Page 37 of Sucker Love (Sugar Pill Duet #1)

I can’t take it anymore. I push myself into Luca’s side and clear my throat and he has the gall to look surprised. He genuinely did forget I was here. “Who’re your friends?” I ask loudly.

“Oh, Noel,” he says with a smile. “Sorry. This is Killian Neely. I haven’t seen him since...” He gazes at Killian. “My wedding, I think? We were best friends in high school.”

“And more,” Killian says with an obnoxious wink. He can’t even wink right. He blinks both eyes really hard at the same time and just looks like an even stupider asshole than he already does. And now I’m fixating on what the fuck that comment means, and more, but I have a pretty good feeling I know.

For his part, Luca ignores the comment. “Killian, this is Noel Underwood. He’s my—um, he’s a friend. I’m staying with him while I get everything sorted out with Demi.”

A friend?

A friend .

I am a friend. After fucking everything, that’s how I’m introduced to this moron who I’m entirely convinced, beyond a shadow of a doubt, he fucked at some point.

It’s in all the familiarity, and the casual, dusty intimacy between them.

Like no time’s passed at all, and he’ll let Killian practically feel him up—okay, fine, it’s just touching his shoulder and patting his arm and whatever—but I’ve been downgraded to friend I’m staying with while I figure out my stupid shitty divorce . Oh, my blood’s fucking boiling.

“Right, a friend,” Killian says after a short pause. “Well, this is Max.” He loops arms with the bear-looking guy, who is still hovering silently and attentively over his shoulder. “My partner. ”

I whip my head back toward Luca—why the fuck didn’t I get that kind of introduction?—but he’s already lost interest in me. “Nice to meet you,” he’s saying to Max, offering a hand to him.

And this is one more injury I cannot take.

I don’t fit in this picture. I’m just here while these guys laugh it up about the good old fucking days.

I’m just the person Luca’s staying with and that’s fucking it.

Meanwhile this Max guy is Killian’s partner so he gets to fit in by default, he might be just as out of the loop as I am but he’s probably heard some stories, probably hangs out with that old circle of friends that I have never heard of or been told about.

Luca isn’t acknowledging me in any way, shape or form anymore.

I’m just here.

I might as well not be here.

So I turn away and slip off unnoticed. And I don’t bother saying anything because I know it won’t be seen or heard or cared about.

I know Luca’s not going to come chasing after me regardless.

He’s preoccupied. He’s got his friends. He’s got his ex-whoever and they’ve got history, they’ve got so much to catch up on.

I’m not going to listen to it and watch Killian stroke his bear of a boyfriend with one hand as he paws at Luca with the other while I stand there without my hand even being held.

I guess you don’t hold hands with your friends.

And fuck Luca, too. They can all have each other. If that would make him so happy.

I shove my way through the crowd because I don’t give a fuck about decorum anymore.

Someone’s drink slops on the ground and I think it might be my fault but I don’t care and no one tries to stop me until I’m close to the door, where a drunk older guy asks me to dance to some Tom Petty song.

I’m pretty sure he thinks I’m a girl. I snarl at him to go fuck himself and he stumbles away, a bewildered expression on his face.

Outside it’s a little better. The air is frigid and painful as I breathe it in deeply but it is fresh.

It smells clean. The sounds of all that elderly raucous gaiety fade as I trudge toward Luca’s pickup truck.

I pull on the handle but it’s locked, of course, and there’s no chance in hell I’m going back inside to ask for it to be unlocked.

Instead I grasp the tailgate, step onto the bumper and haul myself into the truck bed.

I lie on my back and stare at the night sky. The stars have never looked so cold and distant, but I realize that’s because I am not accustomed to ever seeing them. Especially not so many at once.

I’m freezing, but I didn’t bring a coat; my bare shoulders are triangles of ice.

My breath puffs forth into the air before me and I remember, when I was little, how I used to pretend I was a dragon, and then when I was a little older I used to pretend I was smoking cigarettes.

And then when I was older than that I didn’t have to pretend, but that was a short-lived phase of mine.

Self-destruction can be cheap and endorphin highs are accessible as hell.

It all depends on what you’re willing to do to yourself. There’s so many interesting things.

I could’ve taken one of those giant icicles hanging off the eaves of the club and put them through my throat right about now.

And fuck, I just want to know why people have to fucking say one thing and then do the opposite.

It really isn’t hard. If I say I want it to be real, if I want to be yours , that’s what it fucking means and there’s nothing friendly about it.

And he can tell his friend that he’s ending things with his wife so there shouldn’t be some conflict of fucking interest when it comes to me, my existence, our relationship, but I guess it’s all too soon for that.

Am I supposed to wait it out? Is there some prerequisite number of months before it’s acceptable to say you’ve moved on?

It was obvious, anyway. I could tell by the look on Killian’s face that he knew what Luca meant, just as I knew they’d fucked at some point in their prehistoric past. Maybe we all just knew what each other meant, and that was the point, playing coy.

It hurt, anyway.

No one offered to shake my hand or said nice to meet you. I was—am—nothing. I’m a stain, just an obnoxious stain, and anytime I want to be more than that it’s a big old problem. And I think I’ll probably freeze to death out here if I stay much longer but I don’t care.

“Noel? Are you out here?”

It is Luca’s voice calling for me, and that’s a surprise.

I think it’s been maybe five minutes since I made my escape, if that.

Childishly, I say nothing, resolute in my misery, and secretly I hope he goes away so I can keep hating him for a little while longer.

I’m not done being upset. He wasn’t supposed to come find me.

He was supposed to stay in there and pal around with stupid Killian for another hour or two while I caught hypothermia and maybe died and then he would’ve been sorry.

But when he walks by the truck and looks over, he sees me lying there. “What are you doing?” he says, grabbing onto the edge. “Why’d you disappear like that?”

“I needed some air.”

He climbs over the side and joins me. “You must be freezing.” He takes one of my hands before I can pull away. “Jesus, Noel. You are freezing. ”

And I insist that I’m fine and he can go back in and whatever but he takes me into his arms, and he is warm, so much warmer than me, so I can’t protest very much at all. “Come on,” he says. “Let’s go inside. We’ll get you another drink and warm you up.”

“No!” The word explodes from me. “No, I don’t want to.”

“What? Why not?”

“The club sucks. I just want to go back to the hotel. Or—I’ll just stay out here until you’re ready. Whatever.”

“Noel.” He takes my frigid face in his much warmer hands and makes me look at him. “Are you upset with me?”

“No,” I lie.

“Yes, you are. I can tell. What’s got your back up now?” I refuse to say anything, but an idea dawns on him after a few seconds. “Oh. You’re mad about Killian, aren’t you?”

Of course I can’t help myself now that he’s opened that floodgate. “You fucked him,” I accuse. “I can tell.”

“So what?” Luca’s nonplussed, impatient. “It was almost fifteen years ago. Literally when I was seventeen. Are you going to be mad about that?” He peers into my face. “No, are you really jealous right now? Noel, be serious.”

I snatch my face out of his hands and move away from him. “And you’re just fucking ignoring me, like I’m not even there, I have to beg to even be introduced?—”

He stares at me in open-mouthed astonishment. “What? That’s not—I didn’t mean that. I was just happy to see him again after so long I forgot in the moment. I wasn’t ignoring you on purpose. Is that what you think?”

“I don’t know.” My voice is small and thin and it’s not the right answer.

It’s not Killian. It has nothing to do with Killian, not really (even though he is kind of irritating) and everything to do with how I was introduced to Killian.

How I was treated in Killian’s proximity.

That I’ve been downgraded to friend. That I was told this was real, and I was his and now I feel like none of that is true at all.

That’s what I should be saying, and I open my mouth to say it.

Too late, though, because Luca’s irritation is at the forefront. “You know this is important to me, right?” he says. “Reconnecting with people like him, old friends.”

“Did you know he was going to be here?”

“No, and that’s not the point. I told you just how important it was to reclaim these parts of my life and now you’re going to throw a fit about it and run off because, what, you weren’t the center of attention for five minutes?”

“That’s not fair.” I feel like crying. “That’s not it at all, Luca. I want that for you, I really do. I just?—”

“Then grow up , Noel. You cannot act like this around my friends. It’s embarrassing, okay?

Having to run after you because you’re flouncing off for whatever fucking reason.

” I’ve never seen him mad before, but I am now, staring it in the face as I take my dressing down.

“Now are you going to come back in there with me? Or are you going to keep sulking out here until you turn into an ice cube?” When I don’t answer right away, he sighs noisily.

“There’s a shuttle from here back to the hotel. Do you want to take it? ”

And now I feel so fucking terrible that there is no way I can tell him why I’m really upset, and I suddenly and desperately do not want to be alone at the hotel. “No,” I whisper again. “I want to stay with you.”

“Then please stop. Whatever this is, just...stop.” Exasperated, that’s what he is. With me.

I nod. I try to smile. He helps me out of the back of the truck and we trudge back inside.

He buys me a drink and then I get another until everything’s too foggy for me to pay attention to whatever it is that he’s saying to Killian and Max as we sit on one of the tables on the upper floor.

I smile at the jokes and pretend I know what’s going on even though I don’t have context for any of it and I’m too inebriated to follow, anyway.

I watch Killian get handsy with his man and then get handsy with mine and I’m not allowed to do anything to stop it because he isn’t mine, but at least Luca brushes him off and tells him to cut it out.

From time to time he even puts his hand on my knee, under the table. Like a consolation prize.

I pull out my phone. There’s a text from Danika, asking how my romantic weekend getaway is going. I tell her, with a lot of typos, that Luca introduced me to his ex-boyfriend as a friend.

Her response: I hate to say I told u so!!!

We get back to the hotel around midnight, and I’m completely wasted.

I fall over when I try to take off my clothes and Luca has to take them off for me.

I’m not a happy drunk tonight, I’m introspective and miserable and the way he told me to grow up keeps running through my head, except it gets more guttural with every pass until it stops sounding much like his voice at all.

He even helps me brush my teeth and wipe the makeup from my face. I feel like a dumb, broken doll.

“Think you overdid it with the cosmos,” he tells me, not unaffectionately, as he carries me to bed.

I don’t answer him. I think I could’ve had five more. I listen to him get ready in the bathroom and he’s a vision in just his sweats when he comes out. I wish I didn’t feel like complete and utter shit.

He nuzzles my neck as he climbs into bed behind me. He’s pressed himself up against my ass and of course that turns me on like a switch, regardless of my sour mood. “You’re so gorgeous,” he whispers, almost regretfully. “Wish you weren’t wasted.”

And I wish this version of Luca had been present an hour ago but we don’t always get what we want. I turn and wrap my arms around his. “So what if I’m wasted?”

“Because I don’t want to fuck you when you’re almost blackout drunk.”

“What a fucking surprise. ” It comes out slurred and indignant and maybe not completely coherent.

“Stop,” he says, and his voice has an edge. And then he softens, kissing my forehead. “Go to sleep, stunt girl. I’ll fuck you tomorrow.”

I squirm away from him as far as I can and bury my face into the pillow.