Chapter 30

On my wayback to the table with a fresh dish of sliced tomatoes, I spot the last thing I ever expected to see—Carter Mahoney at church.
Well, okay, he’s outside of church, technically. The cookout is outside, and there aren’t many people here, but I certainly didn’t expect him to be one of them. My steps slow, my forehead creasing with a frown as I take in the sight of Carter talking to Pastor James, then I remember last time Carter encountered him and I pick up the pace.
“Hey, what are you doin’ here?” I call out as I approach.
Carter turns to watch me approach. “Came to see your basket.”
Now I notice James is also holding a basket I haven’t seen before—which shouldn’t be possible, since I’m one of the volunteers who put the baskets together. This one is wrapped in cellophane and tied with Longhorn blue ribbon. Inside, with a Longhorns shirt nestled around it, I see a football with marks all over it. Signatures?
An autographed football.
I put it together at the same time James offers a mild smile and says, “Carter here brought another basket for the auction.”
“Sure did,” Carter says, sounding pretty satisfied with himself.
I don’t even know what to say. I did tell him all about the baskets and what each basket would contain, so I guess he had the information, but he certainly didn’t say he would contribute anything. “That was generous of you, Carter. Thank you,” I tell him.
“It’s well put together, too,” James offers, nodding as he looks over the contents of the basket. “Seems you have a knack for arts and crafts, Carter.”
Carter chuckles to himself and shakes his head. “I can’t take credit for the assembly. I bought the stuff, my rally girl put it together. She has a knack for arts and crafts.”
“Oh, okay,” James returns, nodding. “Well, that’s real nice of your girlfriend to help you out.”
Okay, that’s enough of that. Nodding my head toward the tables before Carter can rise to the bait and kiss my face off right here in front of the assembled members of my congregation, I say, “I’ve gotta walk these tomatoes over here. You wanna follow me?”
Carter allows me to rein him in, thankfully, and he follows me over to the folding table set up with all the fixings. “Are more people supposed to show up?”
I sigh, looking around the empty church lawn. We’ve all done our parts to spread the word about the cookout and basket auction, but so far, the turnout hasn’t been great. As sad as it is, at this point, we would have been better off just giving the woman we’re raising funds for the money we spent doing all this.
“Hopefully more people will show up in the afternoon.”
“How long is this thing going?” he asks.
“We close everything up at four.”
Carter nods, pulling out his phone and checking the display. “Still got some time, then. I’ve gotta run over and pick up Chloe from ballet in a few minutes, but I’ll bring her over and buy her a burger after.”
I flash him a grateful smile. “Thanks. Every little bit helps. It was nice of you to do the basket, too. You didn’t even tell me you were doin’ that.”
“It’s nothing,” he says dismissively. “How does this basket auction thing work?”
“You buy tickets, fill them out with your name and phone number, and then put as many as you want into the canister by each basket you’d like to win. If you win and you’re not here for the drawing, we call you and you can come pick up your prize.”
“Great.” He flashes me a smile. “I wanna buy like $20 worth of tickets for the Longhorn basket.”
“For… the basket you donated yourself?”
“Yep.”
“Why?”
“Because the ball is signed by all of this year’s Longhorns. I wanna buy the tickets for Jake, not myself.”
“Why do you want to buy tickets for Jake?” I ask, not following.
“Because he’s the only one who didn’t get to sign the ball; being excluded will piss him off.”
Amusement bubbles up inside me, but I tamp it down and try to bite back a smile. “That’s mean,” I inform him.
“I’m still gonna do it,” he states. “Where do I buy tickets?”
I shake my head, indicating the other end of the table where the pastor’s wife is seated. “Right over there. Don’t tell her about your extremely unchristian ulterior motives.”
“I’ll pretend to be a good person,” he promises.

After Carter leavesto pick up Chloe, business picks up a little bit. Her ballet school must not be far, because he comes back pretty fast. Chloe comes bounding up to my table, full of energy despite the dance class she just finished. As if she’s not cute enough, today her dark hair is pulled back in a pony tail and she’s wearing a pink leotard with a sheer skirt that bounces and sways with every step she takes. She’s clutching Carter’s hand as she walks this way, and it sends my thoughts to the unprotected sex I’ve had twice with her brother.
Obviously, I hope I’m not pregnant, but I’m aware of the risk. I don’t really want to have kids for probably ten more years, but I don’t know what to do about Carter’s unwillingness to be reasonable. If he were a normal guy, I would refuse to have sex with him until a month has passed and I can get some birth control in my system, or he decides to put a condom on his dick before we have sex. Given he’s Carter, that won’t work. I don’t want to break up with him, I like dating him so far, but I don’t like all the shots he’s taking at my womb.
Frankly, it doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t seem like he thinks he’s invincible, yet he doesn’t seem worried about it happening, either. Not in the oblivious way of teenage guys who think they can have unprotected sex with impunity, but trying to sober him up by mentioning the real possibility of him making me a mother—and himself a father—before either of us have a diploma doesn’t freak him out, either. Wouldn’t thinking about the result of unprotected sex freak out most teenage guys? I realize Carter isn’t ordinary, but why doesn’t this scare him?
Why does it feel like he regards a potential accidental teen pregnancy like no big deal… almost in the way someone regards something terrifying that they’ve survived before, so it no longer has the power it had over you the first time?
I cock my head, watching Chloe grin up at Carter and reach her free hand across to show him something that sparkles in the sun. Probably a sticker. He regards her with warmth, like always. Then he points in my direction and Chloe looks ahead, then waves at me with her sticker hand.
“Hi, bookstore lady!”
Hi, Carter clone.
Sudden horror grips me and I look from her to him again.
Thirteen. He was thirteen the first time he had sex. Chloe is five.
Erika flashes to mind, since she always hangs out in the dark pockets of my brain, waiting to torment me and fill me full of doubts. They weren’t a thing back then though, right? He couldn’t have possibly gotten Erika pregnant when they were little more than kids… but if he did, it would explain some things. It would explain why she’s so attached to him, why she thinks he belongs to her. Maybe she went along with everything he wanted her to do, everything his family told her to do, and she thinks it’s her due to end up with him.
It would also explain why she’s the only girl he’s ever given girlfriend status, even though it doesn’t seem like he wanted a girlfriend. Maybe it was part of her perks package, maybe he was being nice because… well, knocking up a 13-year-old is a shitty thing to do, even if you are also only 13. This just isn’t a thing that should happen.
Carter doesn’t seem like someone who would insist a meaningless fling he knocked up keep a pregnancy though, and if Erika didn’t want it… why is Chloe here?
Now I look at the little girl, and if I look hard enough, I can see some Erika. Erika has blue eyes and brown hair, but Carter’s genes clearly run strong, given how much he looks like his father. Erika is pretty, and Chloe is adorable. While their shades are different, they both have pin-straight hair and cute little button noses.
Carter cocks an eyebrow. “Earth to Zoey.”
I shake myself out of my rush of paranoid thoughts and try to remember what was just said. “Uh, sorry. What?”
“I said hi, and you didn’t say hi back,” Chloe announces.
“I’m so sorry about that, I was daydreaming. Hi, Chloe.”
My mind is still in overdrive though, kicking up new thoughts. When Carter walked me to my car, he said Chloe will have a bedroom at his apartment. I assumed he meant it as part of our joking scenario, similar to our kids sleeping upstairs at my dinner scenario last night, but the apartment is actually happening. Does she really have a bedroom at his apartment in New York? That doesn’t seem normal. How many older brothers have actual bedrooms set up for their five-year-old sisters? In case of what? A visit? How often would she be visiting to warrant her own bedroom?
Is this too crazy to ask him? This is definitely too crazy to ask him. If I’m right, I don’t even know what I would do with that, and if I’m wrong, he would think I’m a paranoid, overthinking psycho. I’ve already theorized he cheated and he’s only been my boyfriend for a day and a half. For our two day anniversary, I can’t ask, “Also, did you by chance impregnate Erika in middle school and Chloe is actually your daughter? Asking for a friend.”
“You wanna see my dance moves?” Chloe asks.
“Sure, I’d love to see your moves.”
She takes a step back away from the table, then does a series of attempts at ballet moves. I’m not sure she actually nails any of them, but she’s five; who cares?
Upon finishing, she plants a hand on her hip and does an end pose.
Clapping my hands, I say, “Encore!”
“I don’t know that word,” she tells me, coming up to the table and looking at the food. Her nose instantly wrinkles up. “I don’t want any of this, either.”
“How about a cheeseburger?” Carter suggests.
“No,” she says.
“Hot dog?”
“Nuh uh.”
“Chips. You love chips.”
Chloe shakes her head and looks up at him. “I want to go to a restaurant. I want chicken tenders or spaghetti.”
“We can go to a restaurant for dinner,” he tells her. “It’s not dinner time yet.”
“I’ll wait,” she tells him. “How ‘bout some dessert first? I want a cookie.”
Carter shakes his head. “This is a cookout, not a bake sale.”
“Well, I want a cookie,” Chloe announces, like this should be sufficient reason for cookies to appear.
I’m not sure I should offer cookies to the five-year-old who hasn’t even eaten yet, but I give her brothers metaphorical cookies before dinner all the time, so what the hell? “We do have cookies,” I tell Carter. “Chocolate chip. Two for a dollar.”
“Two cookies! I want two cookies,” she tells him.
Carter pulls out his wallet, fishes out a dollar, and hands it to her. “Here you go. See that girl with brown hair?” he asks, pointing. “That’s Grace. Give her the dollar and tell her you want to buy two cookies.”
Chloe snatches the money and runs over to Grace’s side of the table.
Shaking his head, Carter stays right where he is. “Picky little shit.”
I grin. “Hey, I don’t blame her. Pasta is delicious. I would probably choose that over a boring burger, too.”
“You don’t work tonight, do you?”
I shake my head. “I work tomorrow, but I’m off today.”
“Perfect. When you’re done doing all this, I’ll take you both out for dinner.”
“Are your parents still going out?” I ask, mildly surprised. After seeing them at breakfast, I assumed they weren’t getting along today and might cancel whatever they had planned that meant Carter had to babysit.
“Yeah, they’re still going. Mom’s having an episode though, so she and my dad will end up fighting before he eventually drags her out of the house. Just better for Chloe not to be there for all that.”
“How is that all going to work when you go off to school? It seems like you’re a crucial cog in Chloe’s life.”
He glances over at her, paying for her cookies in her cute little ballet outfit. “Yeah, I’m not sure yet. Caroline says she’ll help out, but she and her husband are planning to start their own family soon and she doesn’t have enough time as it is.” He shakes his head. “I don’t know.”
“Are you really going to have a spare bedroom at your apartment for her?”
Carter brings his gaze back to me. “Yeah. It’s a three bedroom, so there’s enough space to set one aside for her. I figure bedroom, office, Chloe’s room. Unless I knock you up, of course. Then we’ll probably need a nursery.”
I widen my eyes and look around to make sure no one overheard, then glare at him. “Really? At a church function?”
Carter smirks. “Hey, you were doing it in my kitchen with my parents in the next room.”
“I was trying to scare you straight; you’re just bein’ a troublemaker.”
“No, I’m being a problem-solver,” he offers back, lightly. “If I knock you up, we already have to accommodate one kid. We could probably just have Chloe move to New York with us, wouldn’t be much added trouble.”
“I’m growing increasingly worried that you’re startin’ to view knockin’ me up as a way to lock down a dedicated nanny.”
“And lover,” he adds. “I’m seeing a lot of perks.”
“You are an insane person,” I tell him. “I want to go to college, not be trapped at home with Carter clones, watching you become successful. Especially because come your mid-life crisis, you would undoubtedly leave me for a co-ed after I gave you my best years and gave up my own goals to accommodate you and raise your babies. Sorry, it’s a hard no. I’ll be focusin’ on my own goals, thank you very much.”
“Pessimist,” he accuses. “I already told you I wouldn’t ruin your life. It’s like you don’t believe me or something.”
“Go figure,” I toss back.
Chloe comes running back over with a cookie in each hand. “Look what I got!”
Carter’s attention is still on me, though. He’s studying me again, a look on his face like the one that was probably on mine while I was theorizing about his relation to Chloe. “Where’s your father?”
“What?”
“Your dad. You live with your mom and a stepdad, right? You’ve never mentioned your father. What happened to him?”
I don’t like that question. It’s unreasonable to be annoyed by such a common inquiry, but I know what he’s doing. He’s trying to pin my fears about him on an absent, disappointing father—and I have an absent, disappointing father, so if I tell him that, he’ll be able to.
“I don’t have daddy issues,” I say instead.
“Then tell me what happened to him,” he counters.
“I don’t want to,” I state.
Carter smirks. “Because then I’ll be able to logically argue against your fears. Right. Why would you want that?”
“My fears have nothin’ to do with my father, Dr. Mahoney,” I say, dryly. “My fears have everything to do with what I know about you as a person, your life goals, and men just like you. Selfish people can’t be relied on, and a relationship is not a life plan. It’s important to do your own thing, that way you never come to a point where you’ve built your whole life around someone else and then they decide to leave and your whole world crumbles. A romantic relationship can be the icing on the life-cake, not the flour in the batter.”
“So, he left you and your mom for some other woman,” Carter surmises. “Do you ever see him?”
“I have no desire to,” I mutter, annoyed at him now for digging. “He broke my mom’s heart and abandoned all of his responsibilities. He’s dead to me.”
“I would never do that,” Carter states. He seems sincere enough, but of course he does. No one would admit they would ever do that to begin with, but most people probably also don’t think they would until they’ve slid so far down a moral hill, all of a sudden it’s acceptable. “Say what you will about me, Zoey, but I don’t abandon my responsibilities. Never have, never will.”
As if to illustrate his point, Chloe goes, “Mm, this cookie is delicious.”
Baby sister, secret daughter—whatever she is to him, he does help take care of her. It doesn’t seem like anyone forces him to. Even today, he has her out of the house because he knows things will be tense there and that wouldn’t be good for her to be around. That is absolutely responsible behavior, and it sounds like his motivation to do it comes from within, not his mother or anyone else pressuring him to do it.
Instead of saying any of that, I pointedly start rearranging condiments, hoping he’ll see I’m busy and go away for the time being. “I don’t have daddy issues,” I tell him again. “And you don’t have any responsibilities attached to me. Behave yourself and we can keep it that way.”