by Judy Corry
Even though it was just a photograph, Carter’s eyes seemed to see straight into me, and it almost felt as if the real Carter was looking at me.
Was it crazy that I wanted to be a part of Carter's family, but also be his girlfriend?
To wish for a world where I could have the kind of guy I'd always dreamed of falling in love with want me back, but also be part of his family at the same time.
I guess that was how it ended up working for most people. When you married a person, you married into their family.
The universe just wanted to make things more complicated for me than it did for the typical teen girl.
I was just giving my possible family one last glance before heading down the hall to Cambrielle's room when a door down the hall opened and Carter stepped out, looking halfway dressed for the evening.
He wore his gray suit pants and black socks. His white button-up shirt was on but still currently unbuttoned, and he held two ties in his hands—one navy, the other pink—almost like he'd been on his way to ask someone which tie he should wear for tonight.
His hair was still tousled in the way that I loved, and I had the urge to run my fingers through it just to see if it was as soft as I remembered. Or if it too had changed this week like his apparent feelings for me had.
He shut his bedroom door and finally noticed me when he started walking down the hall in my direction.
"Oh h-hi," he said, startling a little as he took in my appearance, apparently not expecting to see me this early for the party.
"Hi," I said, tucking some hair behind my ear, suddenly feeling shy after not seeing much of him this week.
"Hi," he said again. But then, after staring blankly at me for a second, he gave his head a quick shake and said, "I was just going to ask Cambrielle which tie she thought would look better for tonight. But since you're here…" He held up the ties in his hands, the opening in his dress shirt widening with the movement and revealing enough of his muscular chest to distract me for a second. "M-maybe you could help instead since you have such an eye for fashion."
"Sure." I set my dress bag and shoes on the floor. "I-I can try to help."
He stepped closer, and only when he noticed my gaze raking in his exposed, tanned chest did he seem to realize that he'd left his room without buttoning his shirt.
"Sorry," he said, his cheeks flushing as he looked down at his all-too-defined eight-pack abs. "I forgot what I looked like."
"I-it’s okay," I said, meeting his gaze through my lashes. And before I could stop myself, I added, "Your hands are full. Do you want me help you with that?"
"With my shirt?" he asked, his voice sounding slightly higher than it usually did.
I nodded. "Yeah."
I was probably a glutton for punishment for wanting an excuse to stand close to Carter for a few seconds even though he'd been avoiding me all week, but my body craved his nearness.
Craved the chance to touch him for even just a few seconds, especially since he'd been hugging the other end of the table in our math class all week.
And buttoning his shirt was innocent enough, right?
He'd been about to go to Cambrielle for help, hadn't he? So me helping him with this couldn't be too taboo, could it?
Not that it would make me not want to do it if it was.
I stepped closer, close enough that I caught a faint whiff of his familiar cologne, and started buttoning his shirt from the bottom.
My hands shook slightly as I took the freshly pressed cotton in my fingers, my stomach fluttering with butterflies as I breathed him in. But I managed to slowly button each one on my way up, my fingers only grazing across his warm skin and making his stomach muscles twitch a few times.
"Thanks for your help in making me more appropriate," he whispered into my hair, leaning closer as I worked on the button at the top of his collar.
Goosebumps raced across my skin from the warmth of his breath, but I forced my expression to remain neutral as I met his blue-eyed gaze. "Of course."
The button hooked through the hole at the top easily, and even though I wanted to smooth my hands down his chest, wanted to have an excuse to touch him longer, I forced myself to take a step back, clasping my hands behind me for good measure.
He studied my face for a moment, probably noting the flush of my cheeks, the shyness of my gaze, and every other physical sign of my attraction for him. But then, seeming to remember that we weren't supposed to notice things like that about each other anymore, he cleared his throat. He held the two ties up again and asked in a soft voice, "Which one do you think I should wear tonight?"
I studied the ties, comparing the two colors against his skin tone and eyes. The navy blue would look nice, very professional and appropriate for any occasion. But since I liked a little pop of color and the pink actually looked really good next to his tan skin, I said, "I’d go with the pink if I were you."
"Yeah?" he asked.
"That's my favorite, anyway. But if you like the blue better it would look great, too."
"Pink is good," he said.
And as if to show that the decision was made, he looped the pink tie around his neck.
I bent down to pick up my things on the floor, deciding I should probably go to Cambrielle's room now even though all I wanted to do was find a reason to stay and talk to Carter since this was the longest we'd been alone in what seemed like forever.
I wanted to ask him why he'd been treating me like a pariah all week. Why he'd skipped out on our tutoring session when I still needed his help.
"Is that the dress you were talking about?" Carter pointed to the dress bag when I looped it over my arm.
I looked at the black bag, remembering how I'd teased him just a few days ago about how high the slit hit on my thigh. "This is it." My cheeks burned a little because there was still a huge part of me that hoped Carter would like how I looked in it tonight.
He looked at the bag again. It seemed like he wanted to say something about the dress, or maybe something else about tonight, but then he gave his head a small shake and said, "I'm sure there’ll be a lot of guys dying to dance with you when they see you tonight."
And there it was.
Other guys…
As in: Not. Him.
My vision blurred as the pain of that thought rushed over me.
We were really over, weren't we?
Carter swallowed and lifted his eyes to mine. Just as I feared, there was a finality in his expression that made me feel cold all over.
This was him saying goodbye.
This was him saying we were over and any thoughts I might have entertained about us being together were just me being foolish.
When he'd avoided seeing me all week, when he barely talked to me at school, I'd known that he was probably putting distance between us because things were just awkward with us not knowing what the future held.
But maybe…maybe he just hadn't cared about me in the same way I'd cared for him after all. Maybe saying goodbye to what we'd been wasn't any harder to him than the simple flip of a switch to turn his feelings off.
Maybe once he found out that we could be related, he'd been able to think through his attraction for me and decide that none of it had mattered in the first place.
I didn't know which hurt worse: the possibility that Carter had never cared for me like I'd thought and it had all been just something I'd exaggerated in my head, or that he had cared but was able to turn it off and move on in a matter of a few days.
I'd been told growing up that love was always somewhat unrequited. That even when a couple was married, one partner's feelings were usually stronger than the other's.
But I'd thought that Carter and I could have been the exception. That maybe our love for each other was equal.
But from the stony way he was looking at me as he practically told me to dance with and date other guys, I knew I must have been wrong. Maybe I really had cared about him more than he'd cared for me.
Maybe moving
on was as easy for him as turning the page in a book and starting the next chapter of his life with someone else.
And because I never wanted to be seen as the one left wanting in whatever situation I was in, I lifted my chin and straightened my shoulders like I had that day in the Italian Amigos when he'd told me that falling in love with me wouldn’t be an issue. I said, "I guess it's a good thing I brought my best dancing heels because I intend to dance with as many cute guys as I can tonight to make up for lost time."
His eyes tightened as my words hung in the air between us, and for a second, I regretted saying them. But then he said, "Then I'll try not to get in the way of all those cute guys for you tonight." He stepped to the side and gestured for me to continue down the hall to Cambrielle's room. "I hope you enjoy the party, Ava."
I nodded. "I hope you enjoy it too, Carter."
And before the tears stinging at the back of my eyes could show themselves to Carter, I walked to Cambrielle's room and fervently hoped I could make it through the night.
38
Carter
I should just leave, I told myself as I stood near the refreshment table in my family's grand ballroom in the west wing of the house, glaring at Mack and Ava as they danced to the orchestra arrangement of Justin Bieber's song “Anyone.”
When I'd told Ava that all the guys at school would be dying to dance with her tonight once they saw her in her dress, I hadn't meant for her to take that sentence as a challenge. But here we were, an hour and a half into the night and she'd already danced with at least five guys from the football team, three guys from the wrestling team, and was now currently dancing with my best friend who was the star player for the basketball team.
Did she have a thing for jocks? Or was it just tall guys with strong jawlines and big muscles?
Either she did, or all the guys who fit that description were just conveniently drawn to her.
Drawn to her tonight when I wasn't allowed to touch her.
But boy, did I want to touch her. When she'd come down the stairs with my sister and her friends at her side, I had to work hard to keep my jaw from dropping. Because even though I knew Ava was gorgeous, and she'd teased me about how amazing she was going to look in her dress tonight, I somehow hadn't been prepared for the sight.
I rubbed my jaw, still watching her. Even after seeing her dance with guy after guy all night, I still couldn't get over how beautiful she looked tonight. Her hair was pulled back in an elegant side swept updo, showing off the long curve of her neck and the dips of her collarbone. Her pink dress looked like it had been made for her—knowing that her mom was a famous fashion designer, it probably was actually made just for Ava. The sweetheart, off-the shoulder neckline also did nothing to help with my jealousy. Because let’s face it, the girl knew just the right cut to wear in order to have every teenage guy within a two-hundred-yard radius turning their heads to stare at her.
And that hemline? Well, let’s just say that if I hadn't already been a leg guy, the way Ava's legs looked in the skirt and heels would have definitely converted me.
I closed my eyes and tried to shake away the carnal urges rising up in me as I raked her appearance in.
She might be your sister.
But when I opened my eyes again, I knew it would take actually hearing those words from my dad or her mom to really convince my hormones of that. Because right now, she did not look like my sister. Right now, she looked like the girl who had starred in every single dream of mine from the past week.
Well…longer than that, since yeah, I'd dreamed about her before it was forbidden, too.
I pressed my lips together, remembering how her cherry lip balm had tasted the last time I'd kissed her. How was it possible that a person could have so much power over my emotions?
I'd been determined not to get mixed up with a member of the opposite sex when the school year started, but I should have known the second Ava walked into the weight room that first day and my heart did a little flip-flop in my chest that my plans were worthless against the force that was Ava Cohen. Because she was not a mere human. No. She'd been right on the money when she'd written up her little addendum to my contract. She was a goddess and only a Titan would be able to resist falling hopelessly and irrevocably in love with her.
Yes, I knew it was crazy that I'd fallen so hard and so fast for a girl I'd only met a month and a half ago, but love didn't care about things like logic—or how closely you may or may not be related to a person. It was controlled by some intangible force that I was powerless to resist.
I took another sip from my water as I watched Ava smile at something Mack said to her. And even though I knew the only reason Mack had asked her to dance in the first place was because I'd asked him to step in after Tayden Archibald's hand kept sliding farther and farther down Ava's back until he was almost squeezing her butt and making her look uncomfortable, I still couldn't watch them without wanting to punch my own best friend in the face.
Because he was making Ava smile. He was making her laugh. And he was holding her in the way that I should have been holding her tonight.
I crushed the plastic cup in my hand and tossed it in the trash can beside me, knowing I should probably head upstairs before I did something I regretted—something like ripping Ava away from the next guy she danced with and telling her I was the only guy she was ever supposed to dance with, especially when she looked the way she did.
We'd joked about her dress being my early birthday present. And for the first time in thirteen years, I wanted to cash in on the special perks that the birthday boy usually got.
I wanted a "let’s forget about reality for the night" card, so we could go back in time to a week ago when I didn't know what was coming for us.
I checked the time on my watch. My dad should have been here before the party started.
Was he just hiding out somewhere?
Had he decided to prolong his trip so he wouldn't have to face everyone and explain to Dawn how he'd fathered twins the month before they got back together?
Almost as if on cue though, through one of the ballroom windows that looked into the main part of the house, I saw the door from the garage open. A second later my dad walked through it wearing shorts and a teal T-shirt, his usual uniform for long flights home.
I expected him to bring in his luggage behind him, but instead, he held the door open for someone to follow him inside. Mr. Aarden walked through the door wearing a white polo shirt and dress pants. Following close behind him was a petite woman in a black designer dress suit who I'd only seen in photographs from decades earlier.
Ava's mom.
My dad briefly glanced through the windows to the party, looking for a moment like he'd rather be in here dancing with Dawn instead of facing the conversation Mr. Aarden was probably forcing him to have with Ava's mom.
But instead of coming inside, he gestured for his guests to continue down the hall that led to his office. And with one last longing glance at the party, he followed the friends from his past inside the room where I'd overheard that implicating call from over a month ago and shut the door.
39
Ava
When I finished my dance with Mack, I decided it was time to take a break for a few minutes. I'd been standing in my heels for the better part of an hour and my feet were killing me.
When Carter had said that I'd have guys lining up to dance with me tonight, I'd decided to make his words true. And so, after flirting with several of the cutest and buffest guys at the party during dinner, I made sure to smile and wave flirtatiously at one of them each time the live string quartet started playing a slow song. Sure enough, one of them would eventually leave the huddle of guys standing around the outer edge of the Hastings's ballroom and come and ask me to dance.
Was I interested in dating any of these guys after tonight? Not really. But it was all about quantity and not quality at this point.
But even though I had more chemistry with a stick of gum than I did with
any of the guys I'd danced with—aside from Mack since he'd at least made me laugh—the soirée hadn't been the total bomb I'd feared it might be. Sure, it wasn't the romantic evening I'd planned on having when I'd originally thought Carter and I would be attending as a couple, but the ambiance was magical—Cambrielle, her mom, and the event planner had really outdone themselves with the decor and food.
And even though most of the evening was spent with Carter glaring at me from across the room, I did manage to have an okay time hanging out with my friends in our fancy dresses and looking amazing—thanks to the professional hair and makeup team that had pampered us before the party started.
I looked up at the high ceiling above me as I drank my water. The event planners had hung black strips with dangling silver stars across the ceiling. String lights were strung in-between the rows of stars to mimic a beautiful starlit sky glittering above the chandeliers. The edges of the room had silver and white trees with lanterns and strings of white blossoms hanging from the branches, making it feel like I'd been transported to a fairytale castle where I would wait to find my own happily-ever-after with a prince.
It was breathtaking.
Just like a scene from a movie.
Only in this movie, when the princess was in the middle of falling in love with the prince, she failed to realize that she'd also made the tragic mistake of falling for her brother.
What kind of writer would be deranged enough to write a story like that?
I sighed as I glanced around, looking for a place to sit among the fairytale trees so I could kick off my heels and rest my feet for a few minutes. I found Elyse sitting next to Nash who wore the old-fashioned suit and cravat he'd talked about wearing tonight. I was just about to head in their direction when Carter suddenly appeared at my side and tapped on my shoulder, saying, "My dad just went into his office with your mom and Dr. Aarden."