by Mariano, Sam
“Most of Carter’s lady friends don’t get introductions, so I believe you. You two go to school together?”
I nod my head. “We’re in the same history class.”
“Are you a cheerleader?”
“God, no.” The words tumble right out before I can think better of them. I don’t know Carter’s sister, but since Carter is on the team, maybe she was a cheerleader in high school. Attempting to backtrack so as not to offend her, I add, “Not that there’s anything wrong with cheerleading. I’m just not a big fan of having more eyes on me than necessary. I’m not really the cheering on the sidelines type, I’m more the… stay home and read type.”
Caroline’s eyebrows rise like that’s the last thing she expected to hear. “Really? Not a social butterfly, huh? How did you and my brother meet again?” she half-jokes.
“It was an accident of fate,” I assure her. “I’m not his type.”
“You are now,” Carter assures me, putting slight pressure on my back to urge me toward the booth. “Anyway, I introduced her to Mom and Dad this morning and it did not go well. I thought I’d show her we’re not all assholes.”
Chloe shakes her head and passes him a pack of crayons wrapped in plastic wrap to open. “You owe me a dollar, Carter.”
Taking the pack and ripping it open, he tells her, “You already spent your dollar on cookies, rugrat.”
“You used a adult word,” she tells him, eyebrows rising. “You owe me another dollar.”
“You should really just give her a twenty and tell her it’s a down payment,” Caroline offers. “That’s what Chris does when we watch her. He knows he’s going to fail to clean up that dirty mouth, so he just forks down his penance and gets it out of the way.”
Chloe looks at me. “I make a lot of money off the boys.”
I bite back a grin as I slide into the booth across from her. “I bet you do.”
“I’m saving it up. I’m gonna buy a pony named Lucy and put a unicorn horn on her,” Chloe tells me.
“That’s not going to happen,” Carter informs her, sliding into the booth beside her.
“Yeah, it is. I’m gonna have a pet unicorn. I just have to save up a lot of dollars.”
“That wouldn’t be a unicorn, it would be a pony with a weird hat,” Carter tells her. “Why don’t you aim a little lower? Start with a pet fish.”
“I would name it Sharky,” she announces. Then she nods, already sold on the idea. “Okay, I want a pet fish. Can we go get one today?”
“You’ve gotta save up your money first,” he tells her, passing me a menu. “You’ll have to buy it a bowl and fish food.”
“Can it go places with us? We should get it a cage, like a dog. But that water will stay in, so we can bring Sharky.”
Sighing, Carter murmurs, “I’m already regretting this suggestion.” Glancing her way, he says, “How about instead of buying a fish today, we all watch The Little Mermaid when we get home?”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” she says, bouncing in her seat as she colors on her place setting.
Now that we’re all seated, Caroline says, “I’ll grab you guys a waitress. You’re actually in Marla’s section, but I’ll get you a different one.”
“Yes, please do,” Carter says.
As soon as Caroline walks away, I ask, “Who is Marla?”
“Number 19,” he offers back.
Oh. “Did you date, or…?”
“Or,” he answers, shooting me a little smirk and winking at me.
Shameless. Carter Mahoney is shameless.
Chapter 32
Having watched The Little Mermaid many times as a child, I watch the beginning until Chloe is engrossed and no longer paying me any attention, then I get on my phone and review some of my notes to prepare for class on Monday. Carter has cut way into my studying time and I have to work tomorrow. In preparation, I took pictures of all my notes and put them in a folder in my phone, that way if I got some free time by the register, I could study.
It turned out to be a great plan. By the time Ariel is getting married and living happily ever after, I feel a little less stressed about spending almost my whole entire weekend with Carter.
I am a little surprised I’m not sick of him yet, though. As much as I like Carter and find him interesting, spending this much time with someone without interruption is a lot. Most anyone would be getting on my nerves by now, but I’m still thoroughly enjoying Carter’s company.
“Can you hand me the remote?”
I’m sitting on the floor in front of the couch Carter is lying on. I only intend to glimpse at him before leaning forward to grab the remote control for him, but what I see makes my heart stop, drop, and roll right out of my body.
Chloe got sleepy while the movie was on, so she decided to lie down on Carter and use him as a makeshift bed. Currently, she is fast asleep like a little angel with one small arm curled around his neck. Her other hand is wrapped around his side so that she’s basically hugging him while she sleeps.
I can’t handle it. Instead of moving toward the end table where Carter put the remote before lying down with Chloe, I just sit here, half-turned, and stare.
“This is so adorable, I can’t stand it,” I inform him.
Carter rolls his eyes. “Yeah, I’m losing feeling in my throwing arm—real adorable.”
Since he’s immobile with Chloe sleeping on him and he can’t stop me, I scoot back, turn around, and slide my phone to camera mode. I tap the screen to focus and take a picture of them.
“Are you gonna help me, or ogle me some more?” Carter asks when I’m done.
“I’m still deciding,” I admit. “Since you’ve probably impregnated me, my heart is seizing up at the image of you being so paternal with her.”
“I guess you won’t make me wear a condom tonight, huh?” he murmurs.
“No, I’m still gonna make you wear a condom,” I say, since I can’t be sure he’s joking. “This will surely get less endearing after I’ve lived as your unpaid nanny for a while and you’ve snuffed out all my aspirations and replaced them with baby diapers.”
“You’re cynical as hell about any chance of a future with me, aren’t you?”
“I’m not bein’ cynical, just realistic. Why doesn’t the prospect of teenage pregnancy scare you?” I ask, since he gave me a solid opening.
“Babies aren’t scary.”
“I know, they’re adorable, but they’re also an enormous responsibility, not to mention a lifelong commitment. You and I wouldn’t just be stuck tryin’ to live our lives around a newborn’s schedule, we would be stuck with each other forever. I’m not saying we couldn’t make it work, but it would be far from ideal, and I don’t understand why it doesn’t terrify you. It terrifies me.”
“Because you have it in your head it would ruin your life,” he says, simply.
“Why don’t you?” This is the part I don’t understand.
“Because I know it doesn’t.”
“How do you know that? Have you knocked a girl up before?”
His dark eyes shutter with something like annoyance. Instead of answering me, he braces a hand on Chloe’s back and sits up. Her little head lolls, but he stands and readjusts her weight. She stirs just enough to wrap her arms around his neck, but her eyes drift closed immediately and she rests her head on his shoulder.
“I’m taking her up to bed,” he tells me.
My hammering heart sinks down into my gut. It took so much courage to push that question out, and he’s ignoring it. It’s also a completely crazy question. Even if the answer turns out to be yes, it’s still a crazy thing to have to ask my 18-year-old boyfriend of roughly 3 minutes.
I know I can’t ask it again, either. I don’t like that he won’t just give me satisfactory answers to certain questions so I can put them to bed. I don’t like that he keeps me uncertain and makes me feel crazy. Pre-Carter, I didn’t have fits of insecurity thinking my boyfriend might already be unfaithful. I didn’t worry that I wo
uld get pregnant, or that my grades would drop and tank my future, or about almost any of the things I worry about now.
I let Carter off the hook a lot, but he has to know that sometimes he has to cut the evasive bullshit and actually answer me. The only way he’ll learn is if I show him, so not for the first time, while he carries Chloe up to bed, I grab my purse, slip my shoes on, and get ready to leave.
When Carter comes back, he slows down as he takes in the fact that I’m ready to go. “Where do you think you’re going?” he asks casually, as he approaches.
“Home,” I tell him, sliding my purse onto my shoulder. “I have a long day of work and studying ahead of me tomorrow, so I need to get some sleep.”
Wrapping his arms around my waist and tugging me close, he asks, “And you don’t think I’ll let you get any sleep if you stay here?”
Cracking a smile despite myself, I tell him, “I cannot stay here again.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t live here. I told my mom I was helpin’ you babysit your little sister and then I’d be home. Babysitting is finished. Time for me to go.”
“You can’t just ask a guy if he’s ever knocked someone up and then bail,” Carter states.
“Why not? Didn’t seem like you planned to answer me anyway. If the answer was no, it would have been pretty simple to just say that. If the answer is yes…” I trail off, shaking my head, because I don’t even know how to keep going.
It’s one of those thoughts I don’t expect I’ll have to finish, because despite the insanity of this even being a question, the answer has to be no. I have no frame of reference for where to even go after this if it isn’t.
Instead of immediately setting my mind at ease, Carter asks, “If the answer is yes…?”
My stomach knots up and lightens all at once, like I just jumped off a ledge and now I’m anticipating the splat of my body hitting pavement. “I don’t…” I shake my head, searching for words. “I don’t know. Then I have about a million more questions.”
“What’s at the top of the list?”
I try to pull back, but he doesn’t let me go. “Is the answer yes, then? Who? When? Did she keep it? Was it Erika? Is that why you literally make her crazy? Is Chloe really your little sister? My God. You’re eighteen.”
“Breathe,” he says mildly, watching my face.
I’m too busy freaking out to breathe. He needs to start answering some of my questions, but at the same time, I’m afraid of my own reaction if he does. As much as I’ve been able to swallow, there’s something about this I can’t get down. I’ll feel bad pushing him away for telling me the truth, but some truths are just too hard to swallow.
It’s not even Chloe. If she is his, it’s wild that he could possibly be my age and have a five-year-old, but it’s more the idea that he has already experienced that milestone with someone else that bothers me—especially if it was Erika. I need to know if it was Erika. She’ll never leave me alone, not in a million years, if it was her.
Much more calmly, Carter tells me, “It’s too soon to have this conversation. I know that’s a shitty answer and I’m sorry for it, but it’s too soon.”
“I mean, this is the conversation, Carter. You can’t just leave me hanging from the edge of a cliff like that. Whether you want to give me details or not, you basically answered the question. It’s yes.”
“It’s not as simple as that,” he states, running his hands down my arms in a stabilizing rhythm.
“Was it Erika?”
“No, it wasn’t Erika. She has nothing to do with this,” he answers. “I didn’t get anyone—” He stops, shaking his head and looking away from me. “I just need you to trust me on this, all right? It’s not what you’re imagining. I’ll explain it to you someday, but you know all you need to know right now.”
“Did you love her? The girl you…?”
“No.”
“Do you still… I mean, is she around? Do you see her?”
“No. I promise you, you have nothing to worry about. There’s nothing about this that will ever affect you. There are no hidden strings waiting to trip you. There’s no baby mama drama, nothing like that. I have no ties to her. She’s gone and she’s not coming back.”
“Is it Chloe? Is she actually your…?” I can’t quite get the word ‘daughter’ out of my mouth. It’s too bizarre.
He hesitates briefly, then nods once.
I pieced that together myself, and I still feel I was just hit with a bagful of bricks.
“She doesn’t know,” he adds, like that might help. “She thinks I’m her brother. She’s little, so she doesn’t question it.”
I need to sit down. Backing out of his embrace, I walk over to the couch and take a seat, holding onto the edge and remembering just a few minutes ago, when he was lying there on the couch with her.
Carter follows me over to the couch, but he doesn’t sit beside me. He crosses his arms and stands there regarding me like a flight risk.
I am a flight risk. This verification of what felt like a far-fetched suspicion is opening up wormholes I don’t want to fall through. I have to, though. I’m not going to be that girl. I’m not going to stick my head in the sand so I don’t have to make the hard decisions.
I try to filter through all the things Carter has ever said that could pertain to this situation, but believing any of those things is predicated on accepting that he was being truthful when he told me he hadn’t lied to me. When had he said it? I’m trying to remember which of his claims came before, and which ones came after. Even if he hadn’t lied to me at the time he said that, it doesn’t mean he didn’t afterward.
“Why isn’t she around anymore? The girl you got pregnant. That’s an ominous statement coming from anyone, but coming from you…” I look up at him, dread weighing me down. “What does that mean?”
His jaw locks, and that doesn’t fill me with optimism. “I’ve answered as many questions about this as I want to,” he tells me.
“I have done a lot of things I haven’t wanted to do for you,” I point out. “I think in fairness, you should have a single conversation you don’t want to have for me.”
“This doesn’t have anything to do with you,” he informs me, apparently immovable. “I don’t want to fight with you, I’m not trying to close you out or hurt your feelings, but I don’t want to talk about this, and I need you to respect that.”
Launching up off the couch, wide-eyed, I tell him, “And I didn’t want to blow you in front of your douchebag teammates or give you my virginity in Cartwright’s basement. Sometimes you don’t get what you want, and all you can do is fucking deal with it.”
That should be the truth, that should be the winning hand. As much as I’ve overlooked for him, I really feel like he owes me a few minutes of discomfort. Telling me about some hook-up he impregnated is not even close to the level of what I’ve had to process and put away. I don’t have a problem making risky emotional investments in him, but if he can’t occasionally repay the favor… well, fuck that. That’s not a relationship, it’s emotional charity, and I’m not here for that.
I’m just about to say that, too. I swear to God, I am, but before I can, Carter grabs me by the throat. Not hard, not to hurt me, just enough to startle me. Then he takes advantage of my shock to guide me until my back is pressed against a wall. The alarm coursing through me steals my words for a moment. I’m just about to open my mouth and tell him to get his hands off me when his hand falls away from my throat.
I swallow and take in his expression, his energy, to gauge potential danger now that he’s not a moment away from choking me.
“Maybe I was unclear,” he says evenly, his fingertips skating down my left arm. I pull it away from him and his dark eyes snap to my face. “This isn’t a debate. The topic is closed.”
Glaring at him and moving my arm away from his touch, I tell him, “Well, so are my legs.”
A slow, dark smile spreads across his sensual lips. “Until I
pry them open, sure.”
“Don’t you dare. I’m not playing with you right now, Carter. This isn’t a game. This is not a relationship if you get the upper hand all the damn time and I get whatever scraps you want to throw me. I didn’t sign up for that. I’m not interested in that. If you want me to trust you, you have to be willing to open up some corner of yourself to me. I can’t be the only one bending in every single scenario. This can’t be all work for me, and all fun for you. I can’t trust that.”
“You don’t trust me anyway,” he states. “Even when I do things right, it doesn’t matter.”
“That’s not true,” I say, my stomach sinking at his words.
“Yes, it is. If you want to hold a grudge, Zoey, at least be honest about it. I’m not blaming you. It’s normal. I thought you were giving me a chance, but hey, maybe I was wrong. Maybe you were just holding onto ammunition so you could use it against me when the right opportunity presented itself. Maybe you’re just like everyone else.”
Ouch. “Don’t say that. You don’t believe that.”
“Maybe I do. Everyone wants something, Zoey,” he says, trailing the back of his hand along my jaw line. “What do you want from me?”
I hate that I feel my insides collapsing under the chill of his response, but there’s danger in what he’s saying. Not real, physical danger, but his words highlight the risk of extinguishing his main interest in me—and extinguishing it wrongly, because I am what he thinks I am. It’s not self-interest that compels me to try to reach him or to put up with his shit, but he’s already pretty convinced most people are users. Once he puts me in that category, I have a feeling there’s no getting back out of it.
“You want to be the special one?” he asks, his gaze raking over me before returning back to my face. “I’ve given you that, haven’t I? You wanted people to leave you alone about Jake, so I stopped it. I helped you with your stupid church fundraiser. I introduced you to my family so you’d know I was serious. I think it’s unfair to say I never give, Zoey. I think I do, just in a different way than you do.”