“I’m sorry.”
“I didn’t want to fall in love with anyone. Then I met Christopher and discovered I’m bisexual. He wasn’t. So I had to love him as a business partner. Then there was Harper.” He gives a soft laugh. “You’d think I would learn.”
“Don’t,” I whisper.
“Don’t get attached? It’s too late for that, Ashleigh. Love is the great human experiment. We try it again and again. It doesn’t matter how many times we fail or how much it hurts.”
“It always hurts.”
“I have this theory that sometimes it doesn’t. If that person loves you back.”
“My daddy never hit me.”
Sutton goes still, knowing this is the real secret. “Ash,” he says, the way Ky says.
“He never seemed to care much about me. I thought it was just—the way he loved me. That distant father kind of thing. More busy with work than his family. And then I turned fifteen. I needed to get bras—real bras, not training bras. And he started…”
“I love you,” Sutton says, in this fierce way. It feels like swords and drawbridges, those words. Like he wants to go to battle for me. And when he says that, it doesn’t hurt.
“He’d come up behind me. Always behind me. Never facing me. He’d reach around and touch me, and I’d go very still, because I was afraid. Why was I afraid? Why didn’t I scream or yell or call him a mean bastard?”
“Because he’s your father,” Sutton says gently. “Parents have that power.”
“He touched me under my shirt. Under my bra.”
“Christ.”
“I think I could have stayed living there, if it was that. That’s the worst part. I told my mother.” A hollow forms in my chest. “She didn’t believe me. She said I was lying, that if I wanted to say that, then I should just leave, because she didn’t want to see me.”
“So you left.”
“It hurt so much,” I tell him, tears slick on my cheeks. “She was my mother. My everything. Every day she’d say, I love you. But what did it mean? Nothing.”
He holds me until the sobbing stops. I turn in his arms, press a kiss to his neck. He becomes very still, and I squirm, trying to get closer.
“Let’s go to bed,” he says gently, and that sounds fine to me.
He lifts me in his arms and carries me there. The sheets are cool on my legs. He pulls the covers up to me. I watch as he pulls off his clothes, leaving him in only boxer briefs.
I curl into his arms, and he gathers me close.
And then does nothing.
My leg presses over his, and I can feel his arousal, but he only lies there holding me. I run my hand along his broad chest. My lips find his shoulder, his jaw, his neck.
“Ashleigh.”
“What?” I whisper. “I’m not tired.”
“You’re exhausted, but that’s not the point.”
“Then what’s the point?”
“I can’t do that with you,” he finally says, sounding resigned. And very serious.
“What?” I scramble up to stare at him. “Why?”
“Because you’re seventeen.”
“I was seventeen before when we did that.”
“Yes. And that’s something I have to face, something I should have faced before I touched you. Maybe part of me knew, but didn’t want to think about it. It doesn’t matter, because I know now. And I want you more than life, but I can’t have you.”
“I want to have sex with you.”
He groans. “Ashleigh. I can’t do that and still respect myself.”
Hurt courses through me, followed closely by anger. The anger feels safer. “This isn’t fair. I’ve been on my own for six months. I’m more of a grown-up than some kid in college where his parents pay for everything.”
“Yes.”
“And I’ve had sex before. Bad sex. Good sex.”
“Yes.”
“But you’re still not going to have sex with me? That’s bullshit, Sutton. I know you’re trying to do the right thing, but all you’re doing is taking away any power I might have had. This is my decision.”
“Hell, Ashleigh. You’re right about every fucking thing, but I still can’t touch you. I’ve become too much like my father but it stops now. You made me strong enough to stop. If you can live the life you’ve had, if you can survive it, then I can get over the goddamn heartbreak. I’m not going to touch you without understanding the consequences. Not anymore.”
“What consequences?”
“That you care about me,” he says gently.
I look away, but not before he sees the tears in my eyes. “I don’t.”
“And that I care about you. Come here and let me hold you. Let me have that much.”
I want to tell him no out of spite. The irony doesn’t escape me, that weeks ago I wouldn’t have wanted him to touch me, wouldn’t have wanted any man to touch me. And now I’m mad at Sutton that he won’t have sex with me. “Why is caring about me so wrong?”
“It’s not. God, Ashleigh. It’s not wrong to care, but that’s going to make it hurt so much more when we can’t be together. You’re seventeen. You have a whole life ahead of you. I’m thirty-two, and I have no business tying you to me right now, when you’re vulnerable.”
“I’m not vulnerable,” I say, but that’s so clearly a lie that I laugh softly. It’s a watery laugh. I’ve been sobbing and laughing so much that I feel a little unhinged.
He gathers me close to him, his arms tight, his lips on my temple soft. “Do you know how much it hurts not to take you right now? But it’s right. It should hurt. That’s love.”
* * *
Ashleigh
In the morning I wake up in bed alone. Sunlight streams through the window, drawing lines across the rumpled white sheets. Outside Bowie crows that it’s time to wake up. It’s a peaceful place to sleep, a home that isn’t mine. Or is it? Maybe Ky can live with Mr. Monopoly and I can live with Sutton. And maybe fairy tales come true.
I find Sutton at the kitchen table waiting for me. I recognize the check from last night. Dread forms in my stomach. No, I can’t expect anything. There is no happy ending for a prostitute who works on the street. Only tragedies for us.
He hands me a slip of paper. Adeleide Johnson, it says in bold block letters. Along with an address. “My investigator found that this morning.”
My heart clenches.
“Mom,” I whisper.
“It looks like she left him when you ran away.”
She left him? That should make me feel better. I’m not sure if I can forgive her for not being there when I need her. I’m not sure I have a choice. The heart moves without permission. Before I’ve even decided one way or the other, I’ve forgiven her.
I also know things can never go back to the way they were. After living on the streets, I can never go back to being a girl. Something broke when she turned away from me, some thread from mother to daughter. Even if I see her, and I want to, my breath catches with how much I want to, it won’t ever be the same.
Sutton pushes the check forward, and I see that it’s not the same one from last night. It has a much bigger number on it. An additional zero, for one thing. I stare at it, uncomprehending. “What is that?”