Page 49 of Father Knows Best (A Family Affair #1)
twenty-nine
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geo
The Fear
I can’t believe those words came out of my mouth, but more than that, I can’t believe Sutton’s reaction.
Calm, undisturbed, unbothered.
“Did you hear me?” I ask him, because his face has not changed from his usual business casual impassiveness.
He nods. “I heard you.” He shrugs out of his suit jacket, and glances at his watch before holding up a finger to me.
Retrieving his cell phone from his pocket, Sutton calls Avery, but he doesn’t put her on speakerphone.
He keeps her voice to himself, and only hearing soft reverberations of her has me on edge.
“The delivery should–oh? Right now? Okay, well, I’ll join you when I’m done here.
” He holds my eyes while he talks to her.
“Yes, I will. Okay. I will.” He ends the call, and shoves the phone away.
“Tell me why you think you can’t,” my son says, rolling his neck out as he settles on the couch covered in weeks worth of laziness.
I shrug, picking up an undershirt from where my feet rest, and fold it up, setting it on a stack of papers.
“Sutton, look, you don’t want me in your marriage.
Come on, let’s just talk about the fact that what’s transpired so far has been…
strange. And once the eroticism of all of this wears off for Avery, she’s not gonna want me around.
You’re not gonna want me around.” I shake my head.
“Think it through, think about it rationally.”
He wastes zero time in responding. “I have. And so has Avery. And yes, it’s not conventional, sure, I’ll give you that.
But when has convention stopped you from doing anything?
You watched me hit an employee, for Christ’s sake.
” He taps his foot on the ground, still dressed in his work clothes.
As soon as I got home, I changed into sweats because heartache and sweatpants have a real nice marriage.
“Tell me what’s holding you back. Do you not want to share someone?
Do you feel like you can’t live your life with us?
Do you not want to? You can tell me the truth, you know. You always can.”
I can’t help but think about Margot in that moment, and the choice I made to protect her identity from her son when she passed.
I always said I’d make the same choice again, but the truth is, I don’t think Sutton would want me to make that choice again.
I think he’d rather have been close to his only alive parent than idolize the one no longer here.
I think telling him the truth now is crucial. I haven’t lied, but I haven’t been as direct as I could be. “I would never forgive myself for changing things with you and Avery.”
“Don’t forgive yourself,” Sutton says, “thank yourself. Because you have changed us, both, for the better. You fixed us, but you made us see who we really are and what we need, and neither of us can move forward without you.”
“You really feel that way?” My heart is racing, but so are my thoughts. My son is a bigger, more mature, loving man than I am or ever was.
He nods. “Yes. Do you know me to be a liar?”
I shake my head. “No.”
“Okay, then. Now, I have a sneaking suspicion of the answer to this question, I think the answer is something you realized, and that’s why you’ve been avoiding us for weeks.”
I don’t say anything. He continues.
“Are you in love with Avery?” he asks.
I don’t disrespect Avery by hesitating. “Yes.”
He gets to his feet and outstretches his hand. “Perfect.” I get to my feet to shake his hand, but he pulls me up onto my feet instead. “Get dressed.”
“I am dressed.”
We both survey my outfit of tube socks, sweats, and a v-neck white t-shirt that has a whiskey stain on it. “I’ll change.” I stop halfway across the space, right at the hallway opening. “Where we going?”
Sutton pulls his phone from his pocket, and reads something on the brightened screen before he locks it. “Actually, we’re going to a property in the Haight. Roberta made a late night sale, and stopped by our place to grab the spare keys from the safe.”
I scratch the side of my jaw, ready for my barber appointment tomorrow. “Why are we going there? Didn’t she get the key from Avery?” I catalog the keys in my safe in my mind. “I don’t have keys for anything in the Haight.”
He smiles. “Avery got her the keys from my safe. But she went with Roberta, because she was waiting for me and didn’t feel like being alone much longer. We’re going to pick her up, and the three of us will talk.”
The implication of his words makes the back of my neck heat. He seems so confident in everything, of his plan, his belief that his wife feels and wants the same. But his whole life, though I gave him little reason, Sutton trusted me.
Trusted me to guide him into a good career, to teach him everything I know, to help him make the best life–all of it.
It’s time I trust him, too.
I hook my thumb down the hallway leading to the master suite. “I’ll go change.”
A few minutes later, after I’ve thrown on some jeans and a black pullover, I find my living room nearly cleaned, and Sutton waiting against the doorframe, head tipped down toward his phone.
“I’m ready, and hey, thanks for picking up,” I tell him, but he bypasses my comment.
“Avery’s phone location isn’t showing up,” he says with a frown.
I’m not looking forward to spilling my feelings, but I am looking forward to seeing her, and getting past this awkward phase. I shrug. “Probably a service thing. Let’s head over there.”
We get in the town car and head over, but I can’t stop bouncing my leg.
Sutton is unable to reach Avery, even still.