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CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Suki

“I mean, sloths do everything slow, right? They probably take, like, several days to digest their food,” Dex says.

He looks around the table, studying my face, then Harry’s, and then Mara’s.

“I have no idea,” Harry says, putting his hands up.

“Just guess three days,” Mara says.

“Three days?” Dex looks at me. “Are you good with that?”

I shrug. “Sure. I don’t know anything about the digestion of sloths.”

“Well, someone needs to take point on sloth digestion so we don’t miss these in the future,” Harry says as he writes down our answer.

It’s Monday night, which is trivia night for our team, The Smartinis. I haven’t made it to many trivia nights since I started working for Carter, so Harry’s friend Carla has been filling in for me. Tonight, though, it’s the OGs. I’ve been down in the dumps, and I hope a night out with my closest friends will help.

It’s been a little over a week since I saw Carter for more than five minutes. When he gets home, I either have one of my friends there, or I try to slip out one door when he’s coming in another one.

I had to stay to talk to him about Charlotte’s math grade today, but I left as soon as the conversation was over, even though he asked me to stay.

I’ve avoided him for too long. We have to talk at some point, but the more I try to sort out my feelings for him, the more confused I get.

It’s not that I’m not in love with him—I am. I didn’t mean for it to happen, but I feel for him anyway. He’s everything I’ve never had and didn’t know I wanted. Devoted to his nieces, who are like his own daughters, earnest, honest and funny in his own way. Beneath his gruff exterior is a side of him the world doesn’t get to see. It’s that secret, soft underbelly that I love the most, but I even love the scowls.

He doesn’t have the patience to sit through the halftime show when he’s watching a football game, but he watches Pixar movies with us and never complains. No matter how tired he is, he reads to Hallie for at least thirty minutes at bedtime every night. Once he figured out how much I love Nutter Butters, he started buying them in bulk.

I don’t know why I can admit to myself that I’m in love with him, but I can’t admit it to him. When he got vulnerable and said he wanted us to be together for real, I panicked. Since we’ve only known each other for three months and we’ve only very recently gotten romantically involved, it seemed too fast.

My gut told me it takes years to build a deep, everlasting love and that a man who can fall in love this quickly can fall out of love just as fast.

But I miss him. I miss our phone calls after his road games. I miss hearing Hallie giggle from her bedroom when Carter’s reading to her. I miss Olivia rolling her eyes when Carter tells her she’s not allowed to talk to boys. I miss the way he looked at me during sex and the way he held me after.

“Suki?” Dex snaps his fingers in front of my face. “What animal never sleeps?”

“Oh. Uh...owls?”

“I’m telling you, it’s bullfrogs,” Mara says.

“Go with that,” I say. “Mine was a total guess.”

Harry gives me a sympathetic look. “Love on the brain?”

“Something like that.”

“You two are driving me fucking crazy,” Dex snaps.

Harry furrows his brow, confused. “Who two? Us two?”

“No, Suki and Carter. He’s all, ‘Grr, how’s Suki? She won’t talk to me,’ and she’s all, ‘I love him, but I’m ignoring him.’ Every time I’m over there with the kids and Carter gets home, I feel like a damn referee.”

“So sorry to impose on you,” I say, annoyed.

“Just own your shit. He’s hurt because he said he loves you and you said you probably love him, too. Come on now, who isn’t hurt by that? The only worse thing you could have said was thank you .”

“He caught me off guard,” I say defensively.

“So the best way to handle that is to kick him out and ignore him?”

“Who asked you?”

He laughs. “Babe, you should know by now that I don’t need to be asked for my opinion to give it. He’s kind of a caveman sometimes, but I’d kill for a man like that. Maim. I mean, can we trade lives for five minutes? So I can know what it feels like for your biggest problem to be that a crazy hot, rich pro athlete with a huge dick who buys you sweet presents is in love with you.”

Someone clears their throat and we all look over at our server, who looks sheepish. “Just checking in. Drinks?”

“Another martini, please,” Dex says.

“I’ll take another glass of wine,” Mara says.

“I’m good,” Harry says.

“Me too.”

We all return our attention to the trivia host.

“How many faces does a dodecahedron have?” he asks.

“Hmm. Dec means ten, right?” Harry says.

Harry is already writing. “It’s twelve. It has a Greek root—it’s a 3D shape with twelve pentagonal faces.”

“Okay, but how often do you get to use the word pentagonal?” Mara says with a grin.

She’s on cloud nine after having drinks with Professor Lumberjack. It went well—very well. I’m happy for her. She hasn’t been excited about a man in a long time, and she’s never had a relationship that lasted longer than a month. Maybe her time has come.

“I just don’t want to get burned again,” I say, returning to our conversation.

Dex puts his hand over mine and squeezes it. “I know. But real love is hot, babe. If it doesn’t have the potential to burn you, it’s not it.”

I nod, thinking about what he said. It hits a nerve. Are my feelings for Carter terrifying because of how high the stakes are?

I’ve never lived with a man before him. Never had a man buy me a diamond. Hell, not even a cubic zirconia. I’ve never loved children or known how it feels to hurt when they hurt. No one’s even done anything like the Nutter Butters for me other than my friends and family.

It’s like I fell from a cliff when Tyler left, and then I swam to the shore and started climbing again. I climbed past that first cliff and kept going. And going. I climbed until I reached the highest point, and now I’m standing there.

If this relationship doesn’t work out, I’ll fall further. Harder. Even after a couple of months, Carter has set a much higher standard for men than I’ve ever known. He’s not afraid to say he loves me, even if I don’t say it back. He had a chance to let the girls’ father raise them, but instead, he fought to keep them.

He’s ten times the man Tyler was. And if he’s willing to be vulnerable, I have to be, too.

I take a deep breath, returning my attention to the trivia host.

“Okay, guys. Bonus question here. This one is worth three points if you get it right. Here we go...the planet Uranus was originally named what?”

After a pause, he repeats the question. I look at Mara, then Dex, then Harry. All of them look as stumped as I am.

“Anyone?” Dex asks.

Mara shrugs. “My anus? That’s all I’ve got.”

He grins and starts writing. “We’re going with it. My...anus.”

“You guys,” I say.

All three of them look at me.

“I know I’m a dumbass sometimes, but I’m a genius when it comes to picking friends. I love you so much.”

Harry puts an arm around my shoulders and kisses my temple. “We love you, too.”

Mara blows me a kiss.

Dex looks at me over the dark rim of his glasses. “I love you, Suki, which is why I’m telling you you’ll regret it forever if you don’t try with Carter. With your whole heart.”

“Even though my heart looks like one of those models of a smoker’s lungs they show kids to scare them? All dark and shriveled?”

He considers. “Maybe you’re right. If you end up an old spinster with nine cats, my nine cats will have someone to play with.”

I roll my eyes. “I’ll talk to him.”

“Send him a tit pic,” Mara says. “He won’t even remember he was mad at you.”

“Tit pics are your solution to every problem.”

She shrugs. “They’re not not a solution.”

“How many tit pics have you sent to Professor Lumberjack?” Dex asks her.

“None.”

“Oh.” Harry’s brows hit his hairline. “She really likes him.”

The trivia host comes around to collect our answer sheets, and I take my phone out to check it.

Olivia: I got an A on my speech! I’ll show you my teacher’s score sheet tomorrow.

I get a pang of missing her, even though I just saw her this afternoon.

Carter and the girls have become everything to me. I’ve only ever asked myself what it would be like if things with Carter didn’t work out. It’s time to consider what things would be like if they did.