Page 7 of Double or Nothing

“You were sleeping so peacefully. I didn’t want to wake you.”

“Always do when I’m with you.” She takes a seat next to me. “What are you working on?”

“Praying,” I say with a chuckle.

She squeezes my arm. “It’s going to happen, Sutton. I know it will. You’re too good for it to not to.”

“I hope you’re right. I want this for us.”

“For us, huh?”

Wrapping my arm around her shoulder, I pull her against me. The feeling of her head resting against my shoulder settles a calm over me that only she can cause. “Everything I do is for us, Kat. I want to be a man you deserve. I want to give you the world.”

She lifts her head and faces me, her eyes boring into mine. “You already are. And you already do. Sutton, all I want is you. Us. That’s it.”

I shove off the ground and begin to pace the field before me. I rub my hands over my face and instantly regret the decision as a surge of pain shoots through my eyes near the massive bruise my father left me with.

Admittedly, I’m kind of curious to see what the other guy looks like. I’ve never fought before, but I’m pretty sure I got a few good shots in there.

“And what, Kat? You going to move into a trailer park with me? We’re going to live on paycheck to paycheck? No. Absolutely not. That’s not good enough.”

Kat isn’t like me. That’s not the life she grew up in. I’m not saying she’s some rich hoity toity chick – she isn’t. But she’s never went without. Never struggled. Even now, the money her dad’s insurance policy left them is enough to take care of her mother, even through all of her treatments. She deserves better than what I can offer her.

“I don’t care where we live. I just want to be with you. What do I have to do to make you understand that?”

“I don’t want that for you. Fuck, I don’t even want it for me, but at least I’m used to it.” I shake my head. “Kitty Kat, I have to do this. I have to make something of myself to…”

“Be worthy of me?” she supplies as she stands. “You have an amazing heart, Sutton Cole. You love me and take care of me without hesitation. You sit by my side and watch movies with me and my dying mother just to be with me. To support me. That… that is what I deserve. A man like that. Not one that can throw money around or buy me shit. I want someone who’s going to stand by me. Be with me. Love me. That’s all anyone can really ask for.”

Her hand touches my cheek and I lean into it. “I just want to make all your dreams come true.” And mine as well.

“You already did. And the music, it will come. I know it will.”

“I wish I had half as much faith in me as you do.”

“Me too,” she replies. Her smile is infectious and has me returning one to her almost immediately.

“What would I do without you?”

“Let’s never find out, okay?”

Chapter 5

Kat

My mother’s plate sits unfinished on the table before her. Her blanket is pulled up high under her chin, despite the sweltering heat in Vegas. Sutton hits play on the movie and settles onto the couch with me, his arm around my shoulders.

“I love this movie,” my mother says as the opening credits begin to roll.

She’s always been a huge fan of horror movies. The scarier, the better.

“Never pictured you as a horror buff, Mrs. Keller,” Sutton says, offering me the bowl of popcorn he made.

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me, Sutton.”

The first jump scare happens nearly immediately. My mother is laughing and I’m gripping onto Sutton for dear life.

“Sometimes I wonder how you can be my daughter,” my mother teases.

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