by Leddy Harper
“Isn’t that what you’re doing? You want me to stay with you, and it’s so convenient that your mom is in the spare room, which means I’d have to sleep in your bed with you. We’re not together, Carter. You’ve made that clear. This isn’t the summer fling you so quickly dismissed. You’re paying me to take care of your injuries until you’re healed. That’s it. Not be your roommate, or sleeping partner, or whatever else you have in mind.” I came to a red light and faced him. “And I’m not driving your Lexus.” I could feel crimson taking over my cheeks, my face flushing with emotion I desperately tried to keep under control.
“It’s insured. You have nothing to worry about.” His focus remained on me after the light turned green. “I don’t understand what the big deal is. It’s not like we’ve never slept in the same bed before. We’d done it plenty of times without having sex. Why do you think this’ll be any different?” His blasé attitude about the entire situation did nothing but further aggravate me.
“It just seems like you want to play house and pretend everything is fucking peachy between us. I’m not interested in that. I’m tired of the games, the back and forth. I’m so over the way you say one thing and do something else. If I stay with you, it’ll only make everything worse.”
His voice was merely a whisper when he said, “You’re talking in circles.”
“Yeah, well, now you know how I feel.” Not really. He didn’t have a clue—not the foggiest notion of how I felt or how deep my emotions for him ran. My heart was invested, even if my brain hated him.
Nothing else was spoken before we made it to his house. I helped him out of the car and into his room, where his mom already had everything set up for him. I wanted to make a comment about how he didn’t need me, but thought better of it. The truth of the matter was I needed the money. What he was paying me would help my financial situation after this was all over, so I couldn’t just walk away. No matter how badly I’d wanted to.
“Go drop off Tommy’s car and grab your things. My mom can follow you and bring you back in my car.” The pain pills had started to kick in and made his speech a little sluggish and his tone a little less harsh. His eyes were closed, though I was sure he was aware of my presence.
“I never agreed to that, Carter.”
“You agreed when you accepted my offer.”
I wanted to scream at his refusal to hear me out on this. But the need to argue with him died once his breathing deepened. It’d be useless to fight with an unconscious man, although I was sure he’d still find a way to reason with me in his sleep. In the end, I knew there wasn’t much I could do. I needed the money, but I wouldn’t make it easy on him. And I refused to give in to his whims just to pacify him.
Susan was in the kitchen pouring a glass of tea when I walked from the bedroom. I stopped on my way out to let her know of my plans. “Carter wants me to stay here, so I have to run back to my sister’s house and get my things. I’ll probably be gone for a little while. Do you mind checking on him until I come back?”
Her soft lips lifted in one corner, reminding me so much of Carter’s smirk. “I know he’s asked you to care for him, but I’m still his mother. It’s my job to make sure he’s okay, regardless of who he wants by his side. You take all the time you need.” She gave me a hug and whispered into my ear, “I’m glad this is working out for you two.”
“I hate to disappoint you, Mrs. Hastings, but nothing’s working out.”
“Oh, please,” she said with a wave of her hand. “Drop the formalities.”
I didn’t often call her by name, but when I did, it was always Mrs. Hastings. My parents had raised me to be respectful of my elders, so I had a difficult time using first names. The few times I did use her name, she always told me the same thing—drop the formalities. I wished I could’ve welcomed her into my heart, but allowing her in, dropping the formalities, would only make all this worse when it was time for me to leave. Getting attached to her would only further result in my emotional destruction.
“You might not see it now, dear, but it is working out. My son, much like his father, has a penchant for getting his way. He didn’t want anyone but you to care for him, and look…you’re here doing exactly that.”
“He’s stubborn and didn’t want his mom treating him like a child. That’s the only reason he wanted me. And I’m here because he didn’t give me much choice.”
“Oh, sure he did. You could’ve said no.”
Her words sank in. I could’ve turned him down, but I didn’t. All it did was make me weak where Carter was concerned, and he knew it—his mother knew it. I squeezed the car keys until they bit into my palm, but I offered her a smile. “I appreciate your optimism, but I think it’s a little misplaced.”
“You care about him. I can see it.”
“Yes, ma’am. I do. He’s become a good friend.”
I could tell by the look in her eyes she thought I was hiding more, but her slow nod acknowledged her disappointment. If only she knew just how deep-seated my feelings truly were.
The rest of the day was spent finding things to do away from Carter. When he wasn’t asleep, he had the TV on, although I was sure he didn’t pay an ounce of attention to it. Even when we were in the same room together, we avoided conversation—and eye contact—as much as possible.
“You act like you don’t wanna be here.”
I focused on smoothing cream over his wounds before pulling the skins on, avoiding any type of emotional connection. It was the only way to protect myself. “Maybe that’s because I don’t. But you didn’t really give me much of an option, so here I am. At your beck and call. Exactly where I told you I didn’t want to be.” My hands shook from the adrenaline coursing through me as I tried to suppress my irritation.
“Then you should leave.” His voice was hard, matching his rigid posture.
“It’s not that easy.”
“Sure it is. You get on a plane and fly back to everything I’m keeping you from.”
“No, Carter.” I stood back and met his hooded gaze. “I told the school I’d be gone until you were better, so I can’t go back.”
“They won’t let you back until I’m cleared from the doctor? What kinda school is it?” He scoffed like he couldn’t believe the words I was telling him.
I ignored him and went back to what I was doing. But he refused to leave it alone. He continued to press me for answers, even though I didn’t respond. Finally, he’d worn me down enough until I couldn’t take it any longer. Turning sharply to face him, I squinted my eyes and gritted my teeth. “I don’t have a job anymore!”
It was enough to make him stop talking. He stared at me with wide eyes, as though I’d just told him the world was actually flat, or that I’d found the cure for cancer.
“Is that what you wanted to hear, Carter? I called to see if I could take a few weeks off, but they told me no because you aren’t an immediate family member. So I had to make a choice—you or my job.” I took a deep breath and paused before continuing. Once I regained my control, I offered him the truth. “They replaced me. I don’t have a class; I don’t have a job…I have nothing to go home to.” I refused to look at him. The admission proved to be harder to actually hear out loud than I’d anticipated.
“You gave up your job for me?”
I rolled my eyes and a humorless laugh spilled from my lips. “You made me feel like shit for going home. So yeah, I guess if you look at it that way, I gave it up for you. But you’re paying me, so really, I just left one job for another.” The sentiment was true, although not entirely honest. But I refused to give him the satisfaction of knowing it hadn’t seemed like a sacrifice when I made the decision. It didn’t become one until I realized how disposable I was to him.
“Then why did you lie about it?”
I ran my fingers through my hair, tugging at the roots, fighting for control. I hadn’t meant to tell him the truth, but I found myself unable to keep it any longer. “I lied to everyone. I didn’t want to look like th
e idiot who gave everything up for you. Because that’s what I am, right? I’m the fool who came rushing to your side the second you called. Had I known you were on morphine, my decision to have come at all might’ve been different.”
“Why?” His eyes implored me to tell him everything—begged me to delve into the depth of details I’d desperately tried to hide.
“Because I thought we were friends.” My voice was meek and shame rang through my softened tone.
He watched me for a second with the slightest bit of sorrow in his eyes, and then asked, “Where are you going after I’m better?”
“Home. From there…I don’t have a clue. But as you so kindly pointed out before, there are schools all over the country I could teach at. So I guess my options are limitless, huh?” I grabbed the arm sleeve off the bed. It took every ounce of my concentration to keep from forcefully yanking it on him, which was difficult with the way he stared at me. Even though I wanted to hate him in the moment, I didn’t have it in me to intentionally hurt him. “Don’t worry, Carter. I’ll figure it out.”
“Then why don’t you just stay?” His question stilled me. “In a few weeks when I can move around better, we can fly up there and bring everything back. If you have nothing to go home to, maybe you should just move here.”
I blinked at him, wondering how high he had to have been in order to make such a suggestion. “And do what, Carter? Where would I stay? Where would I move my things to, and how do you expect I pay for everything?” He clearly hadn’t thought any of this through.
“Well, for starters, you could stay here. In my house.”
Great…pity.
“Move in with you? Like…roommates?”
He paused and averted his gaze. “Yeah. That could work,” he said casually, as if offering me something to drink.
“I don’t think that’s such a great idea. We’ve had sex, so it’d be awkward when you bring someone home to fuck. There’s just too much between us for that to ever work out. And once Tommy comes back, he won’t want me there with them.” Nothing about this would ever work.
He lightly took my fingers, almost reaching for my whole hand but didn’t follow through. I longed for the slightest bit of intimacy…to ease the pain and confirm what I’d done hadn’t been a mistake. “You’ve been taking care of my gym for me. I can hire you to manage the place. You can help Danni with Logan, like you did over the summer. I know it’s not teaching, and I know how much you love your job, but at least it’s something. And while you’re taking care of me, you can save up for an apartment if you’re not comfortable living in my house.” He continued to offer solutions to a problem I should’ve never created.
I grabbed the leg sleeve and knelt on the floor. I didn’t want to risk him seeing the tears pooling in my eyes. “I don’t know, Carter…that all seems like too much.”
He grabbed my arm and pulled me to my feet. When my wide eyes met his, I saw a litany of emotions playing out before me. The primary one was pain, and I knew it’d been from his forceful actions. He could barely pull his pants up without wincing, so grabbing me and holding me in front of him must’ve been excruciating.
“Just say you’ll do it.”
“I can’t…”
He walked me back until he had me pinned against the wall. “You can’t what, Kara? Can’t say it, or can’t do it?” His nostrils flared and his eyes narrowed. “Why don’t you wanna be here? You have nothing to go home to, so why is that better than staying here?”
His words struck me. He was right. I had nothing here and nothing to go home to. I was adrift—completely lost.
His clenched teeth and flexing jaw silenced me. I couldn’t answer his questions, couldn’t tell him what he wanted to hear, because all I could see in front of me was a man on the edge. Though, I wasn’t sure which one of us would fall off the cliff first.
“You can’t answer me because you’re out of excuses.”
“I can’t answer you because no matter what I say, it won’t make a difference. You’ll just keep arguing with me. I don’t understand why it’s so important for me to move here. Tell me that and then maybe we can talk about it.” I prayed this would be his push to give me something, anything to make me believe this was all worth it. That everything I’d given up would be for something. Just one tiny inkling he felt the same way about me I did for him.
He took a step back, his bare body on display. It was devastating to see. Here was a man who was used to being in control, used to getting his way. Yet now, he physically couldn’t do the things he wanted to, and I could see how that had taken a toll on him.
“You’ve been such a good friend to me. You came back to be by my side when I needed it. You gave everything up to take care of me. I wanna repay you for that. I wanna be that kinda friend for you. But I can’t do that if you don’t stay. I need your help at the gym, and from what I’ve seen you do with the place, I know you’d continue to make it better. I can open a women’s fitness center and have you run that.” There was a glimmer of hope in his tone, but no admission of anything beyond a friendship.
“So…you want me to move here to help you with your business.” I refused to be like all the other women in his life…following him around, waiting, begging for his attention the way Barbie did.
“Never mind.” He grabbed his shorts off the bed and turned his back to me. “Just fucking forget I said anything.”
I had so many things to say, but nothing came out. The words and thoughts were caught in my throat and hanging in my heart. Deciding to give up on the argument, I knelt down on the floor to get his leg wrap. “Come on, Carter, let’s just get this on and then you can lay down.” I was resigned to my fate.
He whirled around, ripped it from my hand, and sat on the edge of his bed, his discomfort visible in his every move. “I can do it. I don’t fucking need you.” He didn’t once look at me as he verbally cut my heart out and demolished it in his bare hands. The verbal whiplash would be the end of me, taking an unbearable toll on my soul.
Without another word, I stood up and left the room. I had no place to go, so I curled up on the couch, which is where I slept for the entire night. Not once did Carter come out looking for me, not that I’d expected him to, but it would’ve at least given me some comfort.
I had no idea how I’d make it through the next few weeks.
CHAPTER TWENTY
I woke with a stiff neck and sore back. At some point through the night, Carter—or his mother—must’ve gotten up and changed the thermostat, because it was warm in the house, even after I’d kicked off the blankets. I quietly got up and left. The thought of seeing Carter after last night made my stomach knot, and I needed my sister and the comfort she offered me.
Danni was in the kitchen getting Logan’s breakfast ready when I came in. I filled her in on what had happened while she worked, and then gave her the chance to give me her thoughts. “Society tells us guys are arrogant and girls are naïve. Somewhere along the way, we’re given the impression men don’t have anything to be insecure about, because that’s something only women deal with. But it’s wrong. Guys are just as hesitant to put themselves out there as we are. They don’t have a problem going after a night of fun or getting into our pants, but when it comes to feelings, they’re just as vulnerable.”
“Okay, Oprah…what do you suggest I do?” I sat down with a heavy sigh, desperate for a solution.
“Put yourself out there. That’s what I had to do with your brother. If only you knew how many hints I dropped him, how many times he’d do or say something to make me think he felt the same way, only to turn around and call me his sister’s friend.”
“So what changed?”
She took a deep breath and stared off at the wall over my shoulder. “I borrowed a movie from him. After it was over, I called him to talk about it. We ended up on the phone for hours. When he mentioned the sequel was coming out, I told him I wanted to watch it with him.” She paused to laugh and shake her head. “He asked m
e if it was a date, and I told him it better be.” I could see her recalling the memory with fondness. I was envious, but her situation with Tommy wasn’t even close to mine with Carter.
“That’s cute and all, but you can’t compare you and my brother to me and Carter.”
“Sure I can. We had obstacles in our way. You and I were friends, and he was your big brother. If we didn’t work out, it would’ve made our friendship hard, or even destroyed it. That’s why we decided to keep it a secret from everyone. We knew you’d have a problem with it, and your parents wouldn’t let me stay over anymore if they knew he and I had something going on.”
“Seriously, Danni? The state of our friendship when we were teenagers is not an obstacle. I live twelve hours away. He’s built his whole life here.”
“When Tommy went to college, I was still in high school,” she continued, ignoring my interruption. “He wanted to break up, but I told him no. I thought it was stupid to end things because he’d be gone for a year. When I looked into attending college with him, he fought me on it, because he knew how badly I wanted to go to a different school, and he didn’t want me to give up my dreams for him. By that point, I knew how I felt about him. I was in love and wanted to spend the rest of my life with him. The problem was, we were still sneaking around behind everyone’s backs. We were acting as if we were friends who’d talk all the time, share our days with each other, sleep together when we could, and find any excuse to be near one another. We’d kept up this delusional façade for two years, because it was easier than admitting how we truly felt.”
I’d never heard any of this before. She’d made comments in the past about how their relationship had started before anyone knew about it, and how she’d lost her virginity to him when I was asleep one night, but I always told her I didn’t want to hear the specifics. Most of their relationship had been kept between them…until now.