by R. J. Lewis
Issue was, Carter wasn’t doing a good job selling his likeability. He hadn’t wanted to come here, but tough luck. I didn’t blame them for frowning. He was being broody and quiet. Looking like some bad boy didn’t help matters either.
“I’m sure we can have a room ready for you,” Marlena carried on, staring solely at me. “There’s no rush to leave either. We could certainly use more hands at the bar. We’ll work something out for you.”
Shit, what about Carter? I glanced at Rome and raised my brows at him. He could read my thoughts clear as a bell. He needed to help me out a bit. I could see his reluctance, but I wiggled those brows and motioned to Carter.
He grunted and mumbled, “What about the suite downstairs? It’s a two bedroom and we’ve been looking for some renters. I’m sure Leah and… Carter” – scowl – “could work at the bar and pay off the rent. We could arrange a deal that could work out well for all of us.”
Harold looked a bit disgruntled by this. “Uh, I’m not sure that we’d need another pair of hands, son. I’m sure Leah would be just enough for now.”
Carter tensed beside me and I felt helpless.
“He can sing,” I suddenly said, turning to Harold. “He’s got an amazing voice, one that could bring in a crowd. It might be good for business having him around. That way he can earn some money by bringing in more customers. With a face like his, there’ll be chicks everywhere, I’m sure of it.”
Yeah, I’d thought about this a lot on our way here, ways to give Carter some usefulness. It ultimately led to his singing because I was aware the bar was weak in the entertainment area, and with how big it was, I knew there was potential for something great.
Now Carter’s mouth dropped open. He never sang around anybody but me. I shrugged at him. What was I meant to do? He would need to suck it up.
“You can sing?” Marlena then asked, suddenly looking at him with a new set of lens.
“Like an angel,” I answered for him. “He’s incredible. Honestly. If he had a band, he’d absolutely slay the crowd.”
Now Harold and Marlena were looking at one another, deliberating quietly.
I felt Carter’s foot hitting mine. I looked at him and saw the fire in his eyes. Anger brimmed out of him.
“The hell you doing?” he whisper-hissed at me after he leaned into my ear.
“Saving our asses from homelessness,” I whisper-hissed back. “And you owe me.”
He didn’t reply. He sat back in his chair and turned his scowl at Rome. Rome simply returned the look, and I didn’t really care if they were going to bite each other’s heads off, because ten minutes later Marlena and Harold had made their decision.
“We can use a band,” Harold said thoughtfully. “Our bar started off on live music. We’ve actually advertised for some through the papers, but the people that have showed up were…what word should I use, Marlena?”
“Dreadful,” Marlena said without pause. “Absolutely dreadful.”
“Dreadful is a strong word, hon.”
“It’s the right word, Harold.”
“But it’s a little harsh.”
“Truth doesn’t always taste nice,” she snapped back, bitterly.
“Well anyways,” Harold continued, ignoring her pointed glare, “the point is, we could use a band indefinitely.”
“I don’t have a band,” Carter suddenly said. It was the first words he’d spoken to them since being invited inside, and it came out sounding rude.
“That’s an easy fix,” I cut in with a reassuring smile. “We’ll find some guys.”
He stared at me severely, his lips pressing down on one another so hard they went a little white. Rome could be heard snickering across from us, and it took everything in me not to belt him. Be cool, I told myself.
“If we’re going to find some guys, I’d like it to be up to me to decide who gets in then,” Carter explained, and he did it in a way that brooked no argument. “It’ll be my band, not anyone else’s.”
“Only because he’s good at running things,” I swiftly added, smiling at the Myers while I did my best to control my own irritation. He was trying to sabotage this, but it wasn’t going to happen.
“As long as you don’t sing about drug abuse and explicit fornication, and it’s not screaming or guttural noises coming out of your lungs, then I can live with all that,” Harold returned just as firmly.
Carter leaned forward, resting his arms on the table. For a moment I admired his bulging biceps, that was until he opened his mouth and said, “When you say explicit fornication, am I to presume every form of fornication, both the soft and the… hard?”
Harold said yes at the same time Marlena said no. They paused in surprise and glanced at one another. My heart nearly leaped out of my chest and my eyes bulged. I laughed weakly. “Don’t worry. He’s a lot more soulful than that. It’ll be light stuff, I promise.”
They were still staring at one another, Harold had a twitchy eye and Marlena was holding tight the pearls around her neck. The awkward meter went up by a thousand, I think.
“Excuse us for a minute,” Marlena then said with a hesitant smile. They stood up and walked to the other side of the room, talking in hushed tones that did little to make me feel like I’d convinced them of Carter. I stared at them from my chair, trying to catch some words while I studied their facial expressions.
“Maybe you should go and vouch for us,” I spoke to Rome.
“It would help if your friend here was a bit more polite,” he replied.
“I have been polite,” argued Carter.
“Oh, I hadn’t noticed between your glares and crappy attitude.”
“You’d notice the difference the second I punched your fucking face in.”
“Carter!” I pinched his arm and leaned into his side. “You do not just threaten to punch the son of parents you need help from!”
“I don’t need help from anybody,” he retorted defensively.
“What’s your problem, man?” Rome hissed with furrowed brows. “You don’t have to be such an asshole. Think of what Leah’s doing for you. She doesn’t have to try so hard for you. Wherever you go, she goes. Think on that. Would you rather a roof over her head, or would you rather her sleeping under some damn bridge ‘til you find some shit job? At least here we’re trusting and we’re good people. You wouldn’t need to worry about her safety.”
For once, Carter went silent. He didn’t say anything, but his face softened instead of tensing like I thought it might. He glanced at me before running a hand through his disheveled hair and sighing heavily.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered to me. “I’m just reacting out of anger. You’ve just forced a job on me, Leah, and I’m not happy about it.”
He was right. I had. I frowned and whispered back, “I’m sorry too. But singing is what you were born to do. You’ll get used to it, Carter. People are going to love you.”
“I don’t care about people loving me. I don’t care about the attention. I don’t want that.”
“Well, as your best friend I don’t want you to waste your talent singing by a creek for the rest of your life. You have no idea what you have and it’s time you let the world see it, even if it’s just in a damn bar every night.”
He considered that, and Rome, who’d been watching our exchange, softened too. He leaned over the table and stared evenly at Carter.
“Dude,” he started, “I don’t even remember why I hate you so much, so how about we put our past behind us and just start over? I can play the drums, and if you’re as good as Leah has always went on that you are, I’d be more than happy to be part of a band with you. It’ll give me something to do, and I won’t be too much of an ass to you.”
“You know why we hate each other,” Carter replied, and it made me stare between them with confusion. “But you’re right. I’d rather let the past go. For Leah, anyway.”
I didn’t get the chance to ask what the hell it was I didn’t know about because Rome then turned to
me and said, “It’d help if you covered your massive hickey with your hair, by the way. My dad’s a bit of a nut when it comes to shit like that. If he’s seen it, don’t get weird if he starts to have a sex talk with you. He’s fucking crazy, alright?”
My hickey? I stared wide-eyed at Carter’s face and his mouth broke into a cocky grin. “You knew?” I asked in surprise.
“It’s pretty obvious, babe.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“It’s my little trophy. You don’t hide trophies.”
I glared at him and quickly covered the side of my neck with my hair, briefly remembering how hard he’d sucked it last night. I did it just as Rome’s parents returned.
“Well then it’s settled,” Marlena said with a bright smile, staring between Carter and me. “I’ll get everything sorted. You can look around the suite first if you’d like. It’s a little outdated, but there’s plenty of room in there. I’ll get the employment forms printed out and you can have a look through it, and Rome can help Carter with the ads for band members in the meantime. There’s no rush for it, so don’t feel pressured. We might also see what kind of casual jobs you can do around the bar, Carter. Rome will be going to College in the fall, so I might need another set of hands.”
Carter glanced at my hopeful face before he nodded slowly. “Alright. That works for me.”
I took him by the hand and squeezed it. I couldn’t believe he didn’t fuck this up! This was an occasion that needed to be treasured. Not that he was a fuck-up in general or anything, but his mouth landed him in trouble more often than not. He squeezed my hand back giving me a ghost of a smile.
“Thank you,” I mouthed to him.
For that brief moment, I thought I saw something shine out of his eyes as he stared back at me. It was something warm and beautiful. Something I didn’t want to say even to myself in fear of my hopes dashing.
And then just like that it was gone.
*
Things happened quickly after that.
I’d sorted through the lease papers with Carter in our new place. Marlena had given us spare furniture for our suite: an old couch she didn’t use, a couple mattresses, a dresser and kitchen utensils. It was enough to tide us over until we earned more money for new things.
After we signed the agreement, I went to the bar to look into the waitressing job they’d literally opened up for me. The gesture was beyond kind. I’d actually be earning money, and I was bursting with excitement at that. Marlena sorted out my schedule, introduced me to a couple other waitresses, and then gave me a few uniforms. My head was spinning by the time I’d gotten back. In less than a day my life had completely changed, and I owed it to Carter for whisking me out of the shithole we grew up in.
The weeks that followed consisted of me training for a job with some seriously long hours, watching Carter form a band while clashing with Rome, and catching up on a lot of homework from school after I’d returned from the break with nothing to show for it. I never allowed myself to think of Russell and Cheryl. I’d grown happier every day I moved on from that life, but I knew I wasn’t as far away from them as I’d like to have been.
Carter and I slept on the mattresses on the floor until we could afford a bed. Nobody knew that he usually slipped into mine every night. Night time was usually my favourite time of the day; that was when Carter made out with me right before we fell asleep. It sort of became routine, being in each other’s arms, kissing until our lips had grown tired and our pulses had slowed down from some seriously intense make out sessions. He did things to me that made my eyes roll to the back of my head, using that tongue in ways that were downright wicked. Still, he didn’t have sex with me, and I was left frustrated most nights with a new ache between my legs that needed to be filled, literally.
There was no way I could wait any longer.
And right when I began to fall asleep, Carter would give me a goodnight kiss and slip out of bed and into his own room. I never got used to it. In fact, I hated it more than anything. This was him drawing the line. Telling me that although there was “more” between us, we weren’t in a relationship.
Friends.
We were just friends, as usual.
Ten
“I went to the clothing store today.”
Carter was seated on my bedroom floor with his back against the wall. His legs were spread out, his head bowed down at the notebook he was scribbling into. At the moment, though, he was deliberating, most likely lyrics to a song he was already forming in his head, dangling an HB pencil sideways in his mouth.
His hair had fallen over most of his forehead, curling a little at the ends. He was shirtless, wearing only flannel pants. I stared at him for a while, taking in his sharp jaw and beautifully set cheekbones that were filled with stubble.
“Carter,” I pressed, seated on the mattress, still on the floor, with my homework in my lap.
“Hmm?” he muttered, barely paying attention.
“I went to the clothing store today.”
“Cool.”
I frowned. This was the headache that came with living with a musician. He wasn’t always around mentally, which resulted in this: him ignoring me but pretending to pay attention at the same time.
“I have hairy armpits,” I proceeded to say, tilting my head as I studied him.
He grunted again, having not paid one ounce of attention to me.
“I want to tattoo my face.”
Nothing.
“I’m wearing a thong.”
This time, his head shot up, and he stared at me with wide blue eyes. “Are you really?”
I couldn’t resist laughing. “Oh, so you heard that?”
“I heard everything you said,” he replied, spitting out his pencil and tossing aside his notebook.
“Oh, yeah? Well then what else did I say, wise guy?”
He moved forward and slowly crawled to me. Shirtless, did I mention that? He was so fucking hot, I nearly combusted on the spot. He gave me his usual smouldering look that told me what mood he was in, and with his lips pulled up in a smirk, I knew exactly what was on his mind.
“You said,” he muttered, drawing near, “you went to a clothing store, you have hairy armpits, and you want to tattoo your face.”
My mouth broke into a massive grin as his arms rested on either side of me. His mouth skirted along mine.
“Oh,” I mumbled against his lips, “so you choose not to respond to me.”
In typical Carter fashion, he didn’t respond to that. His eyes simply looked down at my pyjama pants. “Are you seriously wearing a thong?” he asked heatedly, because that was apparently the most important thing right now.
I bit my lip and nodded, that blush really burning my cheeks now.
“Fuck,” he cursed with a pained look in his eye. “You’re already so sexy, Leah. But decorating that tight body? You must look like a fucking bombshell under all this baggage of clothes.”
“So you want to see, I take it.”
“I want to see and taste, thank you very much.”
I laughed again and went to pull my pants down, when his hand shot out and stopped me. He shook his head at me and I raised a confused brow at him.
“No, Angel,” he said, “for me to enjoy the full experience of seeing you in a thong, I need you bent over first.”
My breath escaped my lungs in a whoosh. “Bent over?”
He nodded gravely, like this was an extremely serious matter. “Oh, yeah. I want you bent over so I can slowly peel your pants off.”
Holy fucking shit on a stick.
He raised his finger and drew a circle in the air. “Around, Leah. All fours.”
I turned around and felt his hands on my hips, positioning me in front of him. He pressed his hand on my upper back, forcing me down so that my ass was in the air. I was freaking out a little, my nerves and excitement competing for my attention.
“Are you comfortable?” he asked me, his fingers trailing the hem of my pants.
“I’d be more comfortable if you just got it done,” I answered.
He chuckled and started peeling my pants off.
“Fuuuck,” he slowly cursed behind me, and it sounded like half a groan.
All that worrying he wouldn’t like it was for nothing. Thank God. I’d bought the thong today while I’d gone shopping with Marlena. She was in some other aisle, thankfully well out of view, and I had five whole bucks I was willing to blow. When I saw the white thongs hanging there among the others, I wondered if Carter would find me sexy with them on.
I had grabbed them and rushed to the checkout. When they were bought, I shoved them in my purse and met Marlena in the cooking aisle, pretending to give a shit about non-stick frying pans while my thoughts revolved around whether I would look like a squeezed sausage in them, or whether I might actually pull it off.
I quickly learned they weren’t very comfortable, or I just wasn’t used to them yet. They rode up my ass crack and it felt like I was walking around with a wedgie. That’s essentially what they were, though, right? Wedgie makers, that is. I’d have to learn to deal with it if I wanted to get this kind of reaction out of him.
He leaned over me, and I felt his hard chest against my back. His mouth touched the side of my face as his hands gripped my ass.
“Eleven out of ten, gorgeous,” he whispered.
I turned my head to him and smiled. “I’m glad you like it.”
He turned me around just then, so I was flat on my back with him over me. His hand travelled down my legs, tearing the pants off all the way and flinging them to the side. Then he kissed me, simultaneously stroking between my legs, burning me with need.
“You need to go back to your song lyrics,” I told him, my breaths quickening.
“If I went back, I’d be writing about sex, and Harold specifically ordered zero fornication in my lyrics.”
“You can always insinuate it.”