Page 7 of Lovefool

He glances down at our close proximity—me sprawled over his naked chest as the damsel I am, him saving me from my impending doom. “If you think this is an inconvenience, then you need to inconvenience me more often.”

Oh, this is a bad week for me to be ovulating. I usually admit defeat if a night ends in me fully clothed, but I think I can make an exception this time.

Once we navigate through Buford’s labyrinth of a house, Sutton sets me down outside, a few feet away from my crappy Mazda that taunts me from the other side of the road.

“Thank you, but my legs aren’t broken. I could’ve walked,” I insist.

“You could’ve, but I’m faster.”

He’s not wrong about that.

As I start to head toward my getaway car, Sutton’s beast of a shadow trails after me with the subtlety of a grizzly bear. It takes a second for my brain to connect to the local server before I realize what he’s doing.

“Oh, you don’t need to walk me to my car,” I rush out, hoping I don’t sound ungrateful.

I think I’ve gotten over my irrational fear of someone hiding underneath my vehicle and waiting for me to get into the driver’s seat before slicing my Achilles’ heel.

Sutton snorts. “Yeah, that’s a nonnegotiable for me. Cute that you think it isn’t, though.”

The stygian sky harbors a fugitive storm overhead, its cumulonimbus clouds engorged with rain. Darkness spills over the quaint street of Crescent Boulevard like liquor from a flask, diffusing into the immediate surroundings of naked sugar maples. The lone streetlight above us buzzes with a voltage fluctuation, dipping Sutton’s hewn features in a chiaroscuro that kickstarts my already fickle hormones.

Once we make it over to Ol’ Reliable, I lean against the carapace of my car. “Well, thank you for saving my ass tonight.”

Even though it’s cold as balls out, Sutton doesn’t seem fazed. He’s still gloriously half-naked, and the hem of his towel has dropped even lower from all the movement. That steel-wool happy trail of his leads to a happy meal, and all that revenge plotting has left me with quite an appetite.

“Hope it won’t be the last time.”

When a gale of wind makes me shiver uncontrollably, I remember that my lack of coverage is due to his selfless loan. “I don’t think it will. I need to return your clothes to you.”

A self-satisfied smile unravels over his mouth, his eyes skipping over me like he’s committing this exact still frame to memory. “Keep them. They’re something to remember me by.”

I can’t tell if he’s joking.

I hug my ripped dress to my body, and something I never thought I’d experience again—butterflies, love’s lackey—whirl in my belly with a healthy dose of adoration. Fluttering wings, paresthesia flooding me from head to toe, the overwhelming urge to attack his mouth with mine.

“Trust me, I’ll remember you.”

3

BEST-LAID PLANS

SUTTON

Lake Capitano—the cricket-scheming, questionably dressed roadblock—hasn’t left my head in days. She has burrowed into my bone marrow with every intent to eat away at my sensibility until I become a husk of mindless thought.

I’m a pretty simple guy, alright? I have a set routine that I don’t stray from, I love the gym and food, and that’s basically where my personality ends. But for the first time in a long time, my body doesn’t feel like it’s going through the motions or moving at half-speed through dense molasses. Lake is the much-needed change that blew in on my doorstep on one fatefully cold night.

I knew of her, sure, but actually talking to her made me realize that Buford holds the world title for Stupidest Cuntwagon in All of Existence. No self-respecting person would let someone like Lake get away, and definitely not because said person had sex with another girl.

She’s—God, she’s so out of his league that it isn’t even funny. How did he even get on her radar looking like Quasimodo’s inbred cousin?

Look, I wouldn’t wish a relationship breakup on anyone, but if Buford hadn’t shown his true colors, I may have never gotten to meet the girl that now occupies one third of my brain.

Long, wavy, blonde hair; freckles that stipple starbursts onto her upholstered bone structure; eyes bluer than the Caribbean that can suck me into her undertow. She’s too stunning for her own good. She has the kind of face that you never forget, and the kind that would drive any levelheaded man into madness. I’m right there on the brink, teetering over an abyss.

I didn’t get Lake’s number. I was so fixated on how beautiful she was that I forgot all about my date proposal. At the time, I was only interested in saving her from handcuffs.

Luckily for me, I got the hell out of Dodge before Buford pulled up to the house. I haven’t heard from him since, which means that he probably correlated his cricket infestation with an unattended window. Would I have liked to see his face when he found out that his room was turned into an impromptu Petco? Yes, I would have. But it was more important keeping Lake’s whereabouts under lock and key.