Page 85 of Ugly Duckling
“How long would you be gone?”
“For this first initial part? Only two days. You’d get to take her to daycare for one of those days. But then you’d have to hang out with her after she gets out, and then feed her. Get her ready for bed. I can get Audric to do one of the days, but him and Creole are flying to Hawaii Friday, so they can’t watch her…”
“I’ll do it all.” Sutton waved my hand away. “That’s not why I’m asking.” She wiped sweat from her forehead and explained. “I’m asking only because I want to know whether you’ll be running the long run with me like you usually do.”
I smirked. “I wouldn’t miss pushing you past your comfort zone for the world, Sutton.”
Honestly, I kind of liked pushing her past her comfort zones in other ways as well.
Watching her fall apart when she was in over her head was fascinating.
She stuck her tongue out at me. “When do you leave?”
“If you’re sure you’re okay with taking her, then tomorrow morning.”
“I’m okay,” she promised. “And your whole entire club is here. If I need help, they’re here. But I won’t need help.”
I sped up to get around a trash truck that was pulling out of a parking lot and waited until Sutton was back beside me again before I said, “Let’s take this side road right here. If we don’t, we’re going to be stuck behind that disgusting smell for the rest of our run.”
“Lead the way, Gun.”
I did, taking a side road that would bring us up the back way to my subdivision.
Lottie giggled when the uneven pavement jarred her, making both Sutton and I smile.
That sound was one of the best sounds in the world.
There was literally nothing better.
“The first time that I heard Jett laugh.” Sutton hopped over a pothole. “Was when you were at batting practice. You had him sitting in one of those little bouncer things outside the batting cages, and he had this big ass sunshade over him. I started to run by, but he reached out and patted my calf as I went, and I bent down to peak under it. He had this huge gummy smile on his face, and I tickled his little belly. Picked up the toy that he’d dropped on the ground, and you turned around and smiled at me so wide when you saw me talking to him.”
“I remember that,” I said. “You were running cross country that day, and the batting coach was pissed as hell that you had a sports bra and short shorts on while you ran.”
“It was balls hot, and our coach was making us run extra because a couple of the girls had skipped morning practice,” she said. “I took my shirt off because it was the middle of freakin’ August, and hot outside. Your coach grumbled every single time I passed.”
“Because he thought it was a distraction.” I flashed her a wicked grin. “He was right. You were one hell of a distraction. You had the body of a model. Still do. Everyone looked.”
That day was burned into my memory because she’d been bent down talking to Jett, and I’d had one hell of a day. Seeing the two of them smile together had been a great way to soothe my anger at the world.
“Sorry.” She shrugged. “But I’m going to be as comfortable as I can be. I…”She trailed off, and I stopped when she said, “What the hell?”
Her “what the hell” had me turning to see where she was looking, and I came to a bone-jarring halt at what I saw.
“Is that…” she breathed.
“Yes.”
“What the fuck?”
What the fuck indeed.
“What is she doing here?” she whispered. “What are they doing here?”
“She” was Aleah. “They” were Aleah and Yates.
They were both sitting in a car just a little down from the gated entrance to my subdivision.
They obviously knew our routine enough to know that we usually took a left out of the subdivision to run along the roads to the left of the entrance.
