Page 28 of Lovefool

This is fucking creepy. I’m being creepy.

Despite the paradoxical urge to stand here and watch him from a faraway bluff, my self-respect isn’t so easily disregarded—unlike my sensibility that has swirled down the drain.

I don’t know how to handle all these ooey-gooey feelings webbed between the cracks of my body, hollowed out by years of apathy and replaced with a phlegmatic masquerade that couldn’t be more contrived. The concept of Sutton and I being together—it’s antithetical. He’s popular and well-adjusted, and I’m one bad decision away from winding back up in jail or maybe somewhere in a ditch in the outfield of a backwater town.

You have a job to do, remember, Lake?

I bet Buford is around here sticking his nose up some poor girl’s skirt. I click my trusty-dusty pen and scribble hastily onto my pad of paper.

CHEATERS.

“Lake?”

Huh. That’s weird. I don’t remember Ellaria’s voice sounding so…deep. Like a ripsaw in all the right ways.

The second I lift my head to make eye contact with my pursuer, my vision slants to the wayside, my heart falls out of my ass, and I freeze on the spot like a rabbit caught in the hungry eyeline of a rough-and-tumble predator.

Sutton.

Shit, my cover has been blown. I immediately stuff my notepad into my dress before he can see it.

“What are you doing here?” he asks, softening his voice to a temperate degree, a mixture of excitement and confusion blustering over his handsome features. He eats the distance between us in a few strides, then rubs his hands down my arms in an intimate gesture.

It feels like he has the barrel of a revolver pressed against my temple, and my survival depends on my ability to twist the truth.

“Uh, I’m just here with my friend, Ellaria. She’s back there somewhere.” I jerk my thumb in the direction I came. If I keep talking, I’ll either submit all of us to an inadvertent faux pas or vomit all over his shoes.

Guilt-addled, Sutton pulls me to the side so I don’t get swallowed up by the restless swarm.

“I swear I would’ve invited you as my plus-one. I just—you didn’t seem like the type of person who’d enjoy this kind of thing.”

“The girl who puts herself in danger for fun doesn’t seem like she’d enjoy a party full of endless booze and recreational drugs?”

When he laughs, the rumble sits comfortably in his barrel chest, taking every one of my harried thoughts and padding them with soft cotton. I missed hearing it. Granted, it’s only been like a day and a half since I last saw him, but the tequila is making me sappier than usual. I don’t—I’m not a hopeless romantic. Romance is for losers.

Sutton cocks his head, that beautiful mullet of his looking way too finger-fuckable. “So you admit it: you put yourself in danger.”

I rise to my tiptoes to bop him on the nose. “For fun.”

He ignores my little quip, assessing me with the same seriousness the head of mortuary affairs might use when studying a half-mummified corpse. “Jeez, how many drinks have you had, Lake?”

“Not that many. Just a few. Without chasers. I’m not a lightweight though. I didn’t eat anything before I came.”

Sutton sighs. “You need to take better care of your body.”

I wasn’t planning on getting super drunk tonight. I just wanted to drown out the noise for a little while. I guess I was half successful?

Two things can happen when I introduce alcohol into my system. One, I get over-the-top drowsy. Or two, I get over-the-top horny. Right now, it looks like the latter is making a guest appearance.

“You can take better care of my body,” I say, slipping on my best seduction guise and winking with both eyes.

Sutton doesn’t say anything, but his cheeks burst into rubescence. There’s an almost imperceptible shift in his jaw before he hugs me protectively into his side, still three times my size and grizzled with well-intentioned annoyance.

“Are you here for me or one of your articles?” he inquires.

I wobble a bit on my boots, euphoria cracking in my chest like an egg and bleeding runny yolk right down the middle. “That’s for me to know, and for you to dot, dot, dot.”

A chuff billows out of Sutton. “Didn’t realize drinking was a part of said job description.”