Page 9 of Make Me Swoon

I fill my coffee cup and head back to the gift shop. Sutton is at the register looking over some order forms and I join her.

“Do you need any help with anything?”

“Some of that would be nice,” she says when she smells my coffee and I laugh as I head back to the kitchen to grab a cup for her.

“Thank you. I was just joking though. I could have grabbed my own cup,” she says with a sigh as she blows on the coffee.

“It’s no problem,” I assure her.

“How have you been?” Sutton asks and I’m surprised by the question.

Sutton and I see each other pretty much every day. We talk all of the time. She knows how I’m doing. Right?

“Um, fine.”

“Yeah? Are you sure? Because you seemed a little off last night.”

I shrug, not wanting to get into everything right now.

“Is this about Hudson?”

“What?” I ask, almost spitting out my sip of coffee. “Hudson and I are not together.”

“Yeah, I meant to ask you about that. Why aren’t you jumping that guy’s bones?”

I laugh, sitting back on the stool as Sutton takes a drink from her cup.

“We’re just friends,” I insist and she snorts.

“Yeah, but he wants to be more than friends with you, and I think that you want to be more than friends with him too. You just won’t admit it for some reason.”

“Maybe it’s a Destiny Falls thing? Madelyn and Iris won’t admit how they feel either,” I suggest, trying to deflect her question.

She gives me a look over the rim of her coffee cup and I sigh. I know that she’s right. Why am I fighting this thing between the two of us so hard?

“Well, there’s nothing to tell,” I inform Sutton and she pouts.

I think she’s looking to going out on double dates and having her friends fall in love too.

“Madelyn asked if we wanted to go up to Honey Peak tonight. I’ve never been there before and I wanted to take a look around. Teller gets off his volunteer shift at four this afternoon and he said that he’s in,” she says, changing the subject.

“What time are we leaving then?” I ask.

“Probably seven thirtyish? Then we can be there by eight for sure.”

“Yeah, I’m in,” I say with a smile and she grins back at me.

“Great! I’m going to go finish ordering the last of the merchandise. I’ll be back to walk Bandit in a little bit and then Stan said he’d cover us if we wanted to go to lunch together.”

“Sounds good,” I say as she gathers her papers and heads to the office.

I watch her go before I pull the note from Hudson out of my pocket, rereading his words and wondering if I’m making a mistake by keeping him at arm’s length.

FOUR

Sutton and I didn’t end up getting our lunch together. We had a tour bus come through at eleven and had to take it separately but Sutton did run out and grab a pizza for the both of us to eat.

“Are you still coming tonight?” Sutton asks as I grab my purse from under the register and get ready to leave for the day and I nod.

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