“He didn’t puff up. Didn’t make it about him. Didn’t tell me to calm down or smile or be grateful.” I shake my head. “He just backed me up. Like it was…the obvious thing to do.”
Mari studies me over the rim of her mug. “And that bothered you?”
“Yes.”
She chuckles. “Of course it did.”
I scowl. “You know, you’re supposed to be on my side.”
“I am,” she says easily. “I’m just not on your bullshit’s side.”
I groan and lean back in my chair. “You want to know the worst part?”
“You know I do.”
“He turned out to be a football player.”
“There it is.” Mari’s brows lift, not in awe, but interest. “And?”
“And I’d spent the last ten minutes loudly talking about how professional athletes are overpaid clowns in expensive pants.”
Mari barks out a laugh. “Oh, Sutton. Tell me you didn’t.”
“I swear to God, I wanted the floor to open up and swallow me.”
“Well, I’m guessing that didn’t happen.”
“No. And the guy just…smiled and told me I wasn’t wrong.”
That’s the part that sticks.
Not the money.
Not the fame.
His calm demeanor.
His kind personality.
And he wasn’t at all hard to look at.
“He didn’t argue,” I say quietly. “Didn’t defend himself. Didn’t even seem offended.”
Mari sets down her mug and crosses her left leg over her right like she’s trained for conversations like this. My thrifted therapist…
My thrift-apist.
“That’s what’s messing with you then? That he wasn’t offended and didn’t argue with you?”
“Yes.”
“Because?”
“Because men with power don’t do that,” I say. “They use it. Or they pretend it doesn’t exist. Or they punish you for noticing.”
She watches me carefully. “And he didn’t do any of those things.”
I shake my head. “No.”
