Page 64 of Falling for the Forward

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Suki

“I mean,sloths do everything slow, right? They probably take, like, several days to digest their food,” Dex says.

He looks around the table, studying my face, then Harry’s, and then Mara’s.

“I have no idea,” Harry says, putting his hands up.

“Just guess three days,” Mara says.

“Three days?” Dex looks at me. “Are you good with that?”

I shrug. “Sure. I don’t know anything about the digestion of sloths.”

“Well, someone needs to take point on sloth digestion so we don’t miss these in the future,” Harry says as he writes down our answer.

It’s Monday night, which is trivia night for our team, The Smartinis. I haven’t made it to many trivia nights since I started working for Carter, so Harry’s friend Carla has been filling in for me. Tonight, though, it’s the OGs. I’ve been down in the dumps, and I hope a night out with my closest friends will help.

It’s been a little over a week since I saw Carter for more than five minutes. When he gets home, I either have one of my friends there, or I try to slip out one door when he’s coming in another one.

I had to stay to talk to him about Charlotte’s math grade today, but I left as soon as the conversation was over, even though he asked me to stay.

I’ve avoided him for too long. We have to talk at some point, but the more I try to sort out my feelings for him, the more confused I get.

It’s not that I’m not in love with him—I am. I didn’t mean for it to happen, but I feel for him anyway. He’s everything I’ve never had and didn’t know I wanted. Devoted to his nieces, who are like his own daughters, earnest, honest and funny in his own way. Beneath his gruff exterior is a side of him the world doesn’t get to see. It’s that secret, soft underbelly that I love the most, but I even love the scowls.

He doesn’t have the patience to sit through the halftime show when he’s watching a football game, but he watches Pixar movies with us and never complains. No matter how tired he is, he reads to Hallie for at least thirty minutes at bedtime every night. Once he figured out how much I love Nutter Butters, he started buying them in bulk.

I don’t know why I can admit to myself that I’m in love with him, but I can’t admit it to him. When he got vulnerable and said he wanted us to be together for real, I panicked. Since we’ve only known each other for three months and we’ve only very recently gotten romantically involved, it seemed too fast.

My gut told me it takes years to build a deep, everlasting love and that a man who can fall in love this quickly can fall out of love just as fast.

But I miss him. I miss our phone calls after his road games. I miss hearing Hallie giggle from her bedroom when Carter’sreading to her. I miss Olivia rolling her eyes when Carter tells her she’s not allowed to talk to boys. I miss the way he looked at me during sex and the way he held me after.

“Suki?” Dex snaps his fingers in front of my face. “What animal never sleeps?”

“Oh. Uh...owls?”

“I’m telling you, it’s bullfrogs,” Mara says.

“Go with that,” I say. “Mine was a total guess.”

Harry gives me a sympathetic look. “Love on the brain?”

“Something like that.”

“You two are driving me fucking crazy,” Dex snaps.

Harry furrows his brow, confused. “Who two? Us two?”

“No, Suki and Carter. He’s all, ‘Grr, how’s Suki? She won’t talk to me,’ and she’s all, ‘I love him, but I’m ignoring him.’ Every time I’m over there with the kids and Carter gets home, I feel like a damn referee.”

“So sorry to impose on you,” I say, annoyed.

“Just own your shit. He’s hurt because he said he loves you and you said youprobablylove him, too. Come on now, who isn’t hurt by that? The only worse thing you could have said wasthank you.”

“He caught me off guard,” I say defensively.

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