CHARLOTTE FUCKING THOMPSON WAS AT YOUR EVENT AND YOU DIDN’T EVEN TELL ME! YOU SNEAKY B
I had to see it on my current events app on my way home. Some best friend you are
I was literally at your house when you got home after watching your lifeblood while you were out. I SAW you and we TALKED and you told me the event went WELL, and you just let me LEAVE?
did she say anything to you? Did you see her? I assume you saw her there
Regan—1:13 a.m.
Since you haven’t seen my message yet, I’m going to assume you are in bed. But I WILL be coming over for dinner tomorrow with the wife and you WILL be dishing
Sutton shook her head and dropped her phone back to her bed as she groaned and pulled her pillow over her face.
Seeing Charlotte shouldn’t have her paralyzed in thought while she lay in bed like this! It was just… it was the way Charlotte had looked at her, with that same slightly crooked smile, like she knew something Sutton didn’t. Like she knew everything.
She’d looked at Sutton like they hadn’t had a tumultuous history at all. Like they’d really been good friends who had just fallen out of touch, like the last time they’d spoken hadn’t presented Sutton with the worst heartbreak she had ever felt. Maybe Charlotte remembered it like that, though, since she hadn’t felt the same way. Maybe, when Charlotte looked back on it, that was how she remembered them.
Sutton had been foolishly naïve to fall for her, even more foolish for believing Charlotte had fallen back or that they could have been great friends if only that hadn’t been the case.
And maybe that was what bothered her the most, as she’d woken up with it on her mind.
Charlotte had been all genuine smirks and bright hazel eyes, and Sutton had felt sucked right back into being the awkward, fumbling grad student she’d once been, not the established, successful woman she now was.
The pillow was tugged off of her face, allowing the sunlight to stream over her face. Sutton blinked several times as her vision came back into focus.
“Can I have cookies for breakfast?” Lucy asked. “Why were you hiding?”
Her daughter’s strawberry-blonde hair was messy from sleep, but her blue eyes were alight and curious as she looked at Sutton from the side of her bed.
“I was hiding so that my cookie monster of a daughter wouldn’t find me and ask to havecookiesfor breakfast,” she whispered, taking a moment to shake her head and rid herself of absolutely pointless and ridiculous thoughts.
Okay, so, she’d seen Charlotte and had been surprised by it. And, okay, Charlotte hadseemedto have a hold on her like she’d had thirteen years ago, but that could have also been the surprise speaking.
Mostly, though, it didn’t matter. She wouldn’t be seeing Charlotte Thompson again.
Whatdidmatter, was sitting up quickly enough that she could snatch her six-year-old daughter right off her feet, snuggling her into her lap and tickling her sides. Lucy’s giggles erupted, echoing off her bedroom walls.
Lucy wiggled in her grasp, gasping for a breath through her laughter. “No! Mama! Nooo!”
“Didn’t you have enough cookies last night with Auntie Regan? Hmm?” She continued her tickle attack. SheknewRegan gave Lucy more sugar than Sutton wanted her to. All. Of. The. Time.
“You can’t have enough cookies! That’s what Auntie Regan says!” Lucy managed to wiggle enough to escape the tickles and turn in Sutton’s lap to look up at her earnestly.
Sutton slid her hands back and played with her daughter’s messy hair. “Auntie Regan does say crazy things, though, doesn’t she?”
Lucy nodded quickly.
“Okay, so let’s pick out something else for breakfast instead of crazy Auntie Regan’s cookie breakfast.” She hefted Lucy back onto her feet and stood up behind her, resting her hands on Lucy’s shoulders as she directed them out toward the kitchen. “Did Auntie make sure you filled out your reading worksheet last night?”
Lucy nodded before launching into a description ofThe Magic Tree Housebook she and Regan had started the night before, and the sound of it calmed Sutton.
This, right here, was what she needed to focus on. Lucy, her job, her work with the Zones, Regan and Emma… this was her life.
Not Charlotte Thompson.
Sutton had quite literallyjustfinishedher morning class—her only class of the day—when her phone buzzed on the corner of the desk she kept it on through her lecture.
When she saw that the number was blocked, she wasn’t going to answer?—