But at the moment, she just felt trapped.
She shook her head. “No thanks, Mum. No offence, but I moved out for a reason. Moving back in would just feel wrong.”
Her mother nodded. “It’s ok, I get it. I know I felt that way when I was your age, but when I was your age, I was pregnant with you.”
Kaitlyn looked away. She watched Jordy laughing at the cartoon on TV. She was subconsciously thinking about what it would be like to have a family, a life, with Carter. He had problems with his past, and she knew that, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t be a good father or husband.
She shook her head. She better stop thinking dumb ideas like that. Carter was a liar and a cheat, and he wasn’t likely to change. She needed to get away from her family before she chickened out and moved back home. She had to keep reminding herself that she couldn’t go back, she could only go forward.
“Mum,” she said suddenly, “I gotta go. But text me later and we can talk about the renovations.”
Her mother bit her lip. “Oh, but can’t you stay for dinner? You can invite Carter over, too, if you want.”
She stood up and shook her head. “Na, we’re gonna go find a hotel and crash there for a while.”
She couldn’t tell her mother that Carter had a race tonight, and she was planning on following. She knew Carter didn’t want here there, and to be honest, she didn’t really want to run into De, but she had to show that he couldn’t intimidate her. She had to be strong.
It was part of the stubborn streak she’d developed recently, like her hare-brained idea to become a straight A student. Seriously, what was she thinking? She wasn’t going back to school, she wasn’t even sure that they’d accept her back in. She needed to figure out a way to get an education, as well as keep tabs on her life. She could feel it spiralling out of her control, and she hated that.
Deangelo Carboni had ruined her life. She wanted to strangle him.
Kaitlyn walked over to the front door and grabbed her keys out of the bowl.
“Bye Mum, bye Jordy!” she called. She waved at her little brother before leaving her old house. She heard his cries and felt guilty, before realising that she wasn’t his mother, and had to leave.
She climbed into Carter’s car and started the engine. She pulled away from the kerb. She needed to get home, back to Carter, to resume her badass life.
It was strange, how she thought of her double-life. It wasn’t really a double-life, but she put up a front around the racing crew, and it had earned her a reputation. She had to keep it up. She had to pretend like nothing fazed her.
She worked herself into the angry mindset of the racer girl. She had to hate Carter, be casual and also aloof. That was what kept people from thinking she was vulnerable.
However, deep down, she feared her street racing front had been what caused the attack. She had to wonder if her ‘I don’t care’ attitude made it seem like she didn’t care what happened to her. If people thought that, they wouldn’t be afraid to take advantage of her.
Maybe being Carter’s girlfriend had kept all the guys away from her. Maybe their break up had revealed a crack in her armour, a crack she didn’t even realise was there.
She had to change that. She needed to share her theory with Carter, and maybe they could pretend to be together in front of everyone else. If they could act as friends at home, they could act as a couple when they went out.
She drove straight through the roundabout and carried on driving to their new house. She didn’t particularly like the neighbourhood they were in, but they had nowhere else to go. Maybe once they fixed up the house, they could sell it and move somewhere nicer.
Somewhere like where her parents lived. Their area was beginning to get more developed, and if she and Carter lived down there, she could see her family more often.
She turned into their driveway and parked the car right behind her own. Carter was obviously back. She hoped he had her clothes. She didn’t want to wear the dress much longer.
She got out and beeped the alarm. She checked that the car was actually locked, and finally satisfied, she walked inside. Carter was ripping up the carpet and staring thoughtfully at whatever was underneath.
“Hey dude,” she said casually. “What are you staring at?”
She wandered over to him and looked at the floor.
“I was just thinking,” he began, before catching sight of her dress. His face turned from contemplative to surprised. “Where’d you get the dress?”
She shrugged, meeting his eyes. “It’s just an old thing I left at home when I moved out. Nothing special.”
He looked at her appreciatively a moment more, before turning his focus back to the floor.
“Like I was saying,” he said casually, “I think we should rip up the carpet and just have the floor.
She scoffed. “As if, it’s rotten. Look, mum said she’d help us out, so we won’t be staying here much longer. We’ll be staying in some hotel, away from this place.
He shrugged. “I guess. How was visiting your mum?”
“Not bad. But on my way home I had an idea.”
His eyebrows rose. “About what?” He straightened up and she looked him in the eye.
“I think we need to pretend to be back together. I think maybe it was you who kept the creeps away from me. I think because you dumped me, De finally had the guts to make his move. Only, I wasn’t as willing as he thought.”
Chapter 13
Carter mused. “Possibly. But why would he do that just because I’m out of the picture? It doesn’t make sense.”
Kaitlyn shrugged. “It does to me. People were always telling me how much you loved me and that if anything happened to me, you’d be furious. I didn’t believe them of course, but I guess they did, and they thought you’d go ape shit if they made a move.”
His intense gaze made her shiver. “They were right. One, I love you, and two, I would have, and still will, beat the shit out of anyone who hurts you.”
She gave him a reluctant half smile. “Thanks, that’s real sweet.”
He shrugged. “It’s nothing. You’re too kind to be taken advantage of, and I’m sorry for what I put you through.”
Kaitlyn smiled. “Relax; I can take care of myself. Hey, did you pick up my clothes?”
Carter nodded. “They’re in the master bedroom. You can go and get changed if you want.”
She turned around and walked down the hallway to the bedroom. His eyes watched her carefully as she retreated to the bedroom. He thought back to earlier today and absentmindedly lifted his shirt. His fingers probed the tender spot on his abdomen.
Curses on De, he thought bitterly, remembering what had happened at T-Man’s house.
T-Man had Deangelo, Marcus, and some newbie over, watching some bad movie.
Carter had walked in to T-Man’s house unannounced, not surprised to find the front door unlocked. People were always dropping in, so it saved time.
He was intent on just grabbing Kaitlyn’s stuff and leaving, until he caught a glimpse of De in the living room. Furious, he strode towards De and lifted him easily out of his relaxed position on the sofa. He slammed De up against the wall and held one arm across his throat, successfully cutting off his air supply.
He slammed De’s head against the wall. “HOW DARE YOU HURT KAITLYN!” he’d roared. “YOU FILTHY PIECE OF SHIT!”
Deangelo, dazed, held his hands up in surrender, an evil smile playing around on his face.
“Sh-she wanted it,” was De’s pathetic excuse.
Carter growled wordlessly and grabbed De by the collar. He slammed his head against the wall again, but this time, De fought back. He managed to get in a pretty good punch to Carter’s abdomen.
Carter let out a heavy whoosh of breath and doubled over. De pushed him on to the ground and kicked him in the ribs. He made to kick him again, but Carter grabbed a hold of De’s leg and pulled him to the ground with a thump.
Ignoring the pain radiating from his ribs
, he climbed on top of De and proceeded to punch him in the nose. He grinned as he heard a satisfactory Crack!
“You bastard!” he hissed venomously. “Stay away from my girl.”
De looked at Carter with so much hate in his eyes. Truth be told, Carter was scared of De. Deangelo Carboni was a crazy psychopath and he really needed to be locked up in prison.
Marcus and the newbie hauled Carter off Deangelo, and T-Man threw De out.
“You watch your back, Hawke!” they all heard De yell. “And tell your slutty little girlfriend to watch out, too!”
Back in the present, Carter scowled. He was in pain. De had probably broken one of his ribs, and it was hurting like hell. He probably needed to go to the doctor, but he didn’t want Katie knowing he’d got into a fight with De. Knowing he was potentially coming after her could scare her, and Carter didn’t want her to be scared. He wanted her to be happy.
“Hey, Carter?” she called from the bedroom, “are you going to a race tonight?”
He quickly lowered his shirt. It wouldn’t do for Kaitlyn to see the nasty bruise already forming. She’d fuss, and then demand to know what happened.
“Nah, I’m not going out tonight,” he replied truthfully. “There’s no decent money to be won.” The last part was a lie. One of the races tonight was an extreme high stakes one, and normally he would have partaken, but De had gone psycho today, and he didn’t want to chance another run in. “How about we go to a movie instead?” he suggested.
Kaitlyn walked back into the lounge in dark denim skinny jeans, a gold sequinned tank top and a black leather jacket. Carter looked her up and down, blatantly checking her out. He whistled admiringly. She was smoking hot. Of course, to him, she would always be smoking hot, but tonight, she was amazing. She looked casual and relaxed, and he hadn’t seen her like this in ages.
He finally looked at her face, and saw a cute pink blush rising up from her cheeks. She was embarrassed.
“Aaaw, you don’t have to be embarrassed, Katie,” he said jovially. He didn’t know if she detected the false happiness in his voice. He hoped she hadn’t. “You look sexy.”
She went bright red and he laughed.
“Stop it!” she whined playfully. “It’s not funny.”
He opened his arms wide for a hug but she shook her head. He let his arms drop. He saw her gnawing on her lip, a bad habit that she’d picked up from him. She did it when she was nervous or unsure of something.
“What’s wrong?” he asked her. “I mean, besides the obvious.”
She looked at him with dewy eyes. “I can’t, Carter,” she said sadly. “It’s just, too soon. I’m trying to be strong, but I have these moments…” she trailed off, but he knew what she meant. When his parents died, Carter had felt that way. In fact, he still had moments like that, where he wanted to curl up and bawl his eyes out, but he knew his parents wouldn’t have wanted that. His problem was that he felt so guilty. He’d hated his parents for a while after they died, and being put in foster care didn’t help.
It looked like Katie had to be tough just to get through the day. His heart went out to her for that.
“Look,” he said firmly. “I know what it’s like to feel like that, to feel like you can’t get through the day without breaking down. It sucks. But you have to get on with normal, everyday life, if you want to stay strong. Just going through the motions can help, trust me.”
She looked unblinkingly at Carter for a few minutes, before she gave him a tiny smile.
“I guess you’re right,” she said quietly. “So what movie are we going to see?”
Carter decided to splash out. He drove them to the mall, where they could watch a movie while sitting on beanbags, or a couch. Personally, he preferred the couches to the beanbags. At least with a couch, you could move around and not spill your popcorn everywhere. He hated that.
“What movie are we going to see?” Kaitlyn asked him.
He shrugged his shoulders and grinned down at her. “How about a cheesy rom-com? Girls are supposed to love those kinds of movies, right? Like meeting Prince Charming, having the fairytale ending?”
She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, I love that stuff, but I’d rather watch a kid’s movie any day. Bring on a Disney movie!”
He laughed. “I bet you were such a cute kid.”
She rolled her eyes. “I was, I was such a Daddy’s Girl.”
“I bet you were.”
She slapped him playfully on the chest. “Shut up, Carter. I bet you were a brat.”
He laughed and they moved one place up in the queue. “You could say that. My teachers always sat me by myself. I was a troublemaker. Where I really shined was sport. Soccer was definitely my forte.”
She looked sideways at him with a grin on her face. “Soccer, huh? What position did you play?”
“Striker. I was really good at scoring.”
She rolled her eyes. They both heard the unintentional double meaning in that sentence.
They moved up another place in line. Two more to go.
“So, what movie are we seeing again?”
She shrugged. “How about The Lion King?” Disney was re-releasing all their best animated movies, and The Lion King was a classic. Of course, it had been cool when her parents were young, a fact she chose to overlook.
“Seriously?” Carter was staring at her with an expression of disbelief clear on his face. He didn’t want to see it, something Kaitlyn could obviously see.
“Jeez, chill,” she said. “It looks good, and I need this.”
He looked at her. It was the first thing she’d said that alluded to De’s attack on her.
Carter shrugged. If it was what she wanted, and if it was going to make her happy, then he was happy. “Ok.”
They had made it to the front of the line. “Two for the Disney movie,” he told the cashier.
The cashier, looking bored, handed over the tickets, and Carter gave him a twenty dollar note. The cashier’s eyes almost bugged out of his head. Hardly anybody used notes or coins anymore. Everybody mostly used plastic debit cards, but since Carter’s money making ways revolved around having cash, he opted for using cash.
Taking the tickets, and ignoring the cashier’s stunned look, Carter and Kaitlyn strolled over to the lounge, to wait until they would be let into the movie theatre.
They sat side by side on a hard red sofa, clearly not designed for comfort. Carter sat down first, and Kaitlyn sat, her right side pressed up against his left. She tucked one arm through the crook of his elbow and grabbed his bicep with the other. She laid her head on his shoulder.
“Sometimes I wish we could have been a normal teenage couple,” she murmured. “I would have liked to do things like this every weekend, instead of going out at midnight every night.”
Carter looked down at her and kissed the top of her head. “Why didn’t you say anything?” he asked. “We could have done this more often.”
She shook her head. “I was too tired. Do you know how much concealer I went through a week?” She gave a little laugh at the end, to show she was joking.
“I mean it, Katie,” he said seriously, brushing aside her flippant laugh. “We were both so busy pretending to be things we’re not. If you had spoken up, things could have changed.”
“But would you have changed, Carter?” she asked quietly. “You were enjoying the player lifestyle, would you really have given it up?”
She sounded sceptical, and Carter realised that he probably wouldn’t have. He’d been so afraid of getting close to someone, so afraid that he’d fall in love with her, and too dumb to realise that he already had.
“Probably not,” he admitted grudgingly. “I was too scared that if I got close to someone, they’d end up leaving again and hurt me. I used sex to pretend I didn’t love you.”
She turned her head to kiss his shoulder. “I’m sorry,” she said honestly. “I’m sorry you had to go through all that shit. But I love you so much, and not being with you hurts. I’m not le
aving. Even though we aren’t together anymore, I’m still gonna stick around. You can’t get rid of me that easily.”
She looked up at him and met his eyes. For a moment, Carter was stunned by the beauty inside of her, and he wondered how he’d managed to pull this gorgeous creature in the first place.
“It’s the universes way of apologizing,” she said, a smile on her face. Carter didn’t realise he’d spoken out loud, and this time it was his turn to blush.
The usher called up the moviegoers with tickets for The Lion King, and Carter and Kaitlyn wandered down the corridor looking for theatre five.
They took their seats at the very back, on a plush leather sofa. Carter had kindly paid for the ‘luxury’ seats.
Once everyone was inside, the lights dimmed and the previews came on. They went through about five minutes of cheesy ads and a couple of movie trailers, before the theatre went dark.
Kaitlyn tried to pretend she was ok. She pretended that she wasn’t scared. Carter saw through her act. She had gone rigid and pale. His heart went out to her.
Carter scooted over and pulled her against him. He hated how she jumped at his touch. Maybe coming to the movies wasn’t such a good idea. Sitting in a darkened theatre was obviously freaking her out.
“Relax,” he whispered into her ear. “I’m here, I’ll look after you.”
It took a moment for her to relax. She was terrified of someone creeping up behind her and grabbing her from behind. She was terrified that De would pop up out of nowhere and attack her again.
But Carter helped. Being in Carter’s arms allowed her to relax a tiny bit. She wished, not for the millionth time, that he hadn’t cheated on her, and that she was the only one, his only one. Knowing that he’d only cheated in fear of losing her made a little bit of sense, but she hated having to be the one who always understood everything all the time. She could kick Carter for all the pain he put her through. She wanted to throttle him.
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