"No," I tell her, pushing the pad back toward her.
Those eyes now light up, turning gold as anger flashes through them. "Oh, you'll give an autograph to a sexy woman who will happily sleep with you tonight, but not to a little boy?" she snarls at me.
Chuckling, I hold my hands up in self-defense. "Easy there, tiger. I only meant no as to an autograph on a measly scrap of paper. How about a signed jersey instead?"
Sutton's mouth flies open and her eyes go wide. "What? No, that's too much. The paper is fine."
"This is for your little brother, right?"
"Yeah," she says softly, her mouth forming into a smile filled with tenderness. It causes tiny warm fingers to start massaging deep within my chest.
"And by that look on your face right now, I'm thinking the jersey is definitely not too much."
"I … if you're sure. I didn't mean for you to give him something so extravagant. I can't afford a jersey, but he's such a great kid. And a huge fan, and I'd so get him a jersey if they weren't so expensive, but maybe you could sign just a picture or-"
"Sutton, stop. The jersey is fine. I have dozens of them at my apartment. And you're not paying for it. The team gives them to us to sign and hand out. It's no big deal."
However, based on the shine in her eyes and the way her eyes are moist right now, I'm thinking I've done something akin to offering her the world.
She blinks hard and her eyes dry up. Clearing her throat, she says, "Thank you. You can't begin to imagine how thrilled he'll be."
"It's my pleasure," I tell her sincerely, because for some stupid fucking reason, the fact that I put that look on her face is causing me immense pleasure right now.
I know business is at hand, though, when her gaze loses some of the warmth and her voice comes out strong. "So … did you have something important come up this morning?"
She's referring to our meeting that I cancelled by text message about fifteen minutes before it was set to start. "Nope. I was too hungover to get out of bed."
Sutton's perfectly arched eyebrows arch even higher and she quirks her lips. "At least you're honest."
"Always. Painfully so," I concur.
"I suppose that's a virtue, but I have to say-I'm worried that you were too hungover to come to a meeting at a drug crisis center to work on an outreach program for at-risk youth."
I blink at her several times, trying to determine if the censure I hear in her tone is real or not. When she pins me hard with those eyes, that were just flashing all kinds of beautiful things at me a moment ago, I do, in fact, realize that she is disapproving.
And, of course, that gets my fucking hackles up. I've led my entire life with my dad criticizing my every move, handing out nothing but looks of disappointment my way. I'm fucking done with that shit.
"You're not my drug or alcohol counselor," I snarl at her as I lean across the table toward her. "So, you can keep your opinions to yourself."
I expect her to back down, to maybe even shed a few tears over the venom in my voice, but she just holds my gaze, softly staring at me as if she can see all the way through to my soul. It's disconcerting, to say the least, but I'm not about to back down.
"Look," Sutton says with patience, her voice unassuming – nonthreatening, but still very serious. "I have the right to be worried about this. I told you, kids will spot a phony a mile away."
"I'm not a fucking alcoholic," I grit out.
"I never said you were an alcoholic," she assures me softly. "But yet you let alcohol interfere with something that was important. I don't know you, Alex, but what I've seen so far … I'm worried."
Son of a bitch.
Her words cause anger to suffuse through me, and at the same time, a tiny thread of guilt filters in. It's an emotion that I've felt plenty in my lifetime, my dad always making me feel terrible about myself. Rather than make me take stock of the fact that okay, maybe it wasn't cool to cancel a meeting because I was hungover, it causes me to get even angrier. Because maybe the truth is hitting a little too close to home. If there's one thing that will cause me to go apeshit, it's making a comparison between me and my father. Suggest that we have anything in common, a tiny similarity, and I will tear you a new one.
"It is none of your fucking business what I do in my private time, as long as it's not publicly hurting our work together. I went out with a teammate and I tied one on. I don't do it often, but I won't apologize for it and I won't sit here and listen to you berate me for it."