Page 28 of Ugly Duckling (Content Advisory #6)

Twenty-Two

A fuck must be earned. I can’t go around with a bucket of fucks, giving them out to everyone. If I feel you earned a fuck, I will give a fuck.

—Sutton’s secret thoughts

SUTTON

“This is a nonissue,” Malone said as she shuffled her papers into a neater stack on top of her desk. “I’ll handle it from here.”

After telling her thank you, I headed outside and immediately called my mom, knowing she’d want to hear the latest update.

She answered on the first ring. “How’d it go?”

I told her everything that the lawyer had said, ending with, “She doesn’t think that it’ll go past this point. There’s no reason to go to court for this, though she does feel like the lawsuit might shift to them suing me.”

“Great.” I could hear the frustration in her voice. “I guess we have that to look forward to next.”

My phone beeped, and I pulled it away from my face to glance at the screen.

I grinned hugely when I saw Lottie holding a bass up by the lips, the hugest, cheesiest smile spread across her face.

“Awww,” I cooed.

“What?”

I forwarded my mom the message, and Mom did the appropriate gushing over her.

“You’re different,” she said after a while. “You’ve been there for just over a month and some change, and already I can tell you’re happier. You love being there, don’t you?”

“I love it,” I agreed. “I love them. They make me happy. I had no idea how unhappy I was until they literally fell right into my lap.”

“I’m happy, Sutton,” she said softly. “I wish that you would’ve given him a chance in high school.”

“What?”

“Oh, you know what I am saying,” she grumbled. “That boy totally had a thing for you. He asked me if he could ask you to prom, you know. Daddy said yes. I was a resounding yes. Then he never did because you were you.”

I knew what she meant by that.

I was me.

I always saw the bad in people, and never could look at someone and think they were genuine.

No one was ever genuine.

Well, no one before I’d reconnected with Gunner.

I had a feeling that Gunner and his motorcycle club family were really genuine.

And scary.

And awesome.

“I wasn’t a super confident person,” I admitted.

Honestly, I probably never would be.

Even with a new face, I was still so anxious about anything and everything that had to do with my appearance that it was unhealthy.

Hopefully I could get that part of me somewhat under control so the little girl that I found myself wanting to spend the majority of my time with didn’t also pick up the unhealthy habits.

“Maybe I should go see a therapist,” I confessed.

My mom inhaled sharply. “That would be a wonderful idea.”

She’d been trying to get me to go for years.

Maybe if I’d listened to her, I wouldn’t have married a man that didn’t make me happy. One that had shoved my face in our wedding cake even if I’d begged him not to, and caused trauma to my eye and face.

And I wouldn’t be visiting lawyers’ offices at eight in the freakin’ morning because he was suing me because I didn’t keep the sperm he wanted to use with his new fiancé.

“Want me to find someone? I can go with you, too, if you want.”

I hesitated for only a second, then I passed a boutique store that had the cutest little girl boots that would look perfect on my favorite little girl, and said, “Make me an appointment. But I’ll go on my own.”

“I’ll make one right now,” she said. “Oh, baby. This is so good for you.”

I nearly rolled my eyes.

“And we’re going to come down this weekend,” Mom continued. “Daddy and I want to catch a show.”

I frowned as I came to a stop at the shop window and let my gaze wander. “What show?”

“There’s apparently this interactive movie theater that allows you to watch a movie, and the seat moves, and they spray you with water.

Daddy looked pretty excited when he saw a video online, and I started looking up places where they offered that.

Dallas is the closest place. And I want to try all the cheesecakes from The Cheesecake Factory. ”

I couldn’t help the laugh that slipped free of my lips. “That’s the real reason you want to come.”

“Damn straight,” she agreed. “I’ll call you back with the place and time of the appointment. Let me know when would be a good time to show up on Saturday morning.”

“Mom.” I opened the door to the boutique. “Gunner’s a dad. He doesn’t ever get to sleep in. So I’m fairly sure he’ll be up no matter what time you want to get there.”

“Okay, baby,” Mom replied. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

I always felt better after talking to my mom.

“Can I help you?”

The woman behind the counter smiled at me as she continued folding t-shirts in front of her.

“Hi, actually, I’m just looking around.” I smiled.

She nodded her head. “Let me know if you need anything.”

“I will.” I headed for the boots, my finger already hovering over Gunner’s name on my call log.

I hit send right when I got to the boots and picked them up.

The pink rhinestones sparkled in the overhead light, and I was just flipping them over for the size when Gunner answered with an impatient, “Hello?”

My brows shot up. “Whoa there. What’s got you so angry?”

“Life,” he grumbled. “Apollo just called me back and said that Yates and Aleah are, get this…”

I was afraid to say it, even though I was fairly sure I knew what he was about to communicate.

“…married,” he finished the sentence. “Can you believe that shit?”

“Is it recent?” I asked. “I thought you said that you ran background checks on all your employees. I feel like their spouses’ names would’ve been one of those things that was shared.”

“It’s new,” he grumbled. “It coincides to when Yates started turning into a complete shit at work about six months ago.”

“Bummer,” I said. “Was he able to use his computer genius skills to find out why they’re following us?”

“Actually, yes.” He cursed. “Sorry, heading back to the school now. Stopped to get a snack from the gas station. There isn’t shit here to eat.”

“Planning ahead will be imperative then,” I said. “Apollo?”

“Right,” he grumbled. “Apparently Aleah ‘warned him about me.’ And how I was ‘a very bad person because I killed our kid.’”

I inhaled sharply, but he didn’t let me get the words out that wanted to explode from my throat.

“She gave him this sob story about how I forced her to sign her rights away to Jett. And before she could get her rights restored, I enrolled him in public school—which she was profusely against because of how unsafe public schools are right now—and he passed away before she could spend any real time with him. Yates is downright buried up to his neck in her bullshit, and buys her bullshit stories hook, line, and sinker. He’s besotted and can’t see the evidence that’s right in front of his face. ”

“If he did even a small amount of research, he would’ve known that none of that was true. Hell, the entire school knew how shitty of a person she was because she was very loud and vocal about not wanting anything to do with Jett.”

“Exactly,” he grumbled underneath his breath for a long moment before he said, “They’re working with the Combs, trying to find evidence that I’m abusing Lottie. They’re getting paid really well, too.”

“Of course they are,” she sighed. “I’m sorry, Gunner.”

“They took over following me when the Combs got the restraining order,” he murmured. “I already talked with Malone today, and we’re working on getting another set of restraining orders for Yates and Aleah.”

I bit my lip and placed the boots back onto the rack before completely changing the subject, knowing that we needed to get him back into a better frame of mind before he went to a meeting with the school officials that would be giving him a job in the near future.

“Well, not that I’m not happy that you know why they were following you,” I said. “But can you tell me Lottie’s shoe size?”

There was a long pause as he digested the change of subject before saying, “Toddler size five.” I started scanning the boots as he asked, “Why?”

I explained what I was doing, and he laughed. “Lottie will love them. Anything that’s pink and sparkles is her jam.”

I knew it was.

I had the glitter in my hair to prove it.

It was everywhere in Gunner’s house, and like everything girl related he had exploding in his place, he just rolled with it.

It took fifteen minutes of talking to him about everything that was going on with me, and him helping me pick out some clothes as well as the boots, for him to finally sound calm again.

Only after I was sure that he was going to be okay did I hang up and pay for my spoils.

I was halfway back to my car when I heard the rumble of a car engine heading toward me.

I looked up just in time to see a black Volvo jump the curb heading right for me.

The black of the bumper heading toward me was the last thing I saw before everything went dark.