Wanted: A Bad Boy Romance (29 page)

“What are you doing here?” She slips her phone into her pocket and pulls
out keys, jamming them into her door. The door bursts open, bringing a gush of
ice cold
air, and I follow her in.

“I want to make sense of this.”

“Sense of what?” She’s playing dumb, and it’s really fucking pissing me
off.

Lauryn
kicks her heels off, which lowers her about a good four
inches, and tosses her purse on a nearby chair. She rifles through her ‘fridge
and pulls out a bottled water. “Fuck, it’s hot today.”

“
Lauryn
, look at me.”

She takes a swig and prolongs dragging her gaze my way. She’s acting
like a goddamn rebellious child. I step into her space, grabbing her water and
setting it down on the counter.

“Don’t do this,” I say. “Don’t shut me out like this. We were making
progress. What happened? Don’t you at least have the decency to tell me what
the fuck is going through that complicated little head of yours?”

“I know I’m fucked up,
Sut
,” she says with a
breathless, desperate sigh. “I’m damaged. I’m angry and confused, and nothing
going through my head makes any sense most days, but my mind is made up. I’m
going home.”

“So that’s it? You’re going home. You don’t even want to entertain…
us
?”

“Don’t make this harder than it is,” she says.

I huff. “Yeah, it’s
so
hard on
you, isn’t it?”

She’s already started packing. There are boxes labeled with black
Sharpie marker. Perfect
Lauryn
has labeled everything
perfectly.

“When are you moving?” I ask.

“Next weekend,” she says without pause. “Plane tickets are booked.
Movers are scheduled.”

She rifles through her mail, as if that’s more important than this
conversation we’re having. It pisses me the fuck off, and before I realize what
I’m doing, I rush into her space, flinging her mail across the room. She
freezes, her arms stiff and her eyes two wide circles.

“Stop running,” I growl. Her lips separate slightly. The thought of
taking them as mine crosses my mind. It occurs to me that perhaps I’ve been
going about this
all wrong
. I back away, and I swear I
catch a hint of surrender in her beautiful eyes. “God, it must be exhausting
being you.”

“It is,” she says through gritted teeth. “More than you possibly know.”

“Then fucking
do
something about it.” I back
away. I don’t like the way I’m speaking to her. I’ve never yelled at her
before. The fear in her eyes sickens me. I’m disgusted with myself. She might
frustrate the fuck out of me, but she doesn’t deserve this.

“Give up on me,” she whispers. “I’m telling you. Give up now. It’s not
going to get any easier.”

My fists clench at my sides. I’m racking my brain, mentally listing all
the reasons why I never gave up on
Lauryn
Hudson even
after all these years. She’s been
my everything
for as
long as I can remember. A life without her is not any kind of life I ever want
to live. Something happened that last summer we shared together. It wasn’t the
sex. It wasn’t the incessant make out sessions. It wasn’t getting drunks and
skinny dipping
in the pool in the middle of the night. It
wasn’t late night drives, cruising the boulevard and listening to music only we
‘got’. Something changed in me that summer, and then I lost it all before I had
a chance to tell her how I felt.

Our past is just as much a part of us as our future, and our future is
already written. I fucking know it. I refuse to believe I’m destined to live a
life without the only girl I’ve ever truly loved.

I slip away before I say or do anything that might possibly hurt or
scare her again. I need space. I need to figure this out.

“Where are you going?” I hear her call out as I reach for the door.

I keep going.

“Dr. Pierce, can you take a picture with us?” My fifth delivery that day
stares at me from her end of the bed, a half-crying baby swaddled in her arms.
Her husband smiles.
I know these two – Monica and
Roberto De La Rosa. I’ve delivered all of their kids, and their firstborn was
one of the first babies I delivered as a resident.

“Of course.” I flank Monica’s side, and we all lean in while her
mother-in-law snaps a picture with her phone.

“You’re practically a part of our family,” Monica says. “This is the
fourth baby of ours you’ve delivered.”

It warms my heart, but I’m finding it hard to smile that night.

“When are you going to settle down and have kids?” Monica asks. She
pulls her gown aside, and her baby latches on to her swollen breasts. She’s a
natural. She probably doesn’t even feel it anymore. “I bet you’d be a great
dad.”

“I don’t know,” I say with a polite smile. “Maybe it’ll be on the
horizon for me someday. Have to meet the right woman first.”

“Family is everything, doc,” her husband says. He reaches for the baby,
who wraps her tiny hand around his pinky. “Being a dad is the hardest thing
I’ve ever done, but I wouldn’t trade it for the world.”

“That’s what I hear.” I smile and nod, trying not to think about all the
ways in which my life might have turned out differently had my father stuck
around. My mom always said it just got to be too hard for him, so he took
refuge with a showgirl in Vegas and drank himself to death. I’ve always
wondered what kind of father I’d be, never having a good example. “Hopefully
someday.”

Even if I won’t be the world’s greatest father, I at least want the chance
to try.

I pat Monica on the shoulder and head out to finish charting. When I
have a moment, I slip into the on call room and make a phone call.

The number has been in my phone for years, transferred from phone to
phone every two years. Never deleted.

My thumb hovers over her name until I take a deep breath and press down.

“Hello?” She answers on the third ring.

“Diane? It’s Sutton.”

“I’m so glad I socked away all that money I made when I still had my
looks.” My mother nibbles on the center of a piece of unbuttered whole-wheat
toast. Her free hand is looped through the handle of a white porcelain coffee
mug. She takes her coffee black, no sugar or cream.

Some things never change.

“You’re still beautiful, Mom.” I cut into the fried egg her
housekeeper-slash-chef made me that morning. It’s funny going home and not
seeing a team of five people running the household. She’s had to condense over
the years.

“Then why can’t I land a single role that doesn’t require I wear gray
wigs and go by Mimi or Nana?” She takes an angry sip of her coffee and places
it carefully on top of the glass table in the breakfast nook that hosts us. Her
gaze is fixed on the tranquil infinity edge pool outside. The water is still
without so much as a ripple from the wind. She cocks her head at an angle,
still staring ahead. “It’s fine,
Lauryn
. I’m going to
be fine. I saved my money like a good girl. I just miss working. Irrelevance is
hard, is all.
”

“You’re not irrelevant. Besides, all you ever did was work,” I say. “You
should be thankful you could retire at fifty.”

She coughs. I know she’s not fifty. She’s much older than that. She
could probably pass for it though. She’s still beautiful and it’s not because
of the Botox and mini-face lift.

“I probably worked too much.” She nibbles her toast once again, eating
only the crunchy middle and leaving the crust. It reminds me of the way she
used to eat pizza, dabbing the grease from the cheese and leaving the crust
behind. She’s way too skinny, then again, she’s always been. “I should’ve spent
more time with you when I had the chance.”

It feels good to hear her say that. I know it isn’t easy for her to
admit. “It’s okay, Mom.”

“I missed out on your childhood, and by the time my career had begun to
unwind, you were a teenager. I hardly recognized you. And I’d neglected your
father. I abandoned our marriage long before he did.” She pulls her shoulders
back, blinking rapidly as if she’s uncomfortable airing the regrets of her
past. Good to see years in therapy with Dr. Richmond is finally paying off. Her
blonde hair is cut shorter than she used to wear it, with big wide curls
surrounding her face. If Marilyn Monroe would’ve made it to my mother’s age, I
bet they’d look like sisters. Her fingers twitch, like she’d give anything for
a cigarette. It’s been a long time since she kicked her nicotine addiction, but
some habits never fully go away. “I made a lot of mistakes,
Lauryn
.
I’m not proud of them.”

“No one’s perfect.” I take a sip of my orange juice, feeling like a kid.
I should be drinking coffee like a grown up, but it feels good to slip into our
mother-daughter roles. They’re comfy, like an old pair of jeans.
At least for me.
Sure, Diane Hudson has rows upon rows of
Oscars,
Tonys
, and Emmys, but her biggest achievement
was raising me. Her love for me was fierce and unwavering, even if she spent
most of my childhood hard at work. “Don’t beat yourself up about it.”

“My point,
Lauryn
, is that I blamed a lot of
people for my own pain and suffering,” she says, still staring at the tranquil
pool. She takes a slow sip of coffee and turns her body toward me. Her hand
slides across the table, covering mine as if to tell me she’s about to say
something important. “If we are unhappy in life, it is no one’s fault but our
own. And that’s the God’s honest truth.”

I stare down at my empty plate.

“Are you happy, darling?” she asks. Her brows raise and her mouth curls
into a half-smile. I’m torn between telling her the truth and telling her what
she wants to hear. Her blue eyes sparkle and shine, something I missed for many
years. It’s good to see it back. “You can be honest.”

Pulling in a deep breath, I declare, “I’m miserable, Mom.”

“Is it because of James? You miss him?”

“Oh, God, no.” I laugh. “Colette
DuBois
can
have him. Good riddance.”

“In the end,
Lauryn
, it’s people who matter.
Not awards. Not accomplishments. Not accolades and achievements. It’s
relationships.” Mom pulls her hand back and offers a full smile. “Those should
be the driving forces in your life. Don’t let someone go because you think you
need to find yourself. You’ll always find yourself no matter what.”

It’s as if she knows about Sutton, but I know that would be impossible.
She hasn’t spoken to him in years, nor has she spoke of Sandra and Dad. She
couldn’t know.

I stand up, taking my plate to the kitchen. “I’m going to go on a run.
Need to clear my head a bit.”

***

I’m glazed in sweat, my heart pounding. Thirty minutes of jogging the
gated, tree-lined streets of my mother’s neighborhood and I’m almost as good as
new. I’m gulping water and gasping for air, but my body will thank me later.

“Hey, Mom,” I call as I kick off my sneakers at the back door. I wipe my
forehead against the sleeve of my running jacket and fan my cherry red cheeks.
“Thinking of going to the farmer’s market after I shower. You want to come
with?”

My mother doesn’t respond, but she could be anywhere. That big mansion
of hers had a tendency to swallow people whole sometimes.

“Mom?” I call out.

I round the corner and peek my head into her office, the library, and
inside her dressing room.

“Mom?” I yell at the top of my lungs, the way a kindergartener might.

“In here.” Her voice trails from the south end of the house, near the
family room. I jog down the hall, stopping short the second I see she’s not
alone. “There you are.”

My mother smiles, and my eyes land on the back of a man’s head. His hair
is dark and shiny, perfectly combed. His shoulders are taut and familiar. He
turns to face me and my breath catches in my throat. The room smells of his
cologne. My mother’s house hasn’t smelled of ‘man’ in years.

“What are you doing here?” I fight a smile. A small part of me is happy
to see him and the rest of me
hates
him for
complicating everything.
My
 
travels
to my mother’s face. I
have to know she’s okay.

Mom smiles, giving me her silent blessing, and stands
to leave without saying a single word.

“Hi,
Lauryn
,” Sutton says. He rises and
motions for me to sit next to him. He’s wearing dark jeans and a fitted polo in
an exotic shade of aquamarine. I’m not used to seeing him in much else but
scrubs. He looks…ordinary in the best of ways. He’s not a doctor. He’s not my
temporary colleague. He’s just Sutton Pierce.

“Why are you here? In Brentwood?”

“Had to get your mom’s permission,” he says with the kind of half-smirk
a rebellious teenager might wear when up to no good.

“Permission for what?” My arms cross.

“To relentlessly pursue you.” He says it like it’s the most normal thing
in the world.

I haven’t moved. I’m still standing in the doorway. He comes to me,
placing his hand against the side of my rosy cheek. I’m still flushed and hot
from my jog, and standing in his presence, I’m now fifty degrees hotter. Just
when I gain my breath, I lose it all over again.

“I’m not giving up on you this time,
Lauryn
,”
he says. “I’m not letting you walk out of my life for another ten years.”

Our eyes catch. I’m not sure what to say.

“We’re not getting any younger.” He traces the side of his thumb across
my lips, and I can feel the weight of
his
 
on
them. I shut my eyes,
breathing him in, basking in this moment and trying to comprehend if it feels
amazing or terrifying or a little of both. “We could’ve had a life together
these last ten years. We could’ve been jumping from airplanes, backpacking through
Europe, scaling Everest. Shit, I don’t know. But instead you stayed hidden
away, and I buried myself in my career. Thought I could make a life without you
but I’m not happy without you.”

I release a captured breath and open my eyes. He’s concentrating on my
face.

“You push, I’ll pull even harder,” he says. He lowers his mouth to mine,
but he doesn’t kiss me. “And that’s a promise.” His lips hover over mine. “Kind
of the way it’s always been, right?”

I nod. “You don’t know when to stop.”

“What are you afraid of?”

“Everything.” I bite my lip. “But mostly you.”