Carter

by R. J. Lewis

  Sighing, I resumed my thoughts while cleaning up tables before I heard loud curses and turned to see what the commotion was. I blanched at the sight of Carter shoving Peter back.

  “Got a problem with me?” he growled at him. “Because you’re looking at me like you do, tough guy?”

  Peter’s drunk friends stood up to defend him, and Carter barely paid mind. His eyes stared fixedly at Peter as he got closer to him, standing face to face, poking him in the chest as he said something to him in a low voice. I couldn’t hear anything, but Melanie was standing behind them and her jaw had dropped.

  “Man, what the fuck is your problem!” I heard Peter shout.

  “You’re the fucking problem!” Carter seethed. “Don’t think I didn’t hear what you said, you little shit!”

  “Then don’t fucking eavesdrop –”

  Carter grabbed hold of his shirt and shook him. And then it turned ugly fast. Peter tried punching him, but Carter blocked him with his left arm and swung at him with his right, landing a punch across the face, knocking Peter back. I heard shouts as Rome and Leo intervened immediately, untangling his fist from Peter’s shirt. Rome turned to Carter, looking angry as he shoved him out of Peter’s face, ordering him to let go. Carter continued holding his ground until Peter motioned for his friends to go.

  “Pussies!” Carter hollered at them.

  They hurried out of the bar and then Rome dragged Carter into the back office. Before he disappeared down the hall, Carter looked back over his shoulder. My chest tightened when I met his gaze.

  He was beyond pissed.

  *

  “What happened?” I demanded after the customers had gone and the boys were getting ready to leave.

  Carter still hadn’t emerged from the backroom, but Rome had, and he didn’t look at me once as he helped the boys out. I’d dragged Melanie into the ladies room just to get an explanation.

  “Carter said he was walking to the bar to get some drinks when he heard those guys talking about you,” she explained. “They said something very crude, and when Carter approached them to repeat it, Peter asked him why it was his business. That was when I stopped to listen in. Carter didn’t like being spoken to that way, and he kicked Peter’s chair back. Peter got up and Carter started goading him. Shit went swiftly downhill after that.”

  “Christ,” I cursed. “Do you know what they said about me exactly? Carter wouldn’t have just flown off the handle without good reason.”

  She shrugged. “He wouldn’t tell Rome. And even if he did, Rome refused to divulge with me. Asshole.”

  “You know, this would have been completely avoided if you didn’t get him to approach me, Mel!”

  “I did it for you, Leah!”

  “Why?”

  “Because you’re being walked all over by Carter. You need to be woken up. I thought he’d see you with that guy and start to realize what you meant to him. He needs to face reality that you won’t be waiting around for him.”

  I frowned at her and crossed my arms. “I’m not being walked all over.”

  She sighed in defeat. “Friends with benefits never works out for anybody, not unless one party agrees to give the other more.”

  “You’re under the assumption that one of them will always want more.”

  “Leah, sex with a random stranger or someone you know lightly can come with no strings attached. But sex with the same guy that you live with and spend almost every moment with can’t. You have a history with the guy. You started this off feeling for him. He’s exploding in popularity. Girls are drooling at their tables just to get near to him, and it’s only going to get worse.”

  “What does that have anything to do with my relationship with him?”

  The concern poured out of her eyes as she placed a hand on my shoulder. “Imagine girls putting their hands all over him, and him allowing them because he’s technically not doing anything wrong. That’s essentially what’s happening, right? You see the girls rubbing their chests against his shoulder and leaning so close, he could probably feel their breaths against his face. It’s hurting you, and that’s because you’re in love with him. He needs to know that. It’s only fair on him that he keeps proceeding with this arrangement if he knows how you’re feeling. You have needs too and you’re settling for less. Guys like the one you danced with tonight would bend over backwards to have a chance with you. Stop undervaluing yourself.”

  With that, she gave me a hug and said good night, leaving me to mull her words over in the restroom alone. I stared at myself in the mirror for a while, fighting back my emotions.

  She was right, wasn’t she?

  I couldn’t keep doing this.

  Sixteen

  Carter was in a mood. A very dark mood.

  Understandably.

  I was in one too.

  He hadn’t said a word to me after we got home. He just shut himself up in his room for a long while. I showered and got ready for bed, deciding I was most definitely going to leave him alone.

  I was just about ready to crawl into bed when his door opened. He came bursting in a few moments later, standing in the middle of my room, staring at me with hard eyes and a mouth pressed in a line.

  Hesitantly, I turned to him. The air was charged, that feeling of a confrontation was thick in the air.

  “Did you do it on purpose?” he suddenly demanded solemnly, breaking the silence.

  “Do what exactly?”

  “Make me jealous, Leah. Did you do it on purpose?”

  My eyebrows shot up. I was pissed. “I’m insulted you could think that low of me.”

  “I’m feeling a little insulted that you thought you could chat some guy up just to piss me off.”

  “I didn’t chat him up.”

  “You certainly didn’t shut him down, either, did you?”

  My body tensed and anger shot through me as I icily retorted, “I did nothing wrong! He came to me and we talked a little.”

  “And you danced.”

  “It was harmless. You’ve misunderstood the situation, Carter.”

  He chuckled scornfully. “Fucking hell, Leah, you are naïve. I didn’t misunderstand shit! That guy was all over you because he wanted you to spread those legs wide for him. I saw him sitting there all night looking at you, practically humping the chair he was sitting on.”

  “Yeah, well, he didn’t say anything crude to me. He was actually a nice guy.”

  “A nice guy?” He looked at me with disgust. “That’s why he was talking about bagging you to his friends, right? Real fucking nice, Leah.”

  I froze, and my cheeks heated.

  Great, so now I felt foolish.

  “Didn’t you fucking notice how he was touching you when you were all over each other, dancing to my fucking song?”

  “He lowered his hand a little –”

  “He touched your ass and stared down your top, all the while smirking to his friends over your shoulder!”

  “I didn’t know all that.”

  “Well, you should’ve!”

  “Yeah, because I’ve got eyes on the back of my head, right, Carter?”

  “I’m being serious, Leah. You need to be mindful.”

  I stared despondently at him, feeling the ache behind my eyes begin to form as I weakly said, “Okay, so you’re probably right about him.”

  “Probably?”

  I exhaled. “Fine. Completely.”

  He nodded. “Exactly!”

  “But how could you think that was all a show to make you jealous, Carter? Why are you looking for the worst in me?”

  “It’s because of what happened before,” he replied. “At the table, when I referred to you as a friend. Since then, you haven’t been yourself.”

  “And why do you think that is?”

  “You’re pissed at me.”

  I scoffed. “I’m not pissed enough at you to want to make you feel jealous. That’s not me and you know it.”

  “Then I don’t understand! What is with
you lately? Why can’t I get a single word out of you, Leah? I’m losing my mind here!”

  I stared at him for a long moment, contemplating my next words. I thought of that incident, thought of what Melanie said, and my earlier thoughts about school coming up. All of it compounded into one and I felt crushed by the weight of it.

  “I can’t do this anymore,” I told him quietly, staring down at the floor. “I can’t be around someone who’s unable to acknowledge who I am to him in front of other people.”

  His jaw tensed. “What you are? Leah, I already told you I don’t do relationships.”

  “I never signed up for you fucking me on the side and letting girls crawl all over you the next.”

  He made a face. “I don’t ask them to be all over me.”

  “It might help if you told them you were taken.”

  He inhaled sharply, and I could see the frustration in him begin to rise. “This is fucked up.”

  “Why? Do you enjoy the attention or something?”

  “I don’t enjoy the attention at all! You’re the one that dragged me into this band shit, remember?”

  “Oh, so I’m to blame for your inability to open your mouth and tell them to go away?”

  He scoffed and shook his head. “And I thought I was the only jealous one here! You’ve never told me once until now that it bothers you when girls come up to me. Now you act like I’m fucking them behind your back –”

  “That’s not what I’m saying!”

  “Then what are you saying?”

  “I’m saying you can’t have your cake and eat it too, Carter.”

  His eyes widened. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

  He knew exactly what I meant. I wasn’t going to keep doing this. Not until he took the leap with me. He couldn’t touch me intimately and tell the world I was just his friend, while girls got to be all over him.

  No, not anymore.

  When there was jealousy in the mix, when anger started to set in and you began to hurt, that was indication enough our friends with benefits bullshit no longer applied.

  “You need to decide what you want,” I told him shakily, swallowing hard as I realized the weight in my words. “You can’t expect me to just wait around for you.”

  He ran a hand through his hair, staring in astonishment at me. “At this point, I didn’t think you were. I thought we liked how things are.”

  “I don’t want to like how we are,” I expressed to him, with a knot in my throat. “I want to love it. I want to be invested in a person that is invested in me too. Instead, I feel like some spineless moron that’s taking you however way you’ll give me. I can’t keep doing that, Carter! You need to decide what you want.”

  He was shocked. His body froze, and his hands closed into fists as he fought to contain his composure.

  “You’re not thinking straight,” he said. “It’s been a hard few days. We’ll go to bed –”

  “No, I’m not going to bed. I want you to decide right here and now, Carter –”

  He rushed to me then, in two long strides. His hands flew to my face, forcing it up to him so he could kiss me. His mouth harshly pressed against mine, but I shook away from it and pushed him back. I wasn’t going to allow him to distract me with his touch. That wasn’t going to work anymore. I wouldn’t allow it.

  “Don’t do this,” he whispered just then, hands still on me. “Don’t force my hand, Leah.”

  I crossed my arms and looked away from him. My eyes ached from unshed tears because I knew exactly where this was going. “I am doing this,” I replied, surprised by how certain I felt. “We’ve been together in a way that you can’t call ‘just friends’ for months now. Either you want me or you don’t.”

  “Of course I want you,” he immediately replied.

  “Then be with me,” I pleaded.

  “I am with you.”

  “No, you’re holding back, Carter. I want all of you. I want us to be together. I want more. Why is that such a leap for you?”

  His hands fell to his sides. There was a lost look on his face. He looked like a man at war with himself, still offering no response.

  I felt my anger levels begin to rise. I couldn’t understand this. “Why can’t you commit?” I demanded, reaching the end of my rope. “I don’t understand! What has happened to you in your life to make you so…”

  His eyes pierced into my own like daggers. “So what? Just say it.”

  “So unfeeling!”

  That was all it took for his fuse to blow. He took a step back, pointing at me as he harshly claimed, “I told you right from the beginning not to expect more from me!”

  “You started this by kissing me, Carter! By filling my head with your words, by touching me the way you do! You wanted me to want you, and when you have me falling over my own two feet to have you, you just keep me at arm’s length, and I can’t keep living like this anymore. It hurts too much to be in love with someone that doesn’t want me as much as I want him.”

  Tears fell from my eyes. It was like a dam had burst. I’d swallowed up the pain and it had sat there, swelling and swelling behind my eyelids, until it couldn’t hold back any longer. I wiped them away. I’d revealed my emotions entirely. I said the L word, something I was sure he wasn’t prepared for. But it was true, and I was sick of pretending.

  Carter was stunned speechless, to say the least. For a second I considered taking my words back and forgetting this whole thing happened, but the easy way out seemed like a coward’s thing to do, and I didn’t want to be that for another second.

  “You already know my answer,” he whispered through his shock. “So that’s it then, huh? You’re going to break this off because of some expected commitment I never ever gave you the illusion of giving.”

  I just shook my head at him. “You’re lying to yourself. You know you want more too. You know we have something. You know it could be even more amazing. You know I love you. You’ve always known it.”

  He stilled again, swallowing hard. He didn’t look me in the eye as he backed away to the doorway slowly. “I’m sorry you feel that way.”

  My mouth fell.

  I felt like someone had punched me in the gut.

  Or burned my insides until there was nothing left.

  He was sorry I loved him?

  “You’re a lot more broken than I ever thought you were,” I muttered lifelessly.

  He turned away just then and left the room. He didn’t come back. He didn’t say another word to me for the rest of the night.

  I stood in the centre of the room for the longest time in a complete daze. It was sheer force that made me crawl into bed. Even then my mind couldn’t let go of his words, and I was fighting back another dam of tears.

  That was it? We were done just like that? Because I wanted more? It almost didn’t feel real. I kept waiting for him to come back to me. To wake me up in the middle of the night and tell me he’d made the wrong decision. But he didn’t.

  Instead, I was more confused as ever. My hopes had been squandered. I’d spent so long believing in him, and thinking he would realize what I meant to him.

  But no.

  Everything after that night went to shit.

  Carter

  I wasn’t capable of more.

  I needed simple.

  I needed something beautiful without the pain.

  I should have realized they came hand in hand.

  Seventeen

  He was MIA at the house for the five days that followed. He said he was spending time with Jared to write lyrics, but I knew it was just his way of staying away from me.

  I thought about what I said to him all that time, and I realized I was absolute in my decision. I wouldn’t take it back. If he wanted me, here I was, but I was not going to take this friend bullshit for one more minute. It was terrifying waking up and having nobody to talk to. It was even more terrifying realizing my decision meant I was essentially alone now.

  I didn’t cry anymore.<
br />
  I was just angry.

  We avoided each other when I worked. He watched me while he sat with the guys, but his face was usually screwed up in a glare. I was sure he was waiting for me to crumble and come crawling back to him. By the fourth day, his glare had turned into something less dissecting. He looked melancholy, and even when that look seared me on the insides, I kept my distance from him.

  On the fifth morning, a hand nudged me awake. I opened my eyes immediately, hoping it was him. Instead, I was greeted by Rome’s face.

  “Leah, we’ve gone viral,” he said to me.

  He knelt down beside the bed, tapping his cell phone against his chin.

  I frowned in confusion. The hell was he on about? “What? How the hell did you get inside?”

  “I’ve got the spare key to the suite and you’ve been hiding out in here for days now. You know it’s noon, right? Anyway, doesn’t matter. We’re all over the internet. Some girl posted up a video of us last week and there’s something fucking crazy like two million views in six days.”

  I rubbed my eyes and immediately sat up in bed. I was shocked. I couldn’t even speak for a moment as I digested his words. He was watching me carefully, a soft smile on his face.

  “Who told you? When did you find out?”

  “Jared just called me fifteen minutes ago,” he explained. “He told me there were links all over his Facebook of the video. There are hardly any thumbs down either, and it’s been shared forty thousand times already.”

  “Wow.”

  “Yeah!”

  “Let me see the video.”

  He handed me his phone. “It’s already on there. Just press play.”

  I swiped the screen and watched it. The video was in surprisingly good quality, and it was one of the band’s more catchy songs. It wasn’t at the bar but at another gig they’d taken a while back. My chest warmed hearing Carter’s voice, singing with his hands wrapped around the microphone, looking like he was made for this. His heart poured out of him with his words, and I knew it was because of this very fact that made this song a particular hit.