thought he was going to perish on the spot, and he got so tongue-tied that he could barely say hello. Alex had pulled a bag out of the back of his Suburban when we pulled up in front of my parents’ home, and when I asked what was in it, he just shrugged and said, “A few things for your brother. ”
A few things turned out to be a signed Crossman jersey, four tickets to the next home game for the entire family, a signed Crossman poster and a stick signed by the Cold Fury’s goalie, Max Fournier. I freakin’ had to turn my head and wipe my eyes on my shoulder when I saw the way Glenn’s face lit up. For a split second, he doubted the entire bounty before him, and looked to Mom for reassurance that it was okay to accept so many wonderful gifts. Then my little brother—my beautiful little baby brother—looked to Alex and said, “It’s too much. ”
Alex flinched slightly, then his face broke out with understanding. Treading a very fine line between encouragement to accept and understanding over Glenn’s sensitivity to money, Alex played it off beautifully. He said, “No way, dude. I’ve had this stuff just sitting around my apartment. ”
Which was a lie. The freakin’ stick was signed by Max Fournier, so Alex had taken the time to get this stuff for Glenn. I wanted to launch myself at him with a hug of epic proportions, but to everyone’s surprise, Glenn beat me to it. He stood up from his chair and flung his arms around Alex as he sat on the couch next to me. I couldn’t help but grin when Alex caught him in a bear hug and awkwardly patted Glenn on the back, looking over his shoulder at me with a soft smile.
Dinner was amazing, thanks to the fact my mom is like the best cook in the world. Despite the crusty and surly side of Alex that I had seen on occasion, he was nothing but open and candid with my family. Glenn chattered away at him incessantly with my mom and Jim-Dad popping in questions every now and then. I did notice, however, that he gently steered away from any questions about his childhood or his own parents, instead focusing on the fact that he had left home permanently to live with a foster family while playing in the Quebec Juniors. This was interesting to me because he focused on his early hockey career, when I know for a fact that he doesn’t care too much for said career at all. The counselor side of me knows he’s avoiding something that is more painful than his distaste for the sport.
Regardless, my mom hugged him warmly when we were leaving, and Jim-Dad invited him back over anytime he wanted. Glenn was a bit shy, his prior spontaneous hug clearly related to the excitement of Alex’s gifts, so Alex bent down and held out his fist for Glenn to bump, saying, “See you next week after the game?”
Glenn nodded shyly, but I could see he was about ready to burst from the prospect.