Page 109 of Double or Nothing

Mac’s last words stick in my head as I board the plane, Val hot on my heels. Pretty sure luck isn’t on my side. Never has been.

Val takes a seat next to me on the plane, a satisfied look on her face, pleased she won.

“You did the right thing.”

Somehow, I doubt that.

My phone dings, and there’s a text message on my phone from Kat, telling me it’s not too late. I can still get off the plane. I don’t have to go. We can still work something out. She says it as though there’s still a chance of us. Like my father didn’t just prove how right he was by antagonizing me into behaving just like him.

She’s right, though; I don’t have to leave. I already have the career I left in search of, and the thing that set me off before, her refusal to come with me, isn’t an issue anymore. She offered to come with me. She’s willing to do whatever it takes—for us.

I can’t ask her to leave Vegas, though. This is her home, the only life she’s ever known. How can I ask her to give that up for me? I mean, what if I really am like him? What if I turn into him? How can I give her the life she deserves with that fear hanging over my head? The apple doesn’t fall from the tree, right? He wasn’t wrong about that.

“Give me that,” Val says, grabbing for the phone.

“Back off.” I yank it away from her.

“Whatever she’s texting you, it’s nothing compared to what I can offer.”

I glance over at Val, the mistake I almost made last night.

“I doubt that.”

Sex and alcohol have fueled my life for the past four years. I drowned myself in them four years ago, the moment I finally got Kat out of my head. It’s how I cope. How I deal. Much like my father. Like what I almost did last night. Only then, the memory of Kat was still embedded in the forefront of my mind. She was too close, too real. I couldn’t do it.

That’s only one day. What if it happens? What if every time something goes wrong, I succumb to my default coping mechanism?

What if I don’t?

A year. It took a year to get Kat out of my head the first time. Now, I don’t know if it’s even possible. After everything this week, will I ever be rid of her? Do I want to be?

I wonder if my dad ever felt like that about my mom. If there was ever a moment when she mattered more to him than he mattered to himself. Kat means everything to me. I would give my last breath for her. Somehow, I don’t find that to be true of my father.

Maybe the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, but it sure as fuck doesn’t stay there. It can be found, saved, and made into something good. That’s what Kat’s done for me. She found me. She saved me.

And like a fucking fool, I walked away again.

But I’m not gone.

Kat has always been the missing piece, the calm to my storm.

“Fuck,” I scream as I run my hands through my hair.

One run-in with the man I’m supposed to call dad, and my head is so jacked up, I don’t know what to think or feel. Am I really going to let him have this much control over my life? Am I really pushing away the one person I ever really loved?

“Sutton, are you—” Val says but a commotion outside the plane interrupts her.

“I don’t give a damn. Arrest me.”

Kat.

Shit.

I get out of my seat and move toward the door.

“Don’t exit the plane, Sutton,” Val warns me. “Just stay here. Stay out of trouble, and everything will be okay.”

She’s wrong. The only way everything will ever be okay is if I leave the plane. If I go to Kat.

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