Page 104 of The Fine Line
He looks calm at first—until he yanks his phone from his pocket and hurls it across the tarmac.
His hands grip his hair, breath ragged, shoulders tense. Then he folds at the waist, body caving in as he tries to catch his breath.
I count.
One… two… three…
At thirty, he straightens. Walks over. Picks up the phone. Pockets it without looking. And boards the plane again.
The whole thing couldn’t have taken more than a minute.
He was right. That was all he needed.
He slides into his seat beside me, and I don’t look at him. I just stare out the window, earbuds in, heart pounding.
I don’t know what just happened.
But I know this:
There’s a lot more to Rhett Sutton than meets the eye.
twenty-five
CAROLINE
Toronto, ON, CA
Rhett and I haven’t spoken.
Not during the flight to Toronto. Not at the rink. Not once all day.
I should be grateful for the quiet. Our rooms were booked before this marriage circus started, so Linda agreed—reluctantly—to let us keep the separate hotel accommodations for this trip. I thought I’d savor the solitude. But instead of enjoying it, I spent the entire night thinking about him.
I kept replaying the performance we gave on the plane. The way Rags and Buck looked at us like we were something real. The flicker—just for a moment—when I wondered what it might actually feel like to let it be real.
And then I remembered the phone call. The voice on the other end. The things I heard. And the way Rhett looked right after—like his mask slipped and, for the first time, Isaw the real him. I don’t even know what that means, exactly. But I know I can’t stop thinking about it.
This morning, like always, he was back to normal. Smiling, joking, lighting up every room he walked into. But even from a distance, I could see it—the smile not quite reaching his eyes.
The game itself was a blur. The arena buzzed with that special kind of electricity only Toronto knows how to create. Rhett was unstoppable—fast, sharp, laser-focused. He scored early, teammates swarmed him, and for a second I felt it too. The surge of pride, the glow of something bigger than the noise around us.
The loudest of that noise, though—almost breaking through it all—was two people on the glass in the stands wearing number 19 Storm jerseys.
It was Teddy and Shaunna James—Bennett’s parents. Familiar faces I’ve known since I was a teenager, beaming with the kind of warmth you don’t fake. When I passed by to set up an intermission clip with them, Shaunna hugged me like family. They called Rhett their second son. The one they “should have had.”
But the two people who actually raised him?
Nowhere to be seen.
And I can’t stop wondering about that either.
The Storm won 4–2. Rhett was named first star of the game. The post-game press conferences wrapped. And I practically ran to the hotel snack bar for something—anything—to take the edge off my buzzing brain.
That’s where Ronan found me.
“Hey, Caroline.”
“Hey yourself, R2.”
