Chapter 52

I’mantsy as we stand in the hallway outside the locked door, waiting to go inside. Carter’s head is bent in concentration as he taps numbers into an app on his phone, supposedly to disarm the alarm before we’ve even stepped foot inside.
“That should do it,” he murmurs, sliding his phone back into his pocket and pushing a key into the lock.
He pushes the door open and peeks inside. When there is no shrieking sound coming from the alarm, I assume the app worked.
Carter turns back to flash me a victorious smile, then grabs my suitcase and wheels it inside. I follow him more tentatively, watching his confident stride as he makes his way inside his new apartment.
It’s crazy to think he’s going to live here. Not only will he be living all by himself, but in the city. Well, I guess it’s not as big a deal to him seeing as he’s from here, but… God, what a life he leads.
Carter parks both our suitcases behind a charcoal gray couch in the living room. I’m overwhelmed by how nice this place is. It’s nothing like you would envision someone starting out in during college. The whole place has already been decorated by an expert, judging by the look of it.
To the right is a full kitchen with a compact island and three chairs on one side of it. There’s a dining table with bold red chairs in front of a huge window with a city view, and just past that is the study area. There’s a bookshelf with only a few books and some accent pieces to fill the empty space—clearly placeholders, until Carter makes the place his own. A desk is set up there, somewhere for him to do his homework after a long day of classes.
The living room is just beautiful. A big area rug covers the stunning hardwood floor, there’s a massive, gray, industrial-looking coffee table in front of the couch and a huge television mounted to the wall in front of it. There are end tables with stylish lamps that I love, but that a bachelor would never pick out for his home.
His home. This is going to be Carter’s home.
“Want to see the bedrooms?” Carter asks, once I’ve finished taking it all in.
I nod and follow him. When I was assigning the study area downstairs, I completely forgot he has an extra bedroom that has been turned into an actual study. Even more bookcases line one wall and there’s a gleaming mahogany desk set up in front of them.
“You can study in here,” he tells me, nodding toward the corner on his left hand side. “We can put your fish over here in a big aquarium so you’ll have your reading buddy close.”
I know he’s joking, but the sight of this place, the excitement and energy of this city in the couple hours we’ve been here… it’s just mean to make me imagine a version of life where I could live here with him. Where this could be my study, these shelves could be full of my books… this could be our life.
Trying to keep things light, I tell him, “I hope the wife you meet at Columbia enjoys it as much as I would.”
“Want me to fuck you on her desk?” he offers.
“Maybe later,” I murmur, backing out of that room and heading down the hall to the next white door. It’s just a bathroom, but for all I’ve heard about New York being incredibly cramped, it’s a nice sized bathroom. It has two sinks, two closets, and a bathtub where Chloe can take baths when she comes to visit.
Speaking of Chloe, the next room is hers. The pink walls are the first hint, but the interior decorator has already put some things in here, too. A nice white dresser with a huge mirror behind it and a ballerina lamp on top is at the front of the room. A full-sized bed is already made, complete with decorative pillows and pale pink bedding. There’s a white end table that matches the dresser and a princess lamp on top of that one. In the corner is a white bookshelf in the same style. A few kids’ books are already placed on the shelves along with a stuffed bear and a white unicorn, but like the living room shelves, it’s mostly placeholder stuff until Chloe makes it her own.
“This place is gorgeous, Carter. Truly.”
Taking my hand, he leads me to the next door. “Let’s check out our room.”
“Your future wife is going to be miffed when she finds out you had sex with someone else on all her things,” I inform him.
“Get in here,” he says, unconcerned about our impossible future as only Carter can be. He’s so accustomed to things working out the way he wants them to, maybe it really hasn’t hit him yet that we have a few more months, but when he comes to this city, he’ll have to come without me.
There have been moments where I thought about suggesting we extend things a little longer. After graduation, technically I could move to New York with him just for the summer, just until I have to start school in PA. The problem is, I think that will make it a million times harder. Even now I can tell these couple of days we’re visiting will haunt me, give me ideas of what could have been that I could have lived without, if only I hadn’t come on this trip.
I had to, though. If someone is going to take me to New York for the first time, it should be Carter.
Living here for the summer would be different, though. It wouldn’t feel like a weekend trip, it would feel like the start to a life I can’t keep living. It would make leaving much too hard, and undoubtedly cast a pall over what should be an exciting milestone in my life when I move to PA to start college.
The master bedroom door swings open and Carter steps inside. I follow him, a bit awed. This is the biggest room, and I have no doubt there are studio apartments in this city with less space. A king-sized bed is already made up in Longhorn colors—a coincidence, I hope, but I don’t know who gave these decorating orders. On the opposite side of the room is a couch, a coffee table, an end table with a lamp, and a television mounted to the wall in front of it. It’s basically a second living room in the bedroom.
That’s not even all there is. Once we’re in the door, I see the wall to my right has a dresser set up with an enormous mirror over it and a silver serving tray with a trio of candles as a centerpiece. There’s art on the walls in this room, and past the dresser is another door. I think it’s going to be the master bathroom, but when I step inside, I see it’s a walk-in closet.
“This place is bonkers,” I say, feeling Carter walking in behind me.
He passes me and keeps walking, running his hand across the smooth surface of the counter in the middle of the room. “I like it. When you’re taking too long getting ready for a date, I’ll come in, bend you over right here, and give you a good, hard fuck.”
“That’ll sure hurry me up,” I offer dryly. “Good thinking.”
He keeps walking, gesturing to the left side. “Your clothes can go over here.” At the end of the closet is a built-in with doors that close as well as some pull-out drawers. He checks out a few of them, then walks around the counter and glances at the racks on that side. “My stuff can go on this side.”
Mean, mean, mean.
Ignoring him, I turn on my heel and quit the closet. I check out the master bath next, trying not to let his commentary pollute my mind, but it’s hard. When he shows me where he’s going to fuck me in the large tiled shower, I’m tempted to take all my clothes off and hop in so we can try it out. When he runs his hands along the ‘his and hers’ sinks where I’ll get ready to go out with him on weekend nights, my mood sinks, because I can see that, too.
After the tour is finished, I return to the bedroom and climb up on the Longhorn blue bedspread. It’s so soft, I just want to lie down and get comfy. We need to unpack my clothes before they wrinkle, but for a moment, I lie back and stare up at the ceiling Carter will look at every night before he falls asleep. Every night when he’s living his life without me.
Carter lies back on the bed with me. Looking over at me and folding his hands over his abdomen, he asks, “What do you think?”
“I think it’s amazing,” I tell him, honestly. “You’re going to love living here. I’m so happy for you.”
“You could move here with me, you know.”
This is not the first time he has mentioned me moving here with him. It’s not the first time he has made the joke that my mom’s right, what do I need college for when I have him to foot the bill? I know he’s only joking and I know he probably really does wish I could move here with him, but after many hours online trying to imagine a new college into existence, I finally accepted that everything in this city is so far outside of my budget, I can’t even afford to think about it.
I know if I asked, Carter would try to find a way to help me pay for it, but that’s over the line. I’ll let him buy me a homecoming dress or even a plane ticket to New York, but he has offered those things, I have never asked. It’s too presumptuous to assume we will end up married, that the debt for enormous school loans would inevitably be ours, not just mine.
I may hope for the best, but I plan for the worst, and the worst case scenario is I give up a free ride at a great school to follow Carter to New York. Fast forward six months, I catch him with some vicious pre-law brunette who doesn’t even bother to cover up her perfect breasts when I walk in on them in our bed. Instead, she smirks at me, knowing she’s won the game and the prize is all hers now.
I trust Carter, but I also know I’ll always have to deal with other women chasing him. He’s too much of a catch, especially on the surface. The average woman won’t know his dark side or his baggage, but she’ll see his money in the clothes he wears, his intelligence in the classes they take together, how handsome he is because she will inevitably have eyeballs. Even if he’s never interested in anyone but me, there will be women who think they can steal him away from me—who will actively try. And while I do have faith in Carter, the reality is if the worst happened and I’d already given everything up for him, I would absolutely hate myself.
I can’t take that risk. I won’t.
I also can’t look at him when I’m thinking such awful things, so I sigh and look up at the ceiling instead.
“What’s wrong?” Carter asks.
“Nothing. Just thinking about the future.”
“You have your defensive, daddy issue face on,” he informs me. “Are you thinking about me on a beach with a super model again?”
Even though it’s hardly funny, I can’t help smiling faintly as this little game of Infidelity Clue he has gotten used to. It’s not the professor with the candlestick in the kitchen, but in my own personal hell, it’s some pretty girl in some location with the guy who’s supposed to be mine. He’s remarkably tolerant about my worries. Poking fun at them instead of getting annoyed seems to work for him, so I go with it.
“In this bed with a gorgeous but vicious future lawyer. She seduces you and ruins my life, then I hate myself because in this scenario, I gave up college in PA to move here and go to City College instead. Now my pride demands that I leave you, but I’m broke, so I end up in a shared studio apartment with a crazy, loud roommate, living on Ramen noodles and cursing your name.”
“A lot of scenarios end up with you cursing my name,” he points out.
“There are a lot of ways you could be a disappointing jerk,” I tell him.
“Maybe by the time I retire, you can tell me every last one of them,” he suggests.
“I think we’d need a couple lifetimes for that. The doubtful side of my mind is very prolific.”
Even though we’re just playing, he looks over at me seriously for a moment. “You know I love you, right?”
Guilt pinches me because I know these are my issues, not his. Since everything happened with Erika, Carter has been 100 percent trustworthy, and when I think about it logically, I really don’t believe he would do anything to jeopardize our relationship. It’s just that sometimes fear takes hold, a fear he isn’t even entirely responsible for putting there, and it makes me go to crazy places in my mind, places that convince me I need to protect myself from the one person in the world I want to give every bit of my trust to.
Trust is scary by nature, but I tell myself if Carter can trust me with his baggage, I can certainly trust him with mine. My baggage might be a nuisance sometimes, but his is next level, and I deal with all of it without complaint.
Being here like this, though, seeing the life I can’t have… it does kind of make me want to push him away. He’s giving me more to miss, and I had enough already.
As if he can read my mind and he wants to drive it home even more, he reaches over, snakes an arm beneath me, and tugs me against his side.
“Get over here, you.”
I wrap my arms around him and snuggle up close, but my mind won’t stop wandering to unpleasant places. Even things I was looking forward to are starting to wilt into unpleasantness. Conjuring an image of the twin-sized bunk bed in the dorm room I’ll share with three other girls… while Carter, bless his heart, is living like a king in New York, single and eligible, attending what would have been my dream school if my dreams weren’t grounded in reality. Even in the wildest of my dreams, I can’t go to Columbia, and he fell right into it. I hope he appreciates all of this, because Carter Mahoney is the luckiest person I have ever met.
“What are you thinking now?” he asks.
I sigh. “Impossible things. I wish long-distance wouldn’t be so hard.”
“Might not be as hard as you think,” he tells me. His tone is too blasé though, so I don’t believe him. He hasn’t considered how lonely he will be with a girlfriend too far away to ever spend the night with him. I have, and I have many rounds of Infidelity Clue to show for it.
“It wouldn’t be fair to either of us,” I tell him.
Carter is quiet for a moment, then he says words that turn my beating heart into an ice sculpture. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”
He’s never agreed with me before. I’m the one trying to keep us rooted in reality and Carter is the one blissfully positive that even if we only saw each other every other weekend for a single day, our relationship is worth hanging onto. Carter is the one who refuses to accept defeat, so if he is finally agreeing…
Well, it’s inconvenient that he finally came around on day one of this trip. It will probably be a little awkward now, walking around with someone I am 100 percent positive is my future ex-boyfriend.
The vicious brunette appears in my mind again, smirking because her family could afford to send her to Columbia, because she runs in Carter’s circles and is exactly the kind of girl he was meant to end up with. Me, I’m just the girl he was supposed to leave behind in Texas, and boy would she not shy away from telling me that.
“Your future wife’s a bitch,” I inform him, scooting out of his embrace so I can sit up.
Carter cracks a smile. “Hey, no one talks about my future wife like that.”
I wrinkle up my nose with displeasure and go to climb off the bed.
“Hey, where are you going?” he asks, grabbing my wrist and tugging me backward.
“We need to unpack. Everything your sister picked out for me is highly prone to wrinkling. Unless you want the first item on our itinerary to be a trip to an authentic New York dry cleaner, I need to hang up my clothes.”
Reluctantly, he lets me go. I leave him alone in the bedroom, coaching myself to get it together as I head toward the luggage. There is no reason to let our doomed future dull our enjoyment of this weekend. Knowing it will end doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy it while it’s happening, and Carter has really been looking forward to this trip. For that matter, so have I.
By the time I make it back to the bedroom, I am in better spirits. I hoist the suitcase up on the bed and unzip it, then Carter watches me unpack. He hasn’t told me any of the things we’ll be doing this weekend, but I trust him to take care of the planning. He knows New York much better from living here than I possibly could from hours of looking online.
I hope he takes me to see the tree at Rockefeller Center, though. I’d love to lace up some skates and stumble around on the ice with him. Afterward, we could warm up with some hot chocolate while we stroll through the lively city streets.
Carter is still on the bed, his weight propped up on his elbow. “What’s that smile for?” he asks.
“Just thinkin’ about touristy things. I hope you’re not opposed to doing touristy things just because you used to live here, because I am, in fact, a tourist.”
“There are touristy activities on the docket, don’t worry.”
I nod once. “Good. Also, I have decided to look on the bright side of all this. You and I are about to dive into a super exciting time in both our lives, and there’s no reason to let the inevitability of your bitchy future wife ruin it.”
He rolls on his back and props his hands behind his head. “Go on.”
“Until one of us isn’t single anymore, maybe I could still come visit you here during the school year. Obviously we would have to stop once one of us moves on, but…” I trail off, shrugging as I hang the last blouse on a hanger. “I don’t know, just something to think about.”
“You’ll do periodic booty calls, but not a long distance relationship?”
“Correct,” I tell him, crossing to the closet. The small amount of space my clothes take up in this closet is a bit pitiful, even though I only packed for the weekend. If I actually lived here, I probably wouldn’t fill much more space than this since I don’t have a large wardrobe. Closing the closet door, I tell him, “If we keep it casual, we don’t owe each other anything but honesty. You won’t be required to spend every night alone after a phone call with a girlfriend who lives in another state, and I won’t have to worry about all the sexy New York ladies who will inevitably throw themselves at you. When I’m not here, you can do whatever you want with whomever you want.”
“And you can do whatever you want with whomever you want.”
“Obviously.”
Carter shakes his head. “Nope.”
“Don’t shoot it down without consideration,” I tell him, taking a seat on the edge of the bed. “I know it’s not ideal, but it’s a way for us to still enjoy each other for a little longer without ripping my heart out.”
Without warning, Carter crawls over, pushes me back on the bed, and climbs on top of me. Cocking an eyebrow as he looks down at me, he reminds me, “Remember what I did last time I thought you were seeing another guy? It may not be easy to ruin some asshole’s life when he’s in PA and I’m here, but you better believe I’ll find a way.”
I crack a smile, grabbing his sides and rubbing affectionately. “No, it wouldn’t be like that. You and I would essentially have to evolve into friends with benefits. We couldn’t be possessive or we’d both be miserable.”
“I reject this proposition. I don’t want you to be my friend with benefits, I want you to be mine, period.”
Sighing and dropping my hands from his sides, I tell him, “I want that, too, but it’s not an option. I’m just trying to find a way to salvage things between us without ruining them.”
Carter takes my wrists and pins them over my head, then leans down so that his handsome face is much closer to mine. “As usual, Ellis, you’re thinking too small. Haven’t you learned by now, you’ve gotta go big or go home? Sometimes compromise is not the answer. Sometimes taking what you want is the answer.”
I open my mouth to offer the same cautious excuses he has already heard before, but instead of letting me utter them again, he covers my mouth with one hand.
“No. I wasn’t done talking,” he tells me. “I don’t want to hear how hard it would be. I don’t want to hear how I could potentially let you down and ruin your life. I’ve told you again and again, I am not going to ruin your life, only change it. When are you going to start believing me?”
He uncovers my mouth so I can answer. “Our fiftieth wedding anniversary?” I suggest.
“That’s a pretty long wait. How about our first wedding anniversary?”
“Are we getting married when we’re 69?”
Carter chuckles. “No, you psycho.”
“Then that’s too fast. I don’t see how I could possibly be sure you wouldn’t ruin my life by then.”
Suddenly cocky, Carter says, “Oh, I don’t know. I think you’ll be convinced a lot sooner than you think. Like, before the new year.”
Choking on a stifled laugh, I tell him, “You know December is nearly over, right?”
“Yep. I still have a couple tricks up my sleeve.”
Now it’s my turn to cock an eyebrow. “You think you can convince me with tricks?”
“I’m pretty sure. They’re really cool tricks.”
“You are unreasonably confident.”
“Usually. But it all ends up working out,” he says.
I don’t feel like wasting my energy—or more time in the city—arguing about it, so I settle with a simple, “We’ll see.”
Carter shakes his head at me. “I can’t decide if it’s me or you that you’re so intent on underestimating.”
That brings an immediate scowl to my face. “Excuse me? I don’t underestimate myself. I’m quite confident in my own abilities, thank you very much.”
“You are,” he says with a faint nod of acknowledgement. “When it comes to certain things, absolutely. But you have these blind spots, these bizarre specks of inferiority when it comes to just a few things. You keep trying to sell yourself on this narrative that I’m not serious about you, Zoey, but it’s wrong. I am serious about you, more serious than I’ve ever been about anything else in my life.”
“It’s not that I don’t think you’re serious about me,” I deny, but I don’t expand because I’m not sure how to refute his claim.
“College is another thing. It’s like you’re afraid to set your sights above a certain level, but you should. Maybe if you did, maybe if you aimed higher, you’d land there. How do you know if you’re afraid to try?”
“I’m not afraid. I’m realistic.”
“I think you’re slapping a label on fear and calling it realism,” he tells me. “You weren’t afraid to take a gamble on me, but now that college and the future is calling, all of a sudden, you’re playing it safe.” Holding my gaze, he shakes his head. “We don’t play it safe, Ellis. We don’t turn away from what we want because it might end up hurting a little if it goes sideways. We trust each other to be there to pick up the pieces if it does. So, either you’re being a chicken shit, or you’re not trusting me. Tell me which one it is.”
I wrinkle up my nose and whack him in the stomach, not appreciating being called out on my own bullshit. “It is not being a chicken shit not to throw caution to the wind and trash my life plans so I can join you chasing yours.”
“What if mine are better?” he suggests. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but your life plans are mediocre. A mediocre school, a mediocre setting. I know you’ve worked your ass off to achieve it, and maybe that was the ceiling for you before you met me, but it isn’t now. Don’t you get that? I can take you higher. You let me use you all the damn time. Use me.”
I feel like my heart is in my throat, him lecturing me this way. It’s not unheard of for him to call me out, but normally, he doesn’t need to. Normally, I’m not acting like a chicken shit.
I shake off his words and pull up my facts. “If I went to City College, it would cost me $20,000 a year more than the private school in Pennsylvania, Carter. Over the course of a bachelor’s degree, that’s a lot of money. And I don’t want to go to City College, I want to go to the one where I earned a free ride. I like the school in PA, I like the campus—”
“Like, like, like. Do you like me, or do you love me?”
Huffing, I tell him, “That’s not fair. You’re not a college.”
“You love me,” he states. “And I love you. Even aside from wanting to be with you, I want more for you than mediocrity. More than anyone else I have ever met, you deserve it.”
Folding my arms across my chest, I echo his own sentiment right back at him. “People don’t always get what they deserve, remember?”
“Not always, but in this instance, you can. Just let me give it to you.”
I should feel better about the offer I know is coming, but with him offering to help me pay for school if I go here, I have one less excuse. Clearly, whether or not I actually like the school I attend is lower on his priority list than location. “Do you want me to have regrets? You’re askin’ me to go all-in on the success of our relationship, because if I make this compromise, if I go to the school I don’t want to go to and then we break up? I will regret making this decision.”
Apparently unconcerned, Carter shakes his head. “I’m not asking you to make that kind of compromise. I’m not asking you to do anything you would regret in the unlikely event that it doesn’t work out between us.”
“But you are.”
He’s quiet for a moment, holding my gaze, then he says, “I’m not talking about City College, Zoey.”
“That’s the only college in the city that—”
He doesn’t let me finish. He cuts me off and steals all of my words by saying, “I got you an interview at Columbia.”
Everything stops for a moment. I stare up at him, afraid to breathe. He stares down at me, awaiting a response. His words play in my head again, but I can’t entirely absorb them. They don’t make sense—the words are too incredible to be true, aren’t they? I know Carter gets shit done when he wants to, but there’s no way…
He got me an interview at Columbia?
Finally, I manage to ask, “What—what do you mean? What kind of interview?”
“An interview,” he says, meaningfully. “An admissions interview.”
My stomach drops and my head shakes of its own volition. “That’s impossible. I didn’t even apply to Columbia, and they—”
“It’s not impossible, because it’s done,” he says, not bothering to let me argue. Reaching down and tenderly pushing his fingers through my hair, he says, “I couldn’t say anything to you until I knew for sure I could pull it off because I didn’t want to risk you being disappointed, but I’ve been working on it like a pet project. Padded your resume a bit, had Kasey offer you the book reviews so you can list the school paper. Bought you all those ACT books and left you to your studying so you’d hopefully do well enough to meet their general admissions criteria. Letting you have salutatorian can’t hurt. I figured it would help if you met their standards on your own, but I’ve been talking to my Columbia contact about you, stressing that in order to perform as well as I want to for them, it would really help me if I could bring my brilliant girlfriend with me.”
Covering my face with my hands, I tell him, “You probably oversold me. They’ll meet me and be expecting Einstein with boobs.”
“Nah. They know the score. Unless you drool your way through the interview and can’t string a sentence together, they’ll make sure you get in. When there’s a student they want to let in, they search their admissions materials for reasons to justify their admission, and you have plenty.”
“But I’m nobody,” I say, shaking my head in disbelief. “I mean, yeah, I have the grades, but… I can’t believe they want to let me in. Just because you asked them to?”
“Asked? I’ve fucking campaigned,” he says lightly. “I knew getting you into Columbia was the only nice way to get you to move here with me, so I did what I had to do. Usually for special admissions like this, they would look at a prospective student’s family to see if they’re worth letting in. Obviously your family isn’t worth bending admission standards for, but mine?” None too modestly, he shrugs. “In addition to all of your hard work and all my campaigning, my dad is making a sizable donation to the university on your behalf.”
That admission warms my heart and blows my mind. I don’t know how to process what he just said. “For me?”
“For you. For us,” he amends.
This is too much. I don’t even know what to say, how to express my confusion or my gratitude. “But why? Why would he do that for me?”
Cocking his head to the side in a guilty fashion, Carter says, “I may have told him some things to give him incentive. Things I’ve done to you. Things you could potentially tell people about down the road, if you didn’t like me so much. Things that might derail that career in law I’m planning to pursue. Wouldn’t make the family look too good, either.”
My eyes widen as I take his meaning. “You told him about that?
Shameless as he is, Carter smirks. “Even embellished a little to really drive home the point of how much damage you’re capable of inflicting, if we didn’t make some gesture to keep you on our good side.”
I’m glad he finds this so amusing, because I’m starting to sweat. “Are you crazy, Carter? He really will send a hitman after me!”
Carter shakes his head dismissively. “I told you, my dad fights potential scandal with his checkbook, not hitmen. He wasn’t too thrilled that he had to pay off another girl, but I assured him you’ll be the last. I’m keeping you, and that’ll keep me in line.”
He’s completely crazy, but as he bends down to kiss me, I can’t help wrapping my arms and legs around him and pulling him down on top of me so I can properly kiss him back. “I can’t believe you told your father about that. You are absolutely insane, but you’re wonderful. Your father must think I’m crazy to be in a relationship with you after all that.”
Brushing my hair back, Carter shakes his head. “Nah. He knows there are a lot of behaviors women will tolerate if it comes with a comfortable living.”
I lose my smile, reaching up to caress his face. “You know it has absolutely nothing to do with that for me, right?”
Touching my hand on his face, he offers me a little smile. “Of course I do. That’s none of his business, though. Let him believe whatever makes sense to him. As long as you get to go to Columbia and I get to keep you with me, I don’t care what he thinks.”
“I can’t believe you did all this for me, Carter. This is huge. This is… life-changing.”
Capturing my hand and bringing it to his lips, he presses a soft kiss there. “I’d do anything for you.”
And there it is. Not just his words or his enormous gesture, but that look in his eyes, the one that communicates all the love he has for me. That’s the reason I believe his promises. The reason I believe in him, period. Whatever wickedness he’s capable of, Carter doesn’t want to lose me. He may be hell on wheels sometimes, he may be a challenging, difficult guy with as many issues as he has privileges, but when he looks me in the eye after all this and tells me he would do anything for me, no part of me doubts that he means it. Scary as it can be sometimes, Carter would do anything for me.
“Someday, you’re not going to get something you want,” I inform him. “But today is not that day.”
Grinning, he pecks me on the lips. “Finally convinced being with me won’t ruin your life?”
I nod my head. “This may have done it. There’s no way I can afford the tuition, but for Columbia, I’ll take on some debt. Hopefully I can get the loans I need to pay for it.”
“No need. My dad’s paying your tuition. Part of your pay-off deal.”
Pumping my fist in the air, I say, “Yes!” Grabbing his face, I demand, “Do you know what this means? We’re going to Columbia together. I can save you from your bitchy future wife!”
“And warm my bed every night,” he adds.
“This is why you weren’t worried about long-distance,” I realize. “You knew we wouldn’t have to do it. You knew I was moving here with you all along and you’ve just been torturing me.”
“I had to. Just in case I couldn’t get everybody on board. Imagine how much more disappointed you would have been if I told you I’d try to get you in, and then I couldn’t. It was much better as a surprise.”
“Did Caroline know?”
“Yes. She knew she had to help you pick out an outfit for your Columbia interview, but I told her not to say anything.”
“And Kasey? Did she know you were trying to pad my resume?”
“I told her for college, but I didn’t specify which one. I knew Caroline would keep my secrets, I didn’t trust your friends to.”
“You’re amazing,” I tell him, kissing the side of his face. “And wonderful,” I add, dropping a kiss at the corner of his mouth. “And incredible.” Another kiss. “Thank you so much for doing this, Carter. This is above and beyond anything I’ve ever hoped for.”
His tone is light, but his eyes are solemn as he tells me, “I’m the one who should be thanking you. You’re above and beyond anything I’ve ever hoped for. I never even knew to look for you, but I sure am glad I stumbled across you.”
I feel a pang of affection as my heart fills up. I wrap my arms around him to draw him as close to me as possible. It sure has been a hell of a ride and I haven’t always been thrilled to have encountered Carter Mahoney, but at the end of the day, despite pushing past—and sometimes exploding—my comfort zones, he has opened up parts of me I didn’t even know were closed, and I think it’s for the best. In all honesty, I don’t want to be the kind of person who is so afraid of leaving my comfort zone, I become imprisoned by it. I don’t want to be a person who is afraid to be challenged.
Truthfully, I’d rather be captivated by Carter than be comfortable any day.
In all the ways that matter, I make Carter better, and I think he makes me better, too. He needs a little taming, and I need a little shove sometimes. Carter can love me and challenge me at the same time, and I can keep him from being too catastrophic. Oh, and keep him happy. I’m pretty proud of that.
I know life with Carter won’t always be easy. Sometimes he’ll be mean and pushy, and I’ll have to stand my ground until he finds a way around it. He probably will, too. He’ll always try to outsmart me, try to find alternative paths to getting his way, even when I don’t want to give it to him. That doesn’t annoy me, though. That has been our dynamic since day one; I’m almost looking forward to taking him on again and again.
Whatever life with Carter will be like, it will never be boring.