by Mariano, Sam
Given I like Carter, my stomach shouldn’t feel so unsettled, but I hate the possibility that he’s right. My mind and heart both reject his version of reality, stubbornly insisting it means something to be a good person. Someday, somehow… it will matter that I do the right thing and he does the wrong thing.
I don’t like making us competitors right now because I know he would win every time, but surely someday I would be the victor. He’s right—I work harder. I do the right thing. I deserve it more than he does.
He must be able to see he has poked a small hole in my dreams, because he reaches out to grab me and tugs me into his chest. “I’m sorry, I’m just being cynical,” he says, although I know he doesn’t mean it. Settling his arm around my shoulder to keep me close, he nods at the bookshelf. “Come on, pick out some books. Educate me.”
“Why?” I mutter, glancing up at him. “So you can have your rally girl read them to you while you’re practicing?”
“I’ll read them all by myself, I promise,” he says lightly, a small smile on his perfect lips. It’s a smile he intends to be reassuring, but knowing he’s only trying to placate me makes the gesture feel hollow.
Displeasure is leaking out of me now, and I can’t put a stopper in it. Frowning up at him, I tell him, “It’s not stupid to try. It’s not stupid to be nice to people and do the right thing instead of the wrong thing. The world would be a lousy place if nobody cared. You obviously don’t, but someone has to.”
“I was just messing with you, Zoey,” he assures me.
“But it was the truth,” I state, staring at him. “You weren’t messing with me, you told the truth and when I didn’t like it, you tried to backpedal like you always do, because it wasn’t worth it to you to stand your ground on this one. You’re not invested in whether I agree or disagree because it doesn’t affect you.”
“Yes, Zoey, I’m a selfish monster. I think only of myself, always. None of your opinions or worldviews matter to me. You’re just a trophy I can fuck.”
My stomach drops at the possibility of truth in those words and I take a step back.
Raking a hand through his hair, Carter says, “Jesus Christ. It was a joke, Zoey.”
“That’s a weird joke,” I tell him. “Trophy? That’s not a term I would’ve associated with myself. I’m not exactly a catch in this town. What makes me a trophy?”
This time, he knows better than to answer, but the gleam in his eye fuels my own suspicions and all of a sudden I know. It still doesn’t make sense, but I know the answer.
“Jake,” I say, softly. “He made me a trophy.”
“I was joking,” he says again, slowly. “I don’t view you as a trophy. I don’t even fucking value trophies—do you know how many of them I have?”
“Yeah, but you didn’t have a Zoey,” I say, shaking my head. “Not me. Not the stuck-up, church-going bookworm who didn’t give a damn about how impressive you are. Despite all your accomplishments and easy-pickings, I wasn’t on the menu for you, was I?”
Carter’s jaw locks. I see the tick, so I shouldn’t be surprised when he gets a little mean. “I don’t know, Zoey, if memory serves, I put you on the menu. I’ve had several servings at this point,” he reminds me.
That pisses me off. Plucking a book off the shelf, I shove a small paperback against his chest. “There’s your book. Buy it or don’t. I need to get back to the register.”
“Why are you doing this?” he demands, following me. “Why are you picking a fight with me over nothing?”
“I’m not picking a fight with you, I’m doing my job.”
He grabs my arm, pulling me backward and into the cooking section. “Stop.”
I turn and glare up at him. “Don’t tell me what to do.”
Carter rolls his eyes, tugging me into the corner, then switching our positions. Now he’s on the dominant side and I’m cornered between him and an intersection of books. Rather than argue with me, he grabs a fistful of my hair, yanks my head to the side, and kisses me. My heart hammers in my chest and I push against him, trying to shove him away. Carter drops his paperbacks and grabs my wrist, twisting it behind me and pinning me against the hard shelf of books.
It shouldn’t turn me on, but being manhandled by him turns my blood hot. It should be anger, but it’s something else. Interest stirs in my loins as he dominates my mouth, still firmly holding onto my hair. It only intensifies when he uses my hair to yank my head back and break the kiss, then pushes me down until I’m on my knees.
Then I hear him unzipping his jeans and my stomach bottoms out. My eyes widen as I look up at him. “Carter, what are you doing?”
“What does it look like I’m doing?” he asks evenly. Like the shameless bastard he is, he takes his cock out. “Open up, princess.”
“Carter, I’m at work. I can’t—”
“Next time you wanna be a pain in my ass, do it somewhere more convenient then,” he says, unapologetically. His dark gaze lingers on my swollen lips, then darts back to my eyes. “Now, open that pretty mouth or I’ll do it for you.”
Despite the steel in his tone, I do open my mouth—to tell him no way, he’s crazy, he’s going to get me fired. I have a litany of incredibly valid reasons on the tip of my tongue. Before I can share a single one, Carter pushes the smooth tip of his cock between my lips.
“Watch your teeth,” he warns, in case I’ve forgotten since last time.
I look up at him, adrenaline surging through my veins. We’re in such a calm, ordinary space, a place I spend several boring hours every week, and Carter is defiling it just like he defiles everything else. Given he pushed me into the corner, we are in one of the blind spots of the security cameras, but anyone could walk in. The manager could come out of the back and walk right past. Carter could get me fired, and there’s nothing I could say to defend myself in this scenario.
I should bite him. Not hard, not to hurt him, just to scare him, the fucking jerk. Making me give him a blow job while I’m on the clock. He’s got some damn nerve.
I like his nerve, though. I don’t know why, but his raging asshole side does things to me. The roughness of his hand fisted in my hair, the way he holds onto my head and uses my mouth for his own pleasure. Even if I tried to stop him right now, I doubt he would, and that should make me want to bite his dick right off, but instead it melts something in my brain. Instead, I find myself thinking, what the hell? If I’m risking getting fired, I might as well make it good.
Cornered in the cooking section, Carter fucks my face. There’s no other way to put it. Calling this a blow job would be irrationally generous. He punishes my mouth for all the annoying things that come out of it, then pushes deep into my throat and makes me choke down his cum. It’s filthy, harsh, and somehow hot. Tears leak out of the corners of my eyes from the brutality of it as I pull back and look up at him, swallowing down the last salty remnants of his pleasure.
Carter caresses my face affectionately, looking down at me. “Good girl.”
His voice is warm and approving. I’m tempted to melt into his touch, but now that he’s done, I’m more concerned about not getting caught. I bend to retrieve the paperbacks he dropped. He takes them, and I push up off the ground, swiping at the moisture under my eyes with the backs of my fingers.
“You okay?” he asks, somewhat reluctantly.
I nod my head, wiping my damp hands on the sides of my T-shirt. “Yeah. If I get fired, I’m going to murder you.”
Offering a smile as he zips back up, he says, “If you get fired, I’ll just give you the, what, 60 bucks a week you probably make here? I’m not too worried about it.”
“You should be.” I nod toward the ceiling, but don’t point, lest I draw attention. “There are security cameras. If they caught what you just did, that’s gotta count as indecent exposure, at the very least. That’s not gonna look very good, Mr. Future Lawyer.”
Carter shrugs and drapes an arm across my shoulder, tugging me into his side and kissing the crown of my
head. “If the cameras caught it and anyone actually watches the tapes, my dad will just buy them. Your manager gets a nice, big bonus, the tape accidentally gets lost. Whoops.”
“You have an answer for everything, don’t you?” I ask, leaning into his side and wrapping my arm around him nonetheless.
“Sure do. You like that about me.”
He’s right, I do. Still, I say, “Not when the things you say piss me off.”
“It’s bound to happen sometimes,” he replies, unconcerned. “At least until you accept that you don’t have to oppose me. You can be my partner. All my perks are your perks. It’s not me vs. you, Zoey. We aren’t opponents. When I win, you win.”
“Until we are opponents. Then what?”
“I crush my opponents,” he informs me casually, meeting my gaze. “Don’t be one of them and you have nothing to worry about.”
Chapter 35
After sleeping in my own bed again, Monday morning I grab myself a cup of cold milk and a pack of Pop-Tarts for breakfast. It’s quite a change from the feast-like breakfasts at Carter’s house. I find myself thinking about the future, the one Carter likes to talk about like we really have one. Will Carter expect his live-in girlfriend to feed him like a king, too? I bet he will. He probably thinks that’s normal. Meanwhile, I think cold Pop-Tarts for breakfast are normal. Chloe is used to the big breakfast spread, too. If she did move in with Carter and I stayed with them for any length of time, I would probably have to step up my breakfast game.
I almost hate thinking about it—not because I have a grudge against breakfast, but because I feel crazy to even consider it a possibility. It’s tempting, not only because I like Carter, but because I like the life I could see us having together. I really do enjoy him as a person. He’s spoiled, devious, and the mirror opposite of me in many ways, but we connect on a lot of levels, too. I would have never envisioned myself feeling genuine friendship with Carter Mahoney, but I genuinely like him, even when I think he’s a pain in the ass. I don’t want to get carried away daydreaming about a future that will never exist, though. A future he’s not at all serious about, despite the things he says that lead me to believe maybe he is.
I don’t know why it feels like things have to move so fast with Carter. Maybe it’s because he is a lot to handle, he is a big gamble, and he moves fast. He blows past normal relationship checkpoints like they’re made for other people, not for him. It’s so easy to get swept up in his lightning speed, to fly as high as he does while he shares his powers, but I’m all too aware of how hard I’ll fall if he suddenly lets go and I go plummeting back to earth.
“Hey, stranger,” my mom says, smiling as she comes into the kitchen.
My cheeks flush faintly at the reminder of my sleepovers. “Good morning.”
Crossing to the counter, not looking back at me, she says, “So, Dr. Lucker’s office left an appointment reminder for you today. Something I should know about?”
Now she turns around to gauge my reaction. I’m frozen in awkwardness, horrified at the idea of the conversation that would undoubtedly follow the truth. I guess I should just tell her, though. She already knows I have spent the night at Carter’s house, and Carter isn’t a girl. She probably knows that wasn’t innocent.
“I made an appointment to get on birth control,” I tell her, looking at my Pop-Tart as I break it in half.
“I see,” she returns evenly. “I guess this means your overnights with Carter…?”
“Yeah,” I offer, but nothing else.
Mom nods again. “Do we need to talk about it?”
“Nope. I’ve got it under control,” I assure her quickly, grabbing my glass of milk and taking a sip.
Rather than accepting it and letting it go that easily, she asks, “Is this—I mean, have you already… taken that step?” she asks, haltingly. “Or are you just getting ready in case it comes up?”
I would rather crawl right out of my skin than have this conversation with my mom. “I’m doing everything I can to be responsible,” I tell her.
“How long have you two been dating?” she asks me. “You never tell me about anything, I have to hear about my own daughter’s love life through gossip. How is it other people know more about you than I know myself?”
Rolling my eyes as I take a sip, I point out, “People generally don’t know, they just talk and talk and talk. Carter and I are dating, he is more accustomed to… a faster type of girl, it’s hard to slow down when you’re with him, and I would rather be safe than pregnant. That’s a pretty detailed summary of my situation right now.”
Her gaze shifts away awkwardly, but then she moves closer to the table to tell me, “Well, you know, sometimes it works better to make him chase you a little bit. You don’t have to speed up to meet his pace. Make him slow down to meet yours. Show him you’re a girl worth waiting for.”
I don’t bother telling her that ship has already sailed, or that Carter doesn’t really switch speeds to accommodate other people. I’m not worried about making her dislike him—given who he is, I know it would take a lot—but it would be pointless. At best, it would make her stop asking questions and awkwardly leave the room. At worst, it would make her worry that I’m not in a safe relationship.
Actually, maybe the “at worst” is that she would tell me to suck it up because I’ve landed a whale, and then I would be annoyed at her for giving me even more bad advice than she already has.
No good can come of it, that’s the point.
“I’ve got it under control,” I say instead, flashing her a brief smile before turning my attention back to my breakfast.
* * *
Although there was nothing normal about my weekend, it finally feels like things are getting back to normal at school. There is no “Zoey the ho” greeting waiting for me today as I head for the school’s entrance doors. A couple of jocks are lingering around the stone wall where Carter sometimes holds court, but he’s not there to command them. Even so, when they notice me, rather than taunts, I get a nod of acknowledgement and a friendly, rhetorical “what’s up?”
My, how the tides have changed. I walk through the halls without being obviously stared at, glared at, or talked about. When I open my locker, there is no vandalism. It’s starting to feel just a little too good.
Then I hear, “Hey, whore.”
My shoulders sag with displeasure at the ruination of this perfect arrival. I finish stuffing the books I don’t need yet into my locker, then I close the metal door and meet the blue-eyed gaze of Erika Martin.
“Hey, friend,” I offer back.
Erika smiles, her eyes twinkling. Why is she so happy? “Did you kick a puppy this morning?” I inquire. “You seem awfully cheerful.”
“A whole litter. Ugly little things.”
I crack a smile. “Not quite Dalmatian coat material, huh? Too bad.”
“No new coat for me. There’s a killer shoe sale going on this week, though. That’s pretty good consolation.”
“It is. We should go. I could use a new pair of shoes.”
Erika blinks and looks over at me. “Are you joking? I can’t always tell with you. You have a weird sense of humor.”
Hanging out with Erika is the last thing I would ever choose to do, but I shrug noncommittally. “Hey, if you’d rather be friends than enemies, shoe shopping could be a good first step. We could get iced coffee, maybe grab lunch. There’s really no reason for us to hate each other.”
“Except the fact that we’re fucking the same guy,” she offers.
Sighing with disappointment, I shake my head. “You’re still on that? Seriously? It didn’t work, Erika. Move on.”
“See, that’s the thing. I know a lot of girls would just put up with Carter’s bullshit because he’s Carter. He won’t stop doing it, so you just have to deal if you wanna be with him. But I think you actually believe him. You really believe he changed for you or some shit, and that’s just sad.”
“I don’t care what you think of me, Erik
a.” Pointing to a random spot across the hall, away from me, I add, “Just judge me from way over there. Honestly, your opinion of me is not my business and I couldn’t be less interested.”
“I’m really not trying to be mean,” she states.
“Just naturally bitchy, huh?” I murmur. I can’t imagine why Carter didn’t want to be with her. She’s such a delight!
“I’ve been there before,” she tells me. “I wasn’t always like this. Carter made me… he changed me, because of the way he acts. I had to compromise a lot to be with him, and it never ends. He just takes and takes and takes. Just when you’ve finally adjusted and you think you’ll break if you bend another inch, he demands it. He’s… He drives me fucking crazy.”
That I can understand. Nodding and glancing over at her, I assure her, “I don’t doubt that at all. That just means he’s not right for you, though. I think Carter isn’t right for the majority of women. He’s a difficult guy. If that isn’t something you enjoy, you should really let him go. Wouldn’t you be happier? Why keep fighting to hang onto someone who literally drives you crazy? You couldn’t have had any peace with him. Were you always worried about other girls?”
“Constantly. If they so much as looked at him, I wanted to claw out their eyeballs. I lived in a constant state of terror that some bitch would steal him away from me.”
I’m surprised by the honesty of her answer, by her ability to admit that, but it triggers a strain of real sympathy for her. I completely get Carter making someone lose their damn mind. “You couldn’t trust him. It wasn’t your fault, Erika. He’s a hard person to trust. Not trusting him is probably the smart thing to do.”
Her eyes widen like she didn’t expect me to agree with her. “So, if you know that, then what are you doin’ with him?”
Sighing to myself, I sift through a few possible responses, but she won’t like any of them. He’s different with me would sound moronic. It’s an oversimplification for the better explanation, I fit him better than you do. She would hate that, though. It would make her feel like I’m putting the weight of their relationship’s failure on her shoulders, saying she was somehow inadequate. It’s not inadequacy, they just weren’t compatible. Carter is a handful, and the average woman is not equipped to deal with him. I don’t think Carter could make an average woman happy; luckily for him, I’m just a weirdo.