I’m not trying to fight. Sorry. Tell Luce I’m sorry, that I will make it up to her this weekend. OK?
Sutton didn’t bother to answer. Layla wasn’t really looking for her response, anyway, was she? She’d learned that a long time ago.
Blowing out an irritated breath, she started packing up her office, knowing she had to make it to her ten-fifteen class before immediately heading across the city to get to Lucy’s school on time.
As she exited her office, she felt her phone vibrating in her pocket. For a flashing, furious moment, she imagined it was Layla, trying to get Sutton to absolve her of her guilt.
But the black cloud that had ominously settled over her dissipated as she saw Charlotte’s name on her screen.
“Well, hello,” she answered, wedging the phone between her ear and shoulder as she locked her office door behind her.
“Busy?” Charlotte asked, and Sutton could just picture her sitting in her office behind her big, powerful desk, leaning back in her chair like she didn’t have a care in the world.
Their meetings working on Charlotte’s novel had come to an end, so Sutton hadn’t found herself in that office in weeks, but… she found she missed it.
“You ask me that like you don’t know my class schedule,” she countered, already smiling.
“It’s just polite to check, darling.” Charlotte chuckled.
“Well, no. I’m not busy. And I very much appreciate you calling right now,” she admitted. As soon as the vulnerable words left her, she realized howeasyit was to say things like that to Charlotte.
But sharing with Charlotte—being her true, most authentic self—was so alarmingly simple. It always had been.
And, as she’d realized since they’d started officiallydating, it was so, so easy to find herself right back in that place. The place where she wanted to share with Charlotte and how easy it was to do when she wasn’t consciously holding back.
Charlotte hummed under her breath. “Why does that sound as though you’ve had a rough day and it’s not even noon?”
“Because I have,” she confessed. “I literallyjustheard from Layla that she’s not going to make it to Lucy’s show-and-tell this afternoon after all. And even though Iknewsomething like this could happen, I just—” She broke off on a sharp, frustrated inhale. “I hoped it wouldn’t.”
“Ah. Does she have a semblance of a good excuse? I hope?” Charlotte ventured, and Sutton could hear the raw curiosity in her voice.
“She… does. As in, she is the surgeon on call right now, and she’s about to scrub in. It’s the same story it always is with her. Incredibly irritating, but almostmoreirritating because I know she’s truly saving a life. So I can’t really be mad at her, can I?” Sutton hadn’t known how easy it was to sum up the crux of how complicated her issues with Layla had been—pre-cheating, of course.
For a long time during their relationship, she’d tried very hard to bite back her own disappointment and frustration at Layla’s schedule because she didn’t want to be mad at Layla for having to scrub in. For doing something inherentlygood.
“I think you can,” Charlotte countered in that way she had that was both comfortingly coaxing but firm. “After all, she had her choice of days to pick for this, right? If my memory serves, you told her that you’d makeanyFriday she chose work for your schedule?”
“That’s right,” Sutton confirmed.
“Exactly. So perhaps she’s performing a surgery and not simply fucking around, but she very well could have chosen a day where she wasn’t the surgeon on call, no?” Charlotte reasoned. “And regardless of what Layla is doing, the person dealing with the immediate fallout is you.”
Sutton paused, mid-stride, as she took that in. “You’re exactly right.”
“I so often am,” Charlotte teased.
“I know,” she agreed, softly and entirely un-teasing.
It was amazing, but unsurprising, that Charlotte would be able to so easily understand exactly what Sutton was so frustrated by, even without Sutton being able to put it into words herself. Part of the Charlotte Thompson effect, really, was that she could suck Sutton right in and make her feel so heard. So understood.
“Anyway”—she cleared her throat, continuing her walk into the building that housed her lecture hall—“I don’t want to get too bogged down in my frustration with Layla, warranted or not. I’m heading to class, and then I have to domyshow-and-tell, and I’d like to be in a good mood for it.” She hesitated, biting her lip before she admitted, “And, I suppose, it’s great that you called because hearing your voice is exactly what I needed right now.”
She could feel her cheeks heat ever so slightly with the admittance. She was still finding the right footing with this. With living in a world where being openly romantic with Charlotte was okay. Not only okay, butencouragedby Charlotte.
“Funny you say that,” Charlotte returned, and Sutton swore she could hear the smile on Charlotte’s face. “I feel the same way.”
And whenCharlottewas the one making comments like that so freely? It was all Sutton could do to not beam so brightly she would alarm her students.
The only thing that felt more wild, more freeing, more incredible—in every definition—than being romantic with Charlotte without concern was having Charlotte be so openly romantic right back.
