Page 7 of Ugly Duckling (Content Advisory #6)

Three

I’m sorry if I offended you by using facts and logic.

—Sutton’s secret thoughts

SUTTON

“Pause.” I gasped for air. “My.” Another gasp. “Watch.”

He reached down and hit every button there was on my watch before it paused.

I noticed then that he had no watch of his own.

Hell, I’d been watching him for the last six miles once I realized who he was.

He barely looked like he’d been running at all.

“Daddy!” a little girl—his little girl—screamed. “Down!”

But if he let the little girl down, he’d have to let me go, and if he did that, I was going to hit the ground because my legs were no longer working.

He hauled me to the side where there was a low bench to sit on just shy of the finish line, and plopped me down onto it.

He whirled the stroller around to face me, and I got my first good look at his little girl.

She was gorgeous.

And she looked a whole lot like his son, Jett.

Rocky and I didn’t talk very much about Gunner.

Not because I was mad at him, or because he was a bad person. But because Rocky always had her head in the clouds, and unless that person was directly in front of her, she didn’t think about them at all.

I knew it had something to do with her ADHD, which was why I barely remembered bringing Gunner up.

But no one had to bring Gunner up at all when his son had passed away.

It was the talk of our small town.

The poor man had lost his entire world before his life had gotten started.

I’d cried my eyes out when I’d heard that Jett had passed away.

I’d been training for the Olympics at the time and hadn’t been able to make it home for the funeral—my coach at the time was a complete dick.

I hadn’t realized that Gunner had another child, though.

Damn Rocky and her ADHD for not letting me know.

Not that I really felt like I had the right to know or anything. Gunner and I had only ever been acquaintances at best.

Sometimes we shared the same awards at sporting events in our male and female events.

“Hi!” the little girl with the curly blonde hair like her daddy’s chirped. “Want some?”

She held out a completely smashed donut hole, and I smiled before replying breathlessly, “No, honey. You eat that. I’ll get something when I’m done resting.”

She popped it in her mouth, and I watched as the glaze from her donut hole fell all over her lap.

Damn, she was a cute little thing.

She had the same eyes and dimples as her father, too.

Just like Jett had.

The poor man.

I’d bet it hurt like hell to look at the little girl sometimes. I’d met Jett a handful of times, but the kid was damn near the most adorable thing I’d ever met in my life.

Though, it turns out Gunner’s other child was getting a close second.

“Here.”

Gunner appeared moments later with a water bottle, a chocolate milk, two white cups with forks in them, and two plates with waffles and syrup on them.

“Whoa,” I said as I took the chocolate milk. “I can’t eat that.”

“Why not?” he asked, sounding mad.

I grimaced. “Because if I eat it, I’ll throw up. I just spent the last two and a half hours busting my a—butt trying to keep up with you.”

He nodded. “Understandable. I’ll leave it right here for when you’re ready.”

He took the seat beside me and started to idly crack his fingers, starting with the pinky on one hand and ending with the pinky on the other. “What are you doing in Dallas?”

I scratched the back of my neck, feeling the dried sweat there. “I got a divorce. And that town is too small for the both of us.”

“You were married?”

The way he said it instantly had my hackles raised.

“I was married for about six months,” I snapped.

“Why’d you get divorced so fast?” he asked.

I forgot how inquisitive Gunner was.

I also forgot he was one of the nice ones when I was in high school.

He never had a mean thing to say, and likely his earlier comment wasn’t directed at my ugliness as what my mind automatically reverted to.

I wilted. “He shoved my face into our wedding cake. It had wooden dowel rods as supports, and when he did that, they pierced my eye and face. When I pulled away, I degloved my face.”

He stared at me in horror. “You’re joking, right?”

I pointed at my face. “New face. How else would I have gotten it?”

That was the one good thing to come out of it all.

The way that my face had been mangled, I’d been forced to get plastic surgery.

And since my face was already a wreck, I went ahead and had it fixed while the plastic surgeon was working on it.

“You’re not joking.” He blinked.

“Not even a little bit. Though, I wish I was,” I admitted. “I did get them to fix my big nose, though. Since they were already working on everything else.”

“I don’t know what to say,” he declared.

“Nothing to say, really.”

“Daddy, down!”

Absentmindedly, he pulled her out of the stroller and set her on her feet next to it.

She reached for his cup of spaghetti, and he gave her a bite.

My smile was soft when I said, “Rocky didn’t tell me you had a daughter.”

“Rocky doesn’t share anything.” He gestured to my face. “She didn’t tell me that you’d been assaulted by your new husband, either.”

I snorted.

“Fuck, man,” a loud voice called from somewhere beyond us. “What the fuck was that? You didn’t tell us you could run.”

Before he could say anything, I said, “He probably doesn’t. Gunner’s just really good at anything athletic. He literally just qualified for Boston, and he didn’t break a sweat.”

“I sweated,” he mumbled.

“Now I have to run.” The man looked at me, and I was startled with just how handsome he was. And big. Really damn big.

He was also wearing a black leather vest of sorts with the name “Cutter” over his heart.

“I can give you a good training plan if you want,” I offered, still breathless.

“That was amazing, girl. First place,” another man said. “How do y’all know each other?”

“We went to the same high school,” I started to say as Gunner followed up with, “She was the yin to my yang. The female version of me. All-American track in high school. Made state with her mile and mile and a half. Got MVP and made UIL All District with basketball and volleyball.”

“Ahh,” the man whose vest read “Cakes” said. “That makes sense. You both looked like you were made to be out there today.”

“He was for sure.” I reached for the spaghetti, my tummy finally settling.

“So will y’all be running Boston?” a female asked as she cuddled up to the man named Cutter.

She had her own medal around her neck, but it was for the half marathon. “You have to. Oh my god. That was so amazing. I want to be y’all when I grow up.”

“Baby, you just ran your half in an hour and fifty minutes,” Cutter said. “You’re doing great.”

“I know.” She patted the man’s chest. “We should all go eat breakfast! I’m starving!”

Before I could reply, a man came up to me with an official look to him and said, “Congratulations, you two. Ma’am, can I get you to take a picture on the podium?”

I made to stand up…and couldn’t.

Gunner snorted and helped me to my feet, then took my cup of spaghetti from me and said, “You have something green between your teeth.”

I instantly started to suck at my teeth before I bared them to him and said, “Get it?”

“Gone.” He nodded. “You need help up on that platform, too?”

I looked at said platform where there were two other women standing on the second and third spots.

“Yes,” I admitted.

He helped me walk across the small distance, and instead of helping me up, he picked me up and placed me on my shaky legs on the platform. “There you go.”

He backed away and took a huge bite of his spaghetti.

The little girl walked up to his side and held her mouth up to him like a baby bird.

He dropped a few noodles into her gaping mouth.

She chomped them before saying, “Mmmmm.”

“Smile!”

I smiled, though I was sure it was brittle.

I wanted what Gunner had.

I was so desperate to have that kind of connection that I was even contemplating using my ex-husband’s sperm to do it—though that would be a long time in the future. I wasn’t quite that desperate yet.

The only thing making me hesitate heading down this route later on down the road was that I somehow knew that he would file for custody.

“All done,” the announcer said, leaving me with a huge medal at my feet, along with a trophy that I had no hope of carrying right now.

“Here.”

I looked up to find Gunner back, offering me his hand.

I took it, placed one foot on the ground, and would’ve kept going down to my knee if he hadn’t caught me around the waist.

“Still don’t work, eh?” he asked, my body plastered against his.

“Nope.” I popped the p.

Once my feet were back under me, I walked on my own volition back to the bench where everyone was still congregated, including Lottie who was now demolishing a waffle, getting syrup everywhere.

“Want some?” She offered me a quarter of the waffle.

“No.” I smiled. “You can eat it.”

She took a bite of the large piece straight off the fork, dripping syrup straight down her chest.

“How about you take her home and get changed.” Cakes picked the little girl up and passed her off to Gunner. “If it works out, we will meet you at The Diner.”

I smiled and started to walk off, but a hand at my elbow stopped me before I could even make it an inch. “Where do you think you’re going?”

I frowned. “First to the gear check to pick up my phone and my clothes. Then to my car where I’m going to contemplate life and think about driving back to my hotel that I booked for the day.

Once I’m at the hotel, I’m going to shower, then collapse onto the bed and not move for an hour. You wore me out.”

The way his eyes twinkled when I added the “you wore me out” had my belly swooshing.

“How about you get your gear, I have one of my buddies drive your car to my place, and you walk back with me there to shake out your legs,” he suggested. “Then you can take a shower at my place. You have your bag, right?”

“Yes.” I nodded.

“Then it’s all settled. You can stay at my place, too.”

I was already shaking my head. “I don’t think…”

“I have so much room, it will be like you’re not even there. Trust me.”