Page 15 of Ugly Duckling (Content Advisory #6)

Nine

I’m so sad I need a shoulder to put my legs on.

—Sutton’s secret thoughts

SUTTON

It took me a week to come to terms with the fact that I’d had sex with my high school crush…and liked it.

It took me another week to gather the courage to reach out to Gunner and tell him that I wanted to move in with him.

It took me yet another week to gather up my meager belongings at my mom’s house and pack my car.

“Are you sure you have to go today? It’s kind of late.”

I looked at my mom and scrunched up my nose at her. “Mom, it’s eight in the morning.”

She sighed. “I know. I was hoping that you’d stay for a bit longer.”

“I can’t,” I said. “If I don’t go, I’ll never go. And I don’t want to live with my parents for the rest of my life.”

“Dad and I wouldn’t mind,” she tried.

I scoffed. “You would. I’m already cramping your style.”

“True.” She batted her eyes at me, “but we promised that we wouldn’t have sex out in the open like that again.”

I gagged at the memory.

“Subject change, please,” I ordered.

“You said that you were moving into Gunner’s house? In the Highlands?” she asked.

“Yes, I’ll send you the address when I get there,” I said. “Gunner just sent me the pin to his place, not the actual address.”

“And you’re sure that you want to move into a house with a man who has a child?”

That was actually the least of my worries.

“Yes.” I nodded once. “I’m going to go now. Love you.”

She blew me a kiss. “Be careful on the freeway. And watch your rearview mirror when you go to stop fast. There was a really bad accident on the highway last night, and it scares the absolute shit out of me to have you out there.”

“Mom, I’ve been driving for quite a long time now,” I pointed out.

“I know,” she grumbled. “That doesn’t change the fact that I still worry about you. You may be a full-grown adult, but inside my heart, you’re still just my little baby.”

I reached out and hugged her tight. “Love you, Mom. I’ll see you next weekend when you bring me the rest of my stuff.”

“And this man, he’s nice? He’s not going to be a nightmare roommate?”

I squeezed her arms before I let her go.

“Yes, Mom. He’s perfectly nice. He’s treated me nice since we met in middle school.” I paused. “You do remember who this man once was, right?”

I didn’t keep any secrets from my mom.

My mom remembered Gunner. There was no way that she couldn’t.

I mean the man had saved me the night of my junior prom.

He’d also been the only nice person in my school.

I’d talked about him a lot, and he was a big deal when he was at the same sporting events that I was at.

“Yes,” she agreed readily. “That doesn’t mean that he’s not a different person now than he was in high school.”

“I’ll give you that,” I said. “But Gunner is the same good guy. I feel it in my heart when I look at him.”

“And you’re sure that he said we could come see you whenever we want? Even stay with him?” she asked.

“Yes,” I answered. “Wait until you meet Lottie, his daughter. He’s so sweet with her.”

My mom melted. “I’m still heartbroken about what happened with his baby boy. All those babies. We go to the memorial every single year.”

I had, too.

I just blubbered like a baby, so I tried to stay away from the huge crowd so I didn’t draw any attention to myself.

I didn’t want anything to be about me.

But my heart was still literally devastated when I thought about all that Gunner had lost.

“Okay, gotta go.” I leaned in for one more hug.

“Love you.” She squeezed me tight.

“Love you more,” I replied. “Don’t forget you’re meeting Daddy at the doctor’s office in twenty minutes. You need to go.”

She hopped away from my car with a curse. “Dammit. I forgot. I can’t believe I actually got him to go, too. Gotta go. Love you! Be careful!”

With that parting yell across the yard, she hopped into her car that was parked at the curb and took off with a screech of tires.

I couldn’t help the shake of my head as I watched her drive away.

Heading to my brand-new vehicle that I’d bought literally yesterday, I got in and started the SUV up.

The dings instantly grated on my nerves, and I quickly hit the auto-stop button to off so the damn thing wouldn’t shut off.

That would be my first order of business once I got to Dallas—finding someone who could jailbreak my car so that it wouldn’t ding at me when I had my seat belt off, and it wouldn’t turn off at stop lights.

I was all for saving the environment, but the auto-stop thing was absolutely ridiculous.

After I was situated in my seat with my eighteen points of contact with the seat so that it wouldn’t tell me that I was not strapped in right—or whatever the hell it was dinging at me for—I started off.

I sent a text to Gunner with about an hour left of my drive using my voice-to-text feature, which I had to admit was nice.

“Hey, I’m on my way.”

He replied almost instantly, and my robotic car read it back to me, then so helpfully asked if I wanted to navigate to that address.

Gunner:

At this address. Feel free to come by and we can go grab some lunch.

I chose to let it guide me there, my nerves picking up speed the closer we got.

“Whoa,” I said as I took in the school. “This is something else.”

Schools in Dallas weren’t quite like the schools back home.

This place was the size of a small city.

And it was only an elementary school?

Wow.

Just wow.

I took in the huge three-story building with two massive one-hundred-foot flagpoles proudly waving both the Texas flag and the American flag.

I took in the perfectly manicured landscaping with the hundreds of rose bushes and colorful flowers.

But my gaze came to a stop on the sexy man who had his arms over his chest as a woman much smaller than him all but pointed in his face.

I pulled to a stop in the visitor parking spaces and got out, heading directly to the man who was holding on to his patience like a damn saint.

“I don’t think that we need you here.” The woman pointing her finger tapped Gunner on the chest. “I’m also not sure that you’re the man for the job. You’re a celebrity, not a security consultant.”

Oh, boy.