Chapter 4
Sutton
“You seriously met Alex Crossman? And you’re going to be working with him?”
“Yes,” I say for the third—maybe fourth—time as I set the lasagna in the middle of the table.
“Holy shit. That is just so cool,” Glenn says, his eyes filled with excitement and yearning.
“Watch your mouth,” my mom says sternly but I see my stepdad Jim turn away from the table because he’s about ready to bust out laughing. I catch his eye and shoot him a wink but try to keep my features bland so my little brother doesn’t know we think he’s freakin’ adorable when he cusses.
Glenn’s eyes cast downward for a second in shame over his curse word but then they pop right back up to me, filled with hope. “Do you think you can get me an autograph, Sutton? It doesn’t have to be much…just on a piece of paper or something.”
My heart tumbles, seizes and then melts over Glenn’s simple request. He’s an amazing kid, eleven years my junior and he never asks for anything. My mom and stepdad don’t make a lot of money but they have managed to give Glenn and me a damn good life. We may have grown up wearing thrift store clothing and having lean Christmases, but we never lacked for our basic necessities, and we were given so much love and devotion from our parents that we never missed the things we did without.
At eleven, Glenn is old enough to know the bounds of our parents’ abilities, even as he watches his friends sporting expensive clothing and carrying the very best of iPhones, iPads, gaming devices and toys. He doesn’t ask for these things because he knows our parents can’t afford them, and he never pouts, whines or tries to lay a guilt trip on them about it. But as he sits here staring at me with bright, shining eyes, he knows the cost of an autograph is nothing more than a simple request for me to make to Alex, and I’m not going to deny him that.
I’m pretty sure Alex would give me an autograph if I asked. He was quite the ass when he stomped out of my office, verifying for me that he must, indeed, be the team’s bad boy. But I feel there’s something else there too.
I sense there is a reason for the way he is. Call it my counselor intuition, or maybe it’s just plain wishful thinking so I don’t have to deal with an a*shole that is an a*shole for no other reason than he likes being that way.
Either way, it’s going to be interesting to see how this plays out.
“Sure, kiddo,” I say as I tousle his hair. “I’ll get something from him next time I see him.”
“Yes!” Glenn yells and gives a fist pump in the air. “Everyone at school will die when they see it.”
“You’ll be the talk of the class,” Mom says, her eyes warm and grateful as she watches the exuberance on Glenn’s face. Then she lifts her gaze to mine and her expression to me says, Thank you, baby, for making Glenn happy. He deserves it.
I can feel tears prickle at my eyes so I blink rapidly, and say, “Okay, who is ready for some lasagna?”
“I’m ready for my birthday cake,” Glenn says with a grin.
Pushing the spatula into the pan, I lift out a slice and place it on Glenn’s plate. “Lasagna first, then cake,” I tell him.
“Then presents?” he asks hopefully.
“We’ll discuss it if you eat all of your dinner,” Mom says.
Glenn picks up his fork and dives in before I even get the second slice out of the pan. I shake my head with a smile on my face, pulling another piece out.
“Here you go, Jim-Dad,” I say affectionately as I place the cheesy pile on his plate.
“Thanks, baby. Looks great,” he says.
My stepdad is a real-life, bona fide angel. He took my mom and me in when I was just nine years old. We had been living at a women’s shelter for about five months, and while we were safe, warm and had food in our stomachs, we were lonely.
My mom, Penny, met Jim Murdock when he came into the drugstore where she worked the front register. The story has been changed and manipulated so many times over the years, I’m not sure really what went down, but they both claim it was love at first sight. Of course, my mom was wary, having come out of a violent relationship with my father, but it didn’t take long for Mom to fall under Jim’s special brand of magic, and it didn’t take long for me to warm up to him either.
Within a year, Mom had married Jim, and within another six months, he had become Jim-Dad to me. Another year after that my baby brother had been born, and my life was absolutely perfect.
Considering we came from a pretty hellish life prior to that, it didn’t take much to give Mom and me security. But Jim’s kind words and soft touch, the roof over our heads and the knowledge that we would never suffer again gave Mom and me the best existence we could have ever hoped for.
“Honey, I love what you’ve done with your kitchen,” Mom says as she looks at the curtains I hung last weekend. They were on sale at Wal-Mart, and while they were an expenditure I really shouldn’t have made, I couldn’t resist the cheerful pattern of yellow lemons that I knew would be perfect over the sink window. I had just painted the kitchen a similar color of yellow and did the dingy oak cabinets in a glossy white with new hardware I found on sale. I bought this house just shy of four months ago for practically a song and a dance. It’s not in the greatest section of town, it was in foreclosure—which is why I got it so cheap—and it needs a hell of a lot of work.
But it’s mine.
“Thanks, Mom. I think the house is coming along great.” I scoop out some lasagna for her and then put a piece on my plate, sitting down to enjoy our birthday dinner for Glenn.
“Your bathroom sink still working okay?” Jim asks.
“Yup. It’s proof positive that if you ever quit your day job, you have a career in plumbing,” I tell him with a snicker.
I’m hoping one day I’ll be done with all of the “fix-ups” for this place. So far, it’s coming along well, and luckily Jim-Dad has been able to help me with the more complex repairs. But I single-handedly—and with great love—sanded down and refinished the old hardwood floors that run throughout the house. That took me nearly three weeks to do on my own, but it was worth saving the cost and it was a major accomplishment that I’m proud of.
Jim takes a huge bite of lasagna and chews with a grin on his face. With a brief glance, I take in his kind eyes, tanned face and scruffy beard. He’s a bear of a man, standing over six feet tall and built almost as wide. Jim is an auto mechanic by trade, working at one of the Ford dealerships for the past eighteen years. While cars are his specialty, he’s one of those dads who can just fix anything.
We settle into the Murdock family tradition of cracking jokes while we eat dinner, snorting and laughing in between bites of lasagna and garlic bread. While my last name is Price, because my birth father still owns that part of me, I consider myself Jim’s daughter and thus a Murdock.
When we’re done, I bring out Glenn’s birthday cake. It’s tradition in our family that the birthday honoree gets their favorite dinner cooked, and their favorite dessert. It doesn’t have to be a cake, but in Glenn’s case it was.
Homemade red velvet cake with buttercream frosting.
His eyes go wide when he sees the monstrosity that I’ve made. It’s so tall that it actually tilts to the left a little, slightly resembling the Leaning Tower of Pisa. I light the eleven candles and then we all sing a rousing rendition of “Happy Birthday” while Glenn looks around at each of us with a toothy smile on his face. By the time the last notes of the song die out, we’re all wearing matching grins.
Glenn closes his eyes to make his wish, then gives a gusty blow to the candles, moving his head back and forth to give them all equal airtime. He blows them out like a champ, all except the one trick candle I had placed in the middle. We all laugh as he repeatedly puffs at it, watching it spark back to life time and time again.
Finally, he gets the candle permanently extinguished, then I serve the cake. Glenn wolfs his down in about three huge bites, which is not surprising. He hit some sort of weird growth spurt a few months ago and seems to be adding inches and pounds to his frame every week. He’s going to be tall like Jim, and built like a Mack truck. He’s already a superstar on his rec football league, barreling over players that are two and three years older than him.
When the last crumb of cake has been swallowed, my mom gives a big yawn, stretching her arms out wide. “That was just fabulous, Sutton. I’ll help you do the dishes and we’ll get out of your hair tonight.”
I glance over at Glenn and his jaw is hanging open, his eyes disbelieving what he’s heard.
“Good thought, Penny,” Jim-Dad says as he looks at her and pushes back from the table. “I have to get up early for work tomorrow and I’m beat. This was a great dinner, Sutton.”
Another glance at Glenn and he’s staring slack-jawed at his dad. His eyes race over to mine and he’s giving me a look like, Are they serious?
I can’t leave the kid hanging and my lips quirk upward. “Wait. We forgot about Glenn’s present.”
“Oh, that’s right,” my mom says, slapping her palm to her forehead. “How could we have done that?”
Glenn’s face relaxes and he purses his lips in amusement, slinging his arms back across the kitchen chair in a posture that says, I really wasn’t worried. I knew you guys were kidding the whole time.
Standing from the table, I walk over to my small kitchen pantry and pull out Glenn’s present, which Mom brought over earlier in the day to hide. I had wrapped it for her in football-themed paper with a huge gold bow on the top.
My heart seizes—in a good way—when I see the look of surprise on his face from the size of the box. I set it in front of him and say, “This is from me, Mom, and Jim-Dad. We all went in on it together.”
His eyes look up into mine and he swallows hard. Then they flick over to Mom, and finally to his dad. Placing his hands on the gold bow, he says quietly, “This is the best birthday ever.”
Leaning over, I give him a light noogie on his tousled blond head. “You don’t even know what’s in the box, brat.”
“Doesn’t matter,” he says seriously, looking to me, then to Mom, then to Jim-Dad. “It’s still the best birthday ever.”
Mom’s eyes immediately fill with tears. Jim-Dad’s face suffuses with pride in his son and I stare at the wonder that is my brother and marvel that my parents raised such a good and kind boy.
Then Glenn dives at the box, ripping and shredding the paper I painstakingly wrapped so that not even a seam would be noticed. When he pulls back a large chunk of paper and sees what’s inside, he squeals—yes, squeals. He sounds like a pig being murdered with a butter knife and I grimace. Pulling back the last shred of wrapping, he stares with love in his eyes at the Xbox in front of him.
Glenn has never had an electronic gaming device before. Oh, he’s played on plenty when he stays over with his friends, so he knows all about them. But here’s the thing that makes this kid so fabulous. He’s never once asked for one. Glenn is considerate of our family’s boundaries when it comes to what we can afford, and he’s always been grateful for anything he’s ever been given.
Now, watching him with the look of adoration and disbelief on his face, I wish desperately that my parents and I had it within our means to give this kid everything his heart ever desired. He deserves it, mainly because he doesn’t expect it.
Reaching under the kitchen cabinet, I pull out two smaller items that I had wrapped. Glenn’s eyes widen even farther as his hand reaches out to take the gifts from me.
“Can’t have an Xbox without games to play, right?” I tell him.
Glenn doesn’t even bother unwrapping the gifts to see what I’ve gotten him; rather, he flies out of his chair and throws his arms around my waist, pressing his head onto my shoulder…because yeah, he’s gotten that tall.
“Thanks, Sutton. You’re the best sister ever.”
“Damn straight I am,” I tell him while laughing, and then squeeze him even tighter.
***
I watch my family all hop into Jim-Dad’s big work truck, then wave at them as they pull out of my driveway. They have at least a thirty-minute drive ahead of them to make it to their little abode across town, and I have a kitchen to clean up.
Walking back into my house, I realize I’m still riding high on watching Glenn fly over the moon, proclaiming this to be his best birthday ever. Amped up on his joy, I tackle the dishes and wipe down the counters, reminiscing over the evening with a soft smile on my face. I give a quick swipe with my broom to the old linoleum floor —which is my next upgrade project—and finish my duties by taking the garbage out.
Finally, I’m able to pour myself a glass of cabernet sauvignon and pad into the living room—my sanctuary. After taking a small sip of my wine, I set it on the coffee table and flop down onto the big, fluffy cushions of my couch. Sinking into its comfort, I take a moment to appreciate the pale blue walls I painted myself and admire how they complement the dark hardwood floors with a calming serenity. My eyes roam the room, briefly touching on the various framed photographs—some rest on the side tables, others are hanging on the walls, and still more swamp the mantel of the fireplace. These are pictures of all the people who are most important in my life, and they truly make this not just a “living room” but a “family room.”
Kicking my feet up onto the couch, I study my toenails, which I just painted a steel blue color the other day. In fact, I notice with lazy interest, they sort of match my couch, which is done in a floral pattern of blues and yellows. While I have to wear professional clothes during the day, I like getting by with touches of crazy that can’t be seen while I’m in counselor mode. So that means unconventionally colored nail polish and naughty lingerie, neither of which is seen by anyone but me at the current time. Not that I mind.
I mentally giggle to myself, wondering what Brandon would think of my blue nail polish. I’m quite positive he’d wrinkle his nose up at it, proclaiming that it’s not professional.
Sighing, I lean my head back against the couch pillow and close my eyes. My date with Brandon is tomorrow night. At least, I think it’s a date. I meant to clarify that with him when he first called me earlier in the week, but then forgot because I had gotten sidetracked during the conversation by his natural charm.
“Sutton?” I had heard Brandon’s voice when I answered my phone, a tad tentative but clear as a bell.
“Brandon? Is that you?” I asked in disbelief, because in a million years I had not expected his call.
“Yes,” he said exuberantly. “I was watching our movie last night before I went to bed, and it made me all nostalgic, so I told myself when I woke up today I was going to give you a call and check in on you.”
Our movie? He was watching Zombieland and it made him nostalgic for me?
“So, tell me what you’ve been doing with your life,” Brandon urged me, and then blew me away when he said, “Knowing you, I’m sure you’ve been extremely successful.”
I can’t lie…his words of pride and confidence in me are what got me sidetracked. The way he sounded so happy to hear my voice, and the way he had been thinking about me just from watching a movie. It’s as if our time apart melted into nothingness, and we chatted away like old friends.
Yes, we had promptly fallen into old times, talking about this and that, and all the things that each of us had been doing over the last year while we had been apart.
Yes, apart.
Brandon had been the love of my life…or so I had thought. We met our freshman year in college at N.C. State University in a mathematics study group that he helped tutor. He was in the engineering program and was pretty freakin’ brilliant when it came to math. I was pursuing an arts degree—sociology—and I basically sucked at math.
It took less than two months for Brandon to go from tutor to friend to good friend to boyfriend to lover. We clicked right off the bat and spent a lot of time together. There was an underlying mutual attraction that just kept getting stronger and stronger the more time we spent with each other.
By our sophomore year, we were in love and making plans to spend the rest of our lives together. He was everything I had desired in a boyfriend and potential husband. Smart, kind, caring, considerate, attentive, successful, upstanding…all the things antithetical to my birth dad.
The list could go on and on. Brandon was made up of one long list of commendable virtues and it was just so easy to love him. Hell, even when he broke up with me, he was f*cking commendable and lovable.
Now, I’d heard of the old “I want to sow my wild oats” speech before. Even met a few girls who had suffered through it. I just never thought I’d be the one to get it, though. And Brandon, when he laid it out to me—told me he wanted to be with other women—did it in such a kind and caring way, I was nodding my head in agreement with him by the time he was finished.
“Sutton…I am so, so sorry to be hurting you this way” were the first words Brandon said after he dumped me. He held my face gently in his hands so I would look at him and he could look back at me.
So I could gauge the truthfulness of his words.
“I love and respect you too much, though, to cheat on you. I could never go behind your back, so I want to be honest with you as to why I’m doing this.”
“Did I do something wrong?” I asked quietly, searching his eyes for the reason behind his crazy actions.
“God, no,” he said, with such ferocity in his voice and conviction in his eyes I had no choice but to believe him. “In fact, I’m betting this may be the singularly most stupid thing I’ve ever done, and I’m sure it may eventually be one of my biggest regrets, but I can’t keep going forward with you when I have these doubts and these curiosities.”
I nodded in agreement with what he was saying, because it did make sense the way he was laying it out to me.
Sometimes, when I think back to that day—just three weeks before we graduated with our bachelor degrees, I want to go back in time and slap myself on the back of the head. Sometimes I think I must have been the biggest loser to ever look at a man I loved, a man who was breaking up with me, and be thankful and love him that much more for the way in which he did it. I didn’t even have one bitter feeling against him. I f*cking congratulated him for the great job he did.
Gah, I was so pathetic back then. I think I’ve changed a lot in the past year, though, in a good way, and much of it thanks to Brandon breaking my heart.
Yes, Brandon felt that in order to be absolutely honest and candid with me, he had to let me know that he was thinking about what it would be like to be with other women.
“You are the most incredible woman I’ve ever been with, Sutton,” he had told me, almost begging me to believe him. “But lately, I’m just wondering all the time what it would be like to be with someone else.”
“Sexually?” I asked in bewilderment, because I was still shell-shocked at what he was telling me.
His head hung low, almost in shame, and he admitted, “Yes…sexually. I want to be free to have sex with other women. I want to know if I’m missing out on something.”
Oh, how those words had hurt, slicing and gouging at my heart. Yet I didn’t cry and I didn’t argue with him, which is odd because I am not a passive woman.
“I don’t want to hurt you, Sutton,” he said as we sat in my dorm room. “I’m asking if we can take a break…explore the world apart for a while, make sure we have no doubts before we get married and have kids.”
It seemed to make sense to me. It seemed to be the psychologically healthy thing to do at that point, even though I wasn’t having doubts about spending my life with him. I wasn’t looking at other men, wondering if their dicks were bigger or if they were better lovers. Well, okay, that’s not exactly true. My best friend and roommate Shelley and I would often gossip and secretly lust after hot guys we would see on campus. It was all in good fun, and so while I might have looked and wondered, I definitely never wanted to act on it.
So Brandon said he wanted to take a break—no specific time period, though—and I just nodded my head in agreement, even though my heart was broken. I trusted that if Brandon and I were meant to be together, it would happen one day.
And now maybe that day was here. Brandon and I were meeting for dinner tomorrow night, because he said that he wanted to talk to me…catch up with me…tell me about all of the things that had been going on in his life. It had sounded to me as if he’d had some sort of epiphany and it made me wonder if I was a part of that.
I filter through my feelings, wondering what it is I truly think about Brandon entering my life again. I don’t have a rush of excitement like I thought I would. I have some curiosity, for sure, but remember that broken heart I had? Well, it healed pretty damn fast. I didn’t sit around and pine after Brandon. I moved on with my life and while I had many days of disquieted sorrow, Brandon became just a fond memory a lot faster than I would have thought possible if I was so in love with him and ready to spend the rest of my life with him.
I bring forth Brandon’s image in my mind, trying to rekindle some sort of feeling. Light brown hair, soft brown eyes, lean build, just slightly taller than me.
I try to remember back to the last time we made love…what it felt like to have him inside of me. An image comes to me, Brandon’s face tucked into my shoulder, his hips pushing and pulling as he slides in and out. It felt good…always good with Brandon. In my memory, I mentally will Brandon to lift his face, to look down at me so I can try to remember what was in his eyes that last time we were intimate—just before he broke up with me.
His head lifts, the stubble from his chin abrading my shoulder. He gives an extra hard push of his hips, and he slams in me just a bit harder. Definitely not Brandon’s style but I find that my body likes it—at least in my mind.
Pulling out and slamming back in even harder, Brandon lifts his head as I watch him above me. When his face is fully revealed, I’m stunned to find crystal blue eyes staring at me and full lips tilted upward in a triumphant smile. Black hair framing the face of an angel as he looks down at me with lust-filled eyes.
Alex Crossman inside of me, pulling back out with exquisite control, only to slam back in hard, causing a groan to tumble out of my mouth.
My eyes fly open, seeking reality. I take in a water stain on the ceiling just above me and try to banish all fantasies of Alex Crossman from my mind. I mentally take a scrub brush and rub it hard over my brain, desperately trying to call back the image of Brandon, or Barney the Dinosaur, or sick starving children. Anything but Alex Crossman.
I tentatively close my eyes again, and that gorgeous face is still hovering over me front and center, causing my heartbeat to pick up its pace. I pop my eyes open again and stare at the water stain, worrying my lower lip with my teeth.
What in the hell?
Sitting up on my couch, I reach over to my coffee table and grab my cell phone. I send a quick text to Shelley. She’s still my best friend, and I’m not sure if it’s lame or not, but really my only good friend. I’m actually quite an introverted person and don’t do well in crowds, thus I was never the kind of woman who had a large core group of girlfriends. But four years as college roommates and my bond with Shelley was sealed. Even when she got married this past summer and moved to Pittsburgh, the bond couldn’t even be dinged. We talked, texted and Facebooked several times a day.
My fingers fly over the screen. Remind me again why Brandon wasn’t the love of my life?
I don’t wait long. It’s almost 10 P.M. but I know she’ll answer me.
Because he didn’t excite you enough. The most you did when he broke up with you was give a strong sigh and then you moved on.
Right, I think to myself. There wasn’t as deep a connection as I thought.
Still, Brandon and I had four years together. That’s a long time, and in those four years we made many, many wonderful memories. We were compatible in so many ways. It’s something I can’t neglect to consider, and maybe the second time would be the charm. Maybe we’ve both grown in ways that would add depth and excitement to the existing bonds we had.
Yes, I definitely should keep an open mind about this.
I text Shelley back. Thanks babe. Love u. Night.
Then I head to bed myself and hope to God that Alex Crossman isn’t going to star in my dreams. I don’t know if I can handle that type of excitement.