Page 83 of Maybe You

“Want to go for a swim?” he asks.

“Umm… No? Hello? Blow jobs?”

He sends me a long, considering look. Then his hands move to the hem of his shirt, and he pulls it over his head.

“How about now?” he says.

I swallow, throat thick, mind on dick.

“I don’t think we’re supposed to,” I say.

“Who’s going to tell?”

“It’s more about doing the right thing.”

“But it’ll be so much more fun if we do the exact opposite of what’s right.”

I cross my arms over my chest. “Is that your motto?”

“The unofficial one. In all fairness, it’s much better than the crap we have on our family crest.”

“Family cr—” I start to say before I stop myself. “You know what? Sure. Why not. Family crest. Of course you come from a family that has one.”

He sends me a mock-grim nod. “If it helps, it’s godawful. Ugly as sin. Whichever forefather had that thing commissioned had absolutely no taste.”

“Is that one of the greatest hardships you’ve ever had to endure?”

“It’s definitely up there. There was also the time they ran out of Beluga caviar at last year’s Abney Foundation Christmas Ball. Society event of the season, my ass. Anyway, that one still haunts me, so it has to be one of those two. The tragedies that shaped me.”

I’m not even going to touch that one.

“What’s the motto on the crest?” I ask.

“Spectemur agendo.”

“What does it mean?”

His face contorts into a thoroughly unimpressed grimace tinged with something that resembles disgust. “Let us be judged by our actions.”

I don’t want to look outright dumb, so I spend a few seconds trying to figure out what might be wrong with that statement. It seems innocuous enough. Or maybe I just don’t get it. Maybe there’s some history behind it, and I’m unaware of its impact.

“And that’s… bad?”

“It’s hypocritical to the highest degree, is what it is,” he says, grimness tinging each word.

I study him in silence while he glares at the water until curiosity gets the better of me.

“Are your parents still a-around?” I stumble on the last word because straight-up asking if they’re dead seems insensitive, so “around” is the best word I can think of to replace “alive.”

“You mean are they dead?” Sutton asks, point-blank, ruining my attempt at being considerate.

I shrug in response.

“No, they’re alive,” he says.

Here is where my inexperience with letting new people into my life comes out full force. I don’t know what I should or shouldn’t ask, even if I’m dying to have the answers. Even if I’m suddenly very aware of how little I actually know about Sutton Holland.

I finally settle on “Are you guys close?”

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