Page 21 of Ink

“Is there a reason you don’t want to tell me where you live?” It never once crossed my mind that she was planted based on the way she looks and acts. There’s no way in hell someone like her runs with someone like me, but I guess that would be the point, right?

Sutton’s eyes stay trained on the stupid fucking weed. She’s going to learn something real quick about me today. I hate being ignored. Everyone deserves a response. Even if you have to tell them to fuck off respectfully.

“Look at me,” I growl, raising her chin up with two fingers until she’s forced to make eye contact with me.

The sadness swimming through the swirls of brown, green, and gold has my heart stopping.

Shit.

“I’m staying at the motel on the other side of town,” she says in a tone that’s barely above a whisper.

What?

I drop my fingers from her face. “The one by DD’s?”

Sutton slowly nods her head, her attention focused back on the weed. Keeping the bike balanced, I lean over and pluck it out of the ground, crumpling it in my hand and chucking it.

“Was that really necessary?” Her eyebrows furrow. “That weed did nothing to you.”

“Kept you from looking at me,” I grunt. “Let’s get you home.”

“You know where it is?” she whispers.

“Yeah, darlin’. I know where it is.”

Starting my bike this time, I don’t have to tell her to hold on because she never let go of me. Pulling out onto the main street, I take off in the direction toward the motel. The entire ride there, I can’t stop wondering why a girl like Sutton is staying at a shithole like that.

Chapter

Nine

SUTTON

Ithought the comments Ink made about me to Gage when I first started working made me feel the lowest I had since leaving.

Boy, was I wrong.

This took the cake and even put a nice cherry on top.

The look on his face when I told him I’m staying at the motel was almost soul crushing. It’s one thing for him to think I’m not worth the effort, but now he knows. Anyone worth the effort wouldn’t be living in a place like this.

I try my best to keep the tears at bay as we ride through the city, but I fail at that, too.

I think maybe after all those years with Zach, I had come to expect to be treated like that. It became our normal before I realized what was happening. He was good like that.

This, though?

This hurts.

It hurts worse when someone who has only known you for two seconds takes one look and thinks the same. And shame. I feel so much shame.

But why?

Even though he hates my guts and I think he’s the biggest jerk I’ve met since Zach, there’s a part of me that needs to make him like me.

It’s probably because I don’t want to be fired.

I don’t worry about wiping away the tears as Ink pulls into the motel parking lot because they have all rolled off my face from the air hitting my face.