Chapter 27

Carter drovehis Mustang to school today, so I ride with him and everyone else meets us at the nearby café where they gather after Friday night games. When we get there, the place is packed. The café stays open late on game nights because so many locals come here—partially to eat, even though they could have eaten similar food at the concession stand, and partially to see the players, exchange smiles with the guys responsible for putting them in such a good mood, and extend the high of the big win they usually ushered in.
Accordingly, I almost never come here. Grace and I prefer the coffee shop, far away from the jocks and their fans—even before they all hated me, but now, definitely.
Only when I walk through the doors tonight, it’s with Carter’s arm draped around my shoulder like a mantle of protection, and his friends crowded around me like my own personal entourage.
When we come into view, a few people call out comments like, “Hell of a game, son,” and “that’s some arm you’ve got there!” No one notices me, so my anxiety about a lukewarm reception melts. They all have Carter vision, and he’s playing his role well. I have my Carter, and they have theirs, and tonight, he has to convey his golden jock façade, not the more truthful face of my boyfriend/tormentor.
I feel a strange closeness to him though, knowing I see a side of him other people don’t have access to. I hate all of this—even his arm around me while all these people gush at him makes me feel like I’m on display, even though they’re paying me no attention whatsoever. I’m the girl on his arm, and I’m so not that girl.
But he’s not really that guy, either. I tell myself that as we finally make our way to the table. Carter had to stop and bullshit with people at three different tables before we made it to ours.
When we finally slide into our seats—the same side of the booth, with Cartwright and Brianna across from us—I lean in to Carter and murmur, “Do you think you’ll miss this?”
His gaze meets mine. “Miss what?”
I blink, figuring it’s clear, but I guess this is his normal. Gesturing around, I say, “The fanfare. The small town celebrity status. You’re a big fish here. When you go off to college, you’ll be in a significantly bigger pond.”
Stretching his arm around me and leaning back in the booth, he says, “Bigger pond just offers more room to grow.”
He’s so confident, so unshakably sure of his future. I’m confident in myself, but I wonder what it’s like to be like him, to literally have no doubts because you know there’s a safety net if you ever fall.
On one hand, I tell myself it’s better I’ll have to work for everything I get, that I’ll appreciate it more, but on the other hand, it really would be nice if things could just be easy for once. Nothing is ever easy for me, and everything is always easy for him.
We are such different people.
Our minds are in very different places, too, because Carter smirks and leans in to kiss the side of my face, murmuring, “You’re not already worried about me going off to school, are you?”
“What? No, of course not.”
“Kinda sounds like you want me to stay in the small pond.”
I shake my head, glancing down at the table. “Of course not. Columbia is an amazing opportunity; I know you’d never even think of passing it up. I don’t blame you. I wouldn’t either, if I were in your place.”
“Do you resent not having my opportunities?” he asks casually.
“Of course not.” Since he appears unconvinced, I add, “Remember, I’m going to stow away and come to New York so I can chase off all your potential wives anyway, so I’m sure I’ll see you around.”
I pluck a menu off the table and nonchalantly beginning to peruse it.
Chuckling warmly, Carter tugs me closer against his side, but doesn’t offer further comment.

The restof the group-hang is uneventful. Carter gets more attention here and there, and Cartwright and Brianna behave as if I have always been part of their crew. It becomes pretty clear to me that Carter is shifting his favor to these two now because of their easy acceptance of me, their willingness to turn on a dime and welcome me into the fold after happily hating me before. Partially to reward behavior he likes, and therefore encourage more of it, but also to show the friends of his he’s currently leaving out how they need to behave if they want back on the inside.
It’s appealing, his ability to subtly shift and world and take what he wants from whomever he wants. I know I’m one of those things he subtly shifts from time to time, and I know it would be extremely unpleasant to fall from Carter’s good graces and suddenly be on the outside looking in, but that’s just who Carter is. High risk, high reward. I can’t pick and choose the pieces and parts of him I like and leave the rest. He is who he is.
It makes him scary, though. Carter isn’t going to be an easy man to trust, and he isn’t going to be an easy man to control. On one hand, I tell myself I should be glad I’m only dealing with the high school version of him, because all grown up he will be a force of nature for whoever has the bad luck of falling in love with him. But on the other hand… well, I’m not one to shy away from a challenge.
It’s pointless to think about, though. When he brought up him going away to school at dinner, of course I shot it down and acted as if it had barely crossed my mind. We’ve been dating for like three minutes; it’s entirely too early to worry about our future.
He complicated things, though, by deciding to take my virginity so quickly. I figured once I agreed to date him, I would have time to come around to it, time to figure out if there was even a remote possibility of a future—and if not, if I would be okay with that. As is his way, Carter yanked the reins out of my hands. We weren’t ready to move this far, this fast, but now we have, and the natural progression of our relationship is a bit topsy-turvy.
Carter brings me back to my car at the stadium and it’s just the two of us, standing here under the lights. As always, he invades my personal space, following me to my car and backing me up against it. I can tell by the way he lingers he doesn’t want me to go, but it’s late and I have to go to church tomorrow. Not quite as early as I would have prior to Grace’s overachieving tonight, but still.
Carter grasps me by the shoulder and runs his hands down my arms, his gaze perusing my body before returning to my face.
“I like you in Longhorn gear.”
“Yeah?” I murmur, resisting the urge to touch him, because then it’ll take me even longer to get out of here.
He nods. “I know you didn’t want to come, but I’m glad you did.”
“It’s not that I didn’t want to come,” I offer, making an attempt at sounding convincing, but failing horribly.
Smiling faintly, Carter shakes his head. “Don’t lie to me. It’s all right. I know you’re not into all this. Still, it’s nice you came.”
I glance down at the pavement beneath our feet, scuffing the toe of my shoes on the asphalt. Erika’s words from the other night flourish, making me wonder if sending him home after kissing him by my car counts as “leaving him high and dry.”
Carter’s thoughts aren’t entirely in line with mine, but as if he can pick up on the fact that I want to kiss him, he catches the back of my neck and pulls me close, bending his head to kiss me just like he did at lunch today.
My heart gallops in my chest, half from the sensation of Carter’s lips on mine, half from the fear of getting him excited. I try to shake it off, tell myself I won’t be blackmailed by my own imagination into… into what? I don’t even know. Getting in the back seat with him? I don’t want to do that, but Carter has maybe three fucks to give about what I want, and whether or not I want to have sex at any given time is not on the distribution list.
When he pulls back, he stays close. There’s genuine tenderness on his face that makes me feel mean for having those thoughts, but I’m stuck inside my own head and I can’t get out.
“Why don’t you come back to my house?” Carter suggests.
There it is. The invitation. The trap. I feel nervous, and it bugs the shit out of me. Before I can stop myself, I bring up what I’ve meant to bring up, but couldn’t in front of Carter’s friends.
“Erika came over to me after the game tonight.”
I watch his face for some sign of guilt like he’s a normal guy, like that feeling might register, but naturally, it doesn’t. His expression doesn’t change at all. “And?”
I swallow and glance down, then meet his gaze again, desperate for the truth, and knowing only he has it. A truth I’ll believe, anyway. “And she insists she wasn’t lying last night.”
“Of course she does,” he says, sounding unsurprised. “Erika doesn’t confess and repent when she’s caught in a lie, Zoey, she doubles down.”
“Well, it makes me uncomfortable,” I tell him.
“What would you like me to do about it?” he asks, wrapping his arms around my waist and tugging me against him.
“She thinks I’m a passing fad, that you were into my virginity more than me, and that now I’ll lose your interest and you’ll go back to her.”
“No, she’s worried you’re not a passing fad, and that’s why she’s putting work into scaring you off. Come on, you can deduce that without my help, can’t you?”
“She’s tapping into my existing concerns and exacerbating them,” I state.
“Only if you let her,” he says simply. “I realize I’m not the easiest guy in the world to trust, but you really wanna trust her more?” he adds, cocking his head skeptically. “She thinks I’m her ticket out of here, Zoey. She wants to use me as a stepping stone so she’s not stuck here, knocked up two years from now, waiting tables six days a week and going home to some washed up former Longhorn who’s probably fucking around on her anyway—but with him, there are a lot less perks for dealing with it. Erika doesn’t like me, she likes what I can do for her. You think she doesn’t know where I’m headed? She wants to hitch her star to my wagon. That’s all it is. I promise. I already told you nothing happened, and I can tell you ten more times, but why are we still wasting our time talking about this?”
I sigh, training my eyes on his abdomen instead of his face. “I think Jake told her. About that day in the classroom. About what you did to me.”
Silence.
My gaze darts to his, hoping for some reaction, but his face is carefully blank, the thoughts behind his dark eyes as transparent as brick walls. “She said some stuff, made it sound like she was gonna try to convince you Jake and I had some kind of… I don’t know. Then she said how ordinarily no one would believe I’d be romantically interested in someone who sexually harassed me, but hey, maybe you would believe that. It was clear she was talkin’ about you and what happened. Jake was with her, so I think he—”
“All right. I’ll handle it,” he says, cutting me off. The back of his hand moves along my jawline and I sigh, enjoying the faint tickle, the rush of tenderness. “Let’s not think about either of them anymore tonight.”
“There’s one more thing. There was a girl, the football photographer from the school paper.”
“She overheard as well?”
“Well, yeah, but she didn’t know what they were talkin’ about. That’s not the problem. We were talking when Erika came up and she seemed nice. Actually, she was standing right there when you kissed me, but you didn’t seem to notice her. Anyway, she stood up for me, but Erika got really pissy about it and told her she’d regret it. So, if you’re going to talk to Erika about takin’ her psycho bitchiness down a few levels, tell her to leave Kasey alone, too.”
“Done,” he agrees, gazing down at me. Hardly a moment passes, then he says, “Come home with me.”
“It’s late,” I tell him.
“You can spend the night. It’s the weekend, so you don’t have to go to school tomorrow. I don’t have practice. We could hang out, maybe head into the city. I have to be back in the evening to watch Chloe, but we could spend the better part of the day together.”
“You seem to watch your sister a lot,” I remark.
“Yeah. We don’t do babysitters, so if my parents go out, it’s up to me or my older sister. It’s easier for me, since I live there.”
“Well, I would like to go out with you tomorrow, but I can’t. I have the cook-out and basket fundraiser at the church, remember?”
“Ah, yes. With the pastor who wants to bone you.”
I roll my eyes. “With my married pastor who definitely does not want to bone me.”
Nodding and completely ignoring my objection, he asks, “When does Pastor Boner want you there?”
“Pastor James and his lovely wife asked us to come around ten so we can help set up. Grace went tonight, so I don’t know how much there will be left to do, but I’m gonna go then anyway, just to be safe.”
“That’s plenty of time. It’s settled. You’re coming to my house.”
I shake my head. “I’m not, though.”
He ignores me. “You’re going to climb your pretty little ass in my bed so I can fuck you, then we can fall asleep together like last night, but in a much more comfortable bed. I really like this plan.”
“This is not the plan at all. The plan is for me to go to my house alone, curl up in bed wearin’ flannel pajamas, and sleep all by myself.”
Glancing beyond me, Carter gazes absently into my car. “Now, do I trust you to drive yourself to my house, or do I drag you to my car and bring you back for yours tomorrow?”
I lift my eyebrows. “I am for sure not leaving my car here. I’ll probably come back to the windows busted out and the inside strewn with cheap, blue panties.”
Nodding slowly and talking to himself, as if I’m not even contributing to this conversation, he says, “Then again, if you go to your house, I can always just follow you. Your mom loves me, so I’ll just tell her we came to ask permission for you to spend the night. Bet she’d love that, huh?”
I cock my head. “Do you actually want me to respond, or are you just gonna keep pretendin’ I’m not here?”
“I think I can keep it can going by myself, but thanks for the offer,” he returns lightly.
“I can’t spend the night,” I state.
“Why not?”
“Because I’m not allowed to have sleepovers with boys.”
“Was your mom mad about last night?” he asks.
“Well, no…”
Latching onto it, he says, “See, she doesn’t care. If you think she’ll care, call her now and ask. I’ll take the phone. Promise to be on my best behavior.”
I know he’s right, so I do not pull out my phone. “Lies. Your best behavior is way below the acceptable threshold, anyway.”
Releasing me, Carter takes a step back. “Meet me at my house. If you don’t follow me, I’ll show up at yours—you know I will.”
“Pushy,” I tell him, running a hand down his chest.
Catching my hand, he replies, “You like it.”
“I don’t hate it. Jury’s still out on whether or not I like it,” I tease.
“Well, meet me at my house and we can work on figuring it out.”