That please fuck me look.
Our times together have been few and far between lately, first with our grueling campaign schedule, and now with taking office. We went from sleeping together every night to sometimes barely seeing each other for days at a time.
That, above all, has been the most difficult part of all of this, losing that privacy, that time together. Not even sexy time. I mean being able to close our eyes, take a deep breath, and relax with our heads in Carter’s lap.
We’ve all had adjustments to make. Susa and I trust Carter to take care of us, though.
Like right now.
I’m sure whatever Carter has in mind will carry us through until the next rare time the three of us can be alone together.
Because it will have to.
Chapter Two
Then
Looking back on when our paths initially intersected, the first time I met Carter Wilson I was convinced he was a quietly cocky asshole.
I wasn’t right.
I wasn’t exactly wrong, either. I came to learn that it wasn’t a personality flaw so much as it was one of his charms. Not a bug, but a feature.
As the old saying goes, it’s not bragging if it’s true.
Which was the funny thing. Because with everything that Carter is and does, despite unintentionally coming off a little cocky, he is not a braggart. Definitely not boastful. Sometimes, he’ll even tell you things he’s done, if you ask him the right way and at the right time. Yet you get the feeling upon his retelling of events that it was no big deal to him, at the time.
Even when it’s rightfully a big deal to everyone else.
Especially things that are a big deal to everyone else.
Maybe it was the age difference between us, or my lack of real-world experience at the time that made me read his surety in pretty much everything he did as “cocky,” because it wasn’t that he was preening and pecking and making himself look like an ass.
If anything, he is a master of blending in and not being noticed. Look up subtlety in the dictionary and you’ll see his face.
Which, again, fit him perfectly once I learned more about him.
My initial read of him was due ninety-nine percent to me and the filter all of my perceptions flowed through at that time rather than the one percent that was truly about him.
I’m not even exaggerating that ratio. Not in the slightest.
We ended up as roommates in campus housing, a “quad pod” in the oldest dorm building, where we shared a room and a bathroom with each other, and a small common kitchen and dining/lounge area with three other rooms, for a total of eight people in that particular space.
Carter was a sophomore at the University of South Florida in Tampa, and so was I, but he was eight years older than me. At first, I didn’t know why he’d started his college career late. Considering I thought he was a cocky asshole nearly upon first sight, I wasn’t about to delve too deeply into that well, at the time. I figured I’d find out soon enough.
And I did.
It was the Friday before classes were to start. I’d arrived bright and early so I could hopefully beat my unknown roommate there and grab the bed I wanted. Unfortunately, my scholarship wouldn’t pay for one of the newer apartment-style dorm rooms, so I was stuck with this. And since my roommate from last year flunked out, and I didn’t know anyone else who’d be in the same dorm situation I was, I would get potluck as far as a roommate and pray for someone who wasn’t a slovenly asshole.
Later that first afternoon, after we’d both unpacked—well, okay, Carter was completely unpacked and settled within twenty minutes of his arrival a couple of hours after I’d started moving in, and there I was still struggling and figuring out how to store my shit two hours later.
That’s when, with his back turned to me, Carter removed his shirt. Just a simple gesture, nothing unusual about it.
Until I actually saw his back.
I think I made a noise or something because he froze, his head partially turned. Not even looking at me but I got the distinct impression he could see me just fine with his peripheral vision.
“Not pretty, is it?”
I swallowed, my throat clicking as I did. “H-how…what happened?”
His back, while well-muscled, was a gnarled mass of pink scars, what looked like cuts and burns. A hellish road map of pain and trauma disappearing under the waistband of his jeans.
“In-country happened.” I suspected from his tone of voice he didn’t want to clarify, so I let it drop while he continued changing.
That one exchange perfectly sums up Carter. There was an encyclopedia’s worth of pain and bravery and downright literal heroism behind the story, which he could have easily mined and immediately turned me into a devoted friend for life based on his stories alone.
He didn’t.
Again, that pretty much sums up Carter.
* * * *
If you look at Carter’s side of our shared dorm room later that afternoon, other than the fact that he has sheets and pillows on his bed, and a pair of sneakers neatly sitting on the floor next to his bed, and a well-worn backpack on his desk, you’d be hard-pressed to think he’s even brought anything with him.
Here I am, still vainly trying to make all my shit fit in the dresser, bookshelf, desk drawers, and shove the overflow under my bed and into my closet, including the four totes of extra clothes and other crap I thought I’d need. My TV and DVD player sit on top of the dresser, and my desk looks like my school shit has exploded all over it and is making paper and book babies. While I just made my bed with clean sheets, it still resembles a Sunday late-afternoon hotel room checkout following a really bad—or maybe really good—bachelor party.
I silently stew about all this because I consider myself a neat person. I had to be, growing up in my mother’s house, or there’d be hell to pay.
Last year, my roommate and I were both very tidy. Although this year I have a lot more crap I’ve brought with me.
I glance Carter’s way every time I make one more futile trip over to my closet and back while trying to tame my gargantuan mess into some semblance of order. As Carter lies stretched out on his bed and silently reads his Kindle without even glancing my direction, I can’t help but feel…less-than.
Admittedly a feeling I am used to—once again, from growing up in my mother’s house—but at the time this is happening, I literally don’t have the vocabulary to put it all into context or give it neat and tidy labels.
All I know is that this cocky asshole I’ve barely spoken five words to since his arrival has shown me up without even trying.
Again, Carter isn’t even trying to show me up in the first place. My logical brain knows this.
My emotions, however, are a fucking mess.
I finally end up kicking another of the totes under my bed, along with an overflowing laundry basket holding my clean towels and extra linens.
A soft snort from the man on the other side of the room catches my attention.
I turn. “What?” I snap.
“Nothing, man. Would you like some help?” During my struggle, he’s walked back and forth a couple of times, to the bathroom, or out of the room and back again. While he hasn’t been obvious about it, I’d spotted him observing my lack of progress during those journeys.
It’s on the tip of my tongue to shoot him a snarky reply—
Except yeah, I do need help. If I get snarky with him, I might not receive that help. Plus, the tone he’d asked it in wasn’t snarky. He’d sounded genuinely warm.
Not to mention I have a lot of experience holding back my initial, tip-of-my-tongue responses.
Thanks, Mom.
“Thanks,” I mutter. “I’d appreciate it.”
He shuts off his Kindle and tucks it into the top drawer of the two-drawer nightstand next to his bed. Then he stands and rounds the desk/bookshelf combo we each have and which sit back-to-back between the beds to form a natural divider.
He’s wearing jeans
and a dark grey Tampa Bay Lightning T-shirt that cling to his leanly muscled torso. He isn’t some top-heavy gym rat. Combined with the lines in his face, he looks like a guy who’s earned his muscles the hard way, not in a CrossFit class.
Another way in which I feel I don’t exactly measure up, even though I’m not in bad shape.
Carter stands there for a moment, hands on his hips, his dark brown eyes taking in everything before he walks over and opens my top dresser drawer.
I’ve brought two suitcases of clothes—also now stowed under my bed—but brought several garbage bags full, too. And my closet is stuffed.
I’d learned that past spring to literally move everything out of my mother’s home if I wanted to keep my shit. I’ve left more things in a small storage unit I’m renting at a complex close to the campus.
When I lived in the dorm during my freshman year, Mom cleaned out my room for me over Easter break. I was lucky she left some things boxed up in her garage.
But I’ll never forgive her for discarding my belongings, items she’d tossed because they had no value to her. Many of my books, comic books, mementos, other things.
Or, more correctly, things she’d discarded knowing they had value to me. Irreplaceable loss which was laser-focused, deliberately designed to hurt me. I wish I was exaggerating, but it’s not the first time she’s done something like that for that very reason.
I’ve determined it will be the last time. Hence…this mess.
“Let’s start here,” Carter says. His tone sounds patient, warm, and I quickly shed any indignation or resentment I started with, because he actually teaches me how to refold everything.
Without an ounce of condescension.
By the time we finish that part nearly an hour later, with me doing most of the folding after he shows me the best way to tackle each type of garment, I’ve emptied my remaining totes of clothes, and my closet no longer looks like it’s going to explode. The spare towels and linens have also been moved to a tote, leaving my laundry basket empty and ready for use.
“Are you some sort of ninja minimalist organizer?” I ask, only half kidding.
He doesn’t smile, but one corner of his mouth turns up in a slight quirk I’d later come to learn indicated how amused Carter feels. “No.”
“How’d you learn how to do this?”
“US Army beats it into grunts during basic. Let’s remake your rack.”
I’m still processing the first sentence and didn’t realize what he meant by the second, until he starts stripping the sheets from my bed.
Five minutes later, under Carter’s careful tutelage, my “rack” looks as put-together as Carter’s does. I almost don’t want to sit on it, it’s so neat.
“Thank you, Carter.” I hold out my hand.
He shakes with me. “You’re welcome.”
I still think he’s cocky, but have discarded the asshole label. Also, I would make a genuine effort to get along with him since he’d gone through the trouble to help me.
“I’m sorry I’m so disorganized. I swear I’m not usually like this.”
“It’s okay. Just ask for my help, if you need it. I won’t be your maid, but I’m not going to live like or with a slob. I’m happy to teach you, but you have to do the work.”
It’s after six when I finish doing all of that. While my pride still stings a little that this guy I didn’t even know taught me how to fold clothes properly, that feeling is more than overwhelmed by satisfaction that my side of the room actually looks put-together now.
Thankfully.
Carter returns to his bed and sits. “Did you bring anything for dinner?” There is a large communal fridge in the kitchen, but we each have small mini-fridges in our rooms.
Shopping has not yet happened. I’ve been too busy schlepping shit from my storage unit to the dorm.
“I haven’t hit the store yet,” I admit.
“You hungry?”
“Yeah.”
He pulls on his sneakers. “Come on. I’ll drive.”
Cocky or not, I’m not arguing with him. “Thanks.”
While I don’t know it at the time, that’s the day I am forever pulled into Carter Wilson’s orbit.
That’s also the day I meet my best and closest friend, and my life changes forever.
Chapter Three
Let me set the scene for you—it’s the beginning of my sophomore year of college, and I embarrassingly spend my first afternoon in my new dorm room learning how to fold clothes like a ten-year-old because my older roommate takes pity on me.
I am neither a slob nor an idiot, but I now feel the need to somehow prove both of those points to Carter. Because, rightfully, he probably thinks I am.
With the room finally straightened, we head downstairs and out to his vehicle. As we walk, I notice he has a slight limp. “Are you okay?” I ask.
“What?”
“You’re limping.”
“This is actually me on a good day.” His smile looks a little more grim this time, etching a few extra lines in his cheeks and emphasizing his rugged jaw. “I have a cane tucked in the closet for the really bad days. I suspect tomorrow this will catch up with me and it’ll be a so-so day.”
We walk to Carter’s Kia Soul, which is several years old and a ridiculously ugly shade of nearly neon green.
“Somehow, I don’t picture a man like you driving a vehicle like this,” I note after I climb into the passenger seat. Like his side of the room, the car’s interior is showroom-neat. It might as well be brand new.
He now wears sunglasses that hide his brown eyes. He shrugs, a gesture I’ll soon come to learn is so typically Carter. “The Snot Box was cheap, it runs, I could afford to pay cash for it, and all my shit fits in it.” A smile quirks his lips. “And it’s so ugly I’m hoping no one ever steals it.”
Those are all perfectly valid reason to own a car as disgustingly green as this one. “The Snot Box?”
He points at the hood through the windshield and smiles, as if it’s self-explanatory.
Which, actually, it is. “Fair enough,” I say. At least he seems to have a sense of humor. “What’s your major?”
“I plan to attend Stetson for my law degree. Right now, I’m going poli sci for my major, with a criminal justice minor.”
“Well, we’ve got that in common. I want to attend Stetson, too. Only I’m a criminal justice major with a poli sci minor. How old are you, again?”
“Twenty-eight,” he says. “And no, I won’t buy alcohol for you while you’re underage, sorry.”
I try not to feel defensive over that. “Not that I was going to ask. I’ll be twenty-one in six weeks. I have better things to do than risk my scholarship getting drunk.”
He shrugs again, an easy kind of gesture indicating no skin off his nose. “Just wanted to put it out there. Pissed off my roommate last year.”
“Why?”
“Because I wouldn’t buy him alcohol. Once you hit twenty-one, obviously, it doesn’t matter.”
“I’m not a drinker.” Although I leave out the fact that life with my mother would drive any rational person to take up alcoholism as a professional hobby.
Which is probably why my step-father smokes pot behind her back on a regular basis.
“Even better. Last roommate was. He got pissed off when I reported him to the RA after warning him I would do exactly that.”
“Why’d you do that?”
“Because he and his friends—who were all underaged—wanted to drink in our room. I didn’t give a shit if he wanted to break the law and university rules, but I’m not losing my scholarship or risking my ass with law enforcement for tolerating underaged drinking in my room. Fuck that noise.”
“Ah. I can respect that.”
“Good. So what happened to your roommate from last year?”
“He flunked out.”
Carter smirks again. “Leaving you stuck with me. Lucky you.”
He had helped me out. I decide to give him a chanc
e and keep an open mind. “You say that like you’re hard to live with.”
He shrugs. “Fair warning, sometimes I have nightmares.”
I wasn’t sure why he was telling me that. “Um, okay?”
“And, serious warning, do not ever sneak up on me and try to scare me. You won’t like what happens. In fact, try to make a little noise when coming and going. Even if you think I’m asleep. I would prefer that you do that. I’ll never yell at you for waking me up, I promise.”
That, at least, didn’t sound cocky. It sounded serious. “Can I ask why?”
A dark cloud briefly envelops his features. “I…don’t react well to being startled. PTSD. Nearly broke my last roommate’s arm when he did it, him thinking he was going to be funny. Even after I’d warned him not to.”
I don’t know how to react at first. “Oh.” Then I remember the view I had of his back. “Is that all related to you being in the military?”
This grim smirk is devoid of humor. “Yeah, you could say that.” He falls silent, leaving us to listen to Mumford & Sons’ Babel album.
At least he has great taste in music, and seems to be an honest guy.
I can work with that.
* * * *
We stop at a sports bar before we reach the grocery store. It’s one of a local chain of restaurants that dot the Tampa Bay area landscape. I’ve never eaten at this one before, but it’s a more PG-rated version of Hooters, with waitresses who are dressed in garments that are actually more substantial than a mere suggestion of clothes, and the only breasts on the menu are poultry.
The hostess seats us at a booth near the back of the restaurant at Carter’s request. When the waitress arrives to take our drink orders, I’m still mentally running through my bills and my bank balance to see what I can afford from the menu.
Carter neatly cuts off my thoughts. “I’ll have water and sweet tea, please,” he says. “And this is all on my check.” He circles his fingers at the table, indicating me, too.
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