Page 148 of Trusting You
“From my sister. You should at least hear my side.”
Her breath is so heavy it blows pieces of my hair. “Do you have something different to say other than you bet your friends you could bang Paige and win?”
I tilt my head to try and get a better look at her. “Okay, that’s true, but—”
“What? You fucked Paige for money. Got it.”
I’m strangely insulted. “I’m not a prostitute.”
“No, you’re worse,” she says as the doors open, and she pushes me out. “You’re a player.”
I’ve never felt my dick cut off more than when a woman who’s pissed at me is pushing my wheelchair and aiming for every pothole and uneven surface she can find.
“Carter,” I try again, gritting my teeth. Lily’s loving the ride. “I was dumb, okay? A definite idiot, but Paige was a big girl. My reputation wasn’t exactly secret.”
“That’s about the only thing you’ve made public.” Bang. She found a gap in the sidewalk. “Next thing you’re going to say is you showed her a good time.” Bang.
Well, yeah, I did. But I didn’t dare say it out loud. “Paige was up for it. I don’t sleep with unwilling women.”
“Did she know about the bet?”
I sigh. Wrong move. “No, but she knew we weren’t a sure thing.”
Carter parks me beside a black Camry and opens the passenger door. “Can you get in by yourself?”
“Yes,” I say, louder than I need to, but needing to grab something of myself back.
She takes Lily, and I lift up with my arms, fighting back noises of exertion. I refuse to be any less in front of Carter.
At last, I get in and buckle my seat belt. When Lily’s strapped in beside me and Carter’s in the front seat, the driver pulling out onto the road, I’m fairly certain Carter prefers a silent trip.
Instead, she asks quietly, “And your mom? Why didn’t you tell me about her?”
I stare out the side window. “I don’t talk about my mom. To anyone. I didn’t intentionally exclude you.” I add, “You, of all people, know how hard it is to cope with.”
She doesn’t have anything to say to that, but I don’t feel like I’ve won.
“Paige had her own mind, made her own decisions,” Carter says. The driver pretends he’s not paying attention, but I sense he knows a juicy conversation when he hears one. “I’m not calling her a victim. But it kills me, Locke, murders me, that she didn’t know she was a bet. That Lily was created from some joke between you and your friends.”
“Hey. Paige was not a joke.”
“Oh, no?”
I tighten my jaw. How do I explain this? How do I properly transcribe submitting to college dares, thinking you’re being cool, barely understanding the concept of hurting others?
“I can’t excuse what we did, or the number of girls I probably hurt throughout college,” I say. “And I don’t know how I would’ve reacted to Paige’s pregnancy had I been made aware of it two years ago.”
Carter scoffs, and I grind my molars harder. “I’m pretty sure what would’ve happened.”
“To say I’m not that guy anymore is putting it lightly.” I’m frustrated I’m talking to a headrest instead of face-to-face with Carter, and I’m certain she’s orchestrated it that way. But I won’t let it dilute my chances of getting through to her. “I wasn’t going down a good path back then, and I continued the descent after graduating. I’d achieved everything I wanted. Got my football career off the ground, signed a badass rookie contract, and was set up for life. And yet, all I wanted to do was drink. Screw around. Be a dick. Astor called it denial. My buddies called it mommy issues behind my back, but I knew they said it because they were right. I wasn’t coping with my mom’s death properly.”
Carter remains silent, her expression indiscernible. All I have to go on is her hair, and it’s still as a placid river.
“When I was tackled on the field for the last time, I still didn’t get it,” I continue. “I used it as an excuse to be an even sorrier asshole. It gave me more time to drink; it introduced me to delicious pills, and it wasn’t because of the taste. I had my escape. The whole time, I thought football was my escape. Nah. Drugs were where it was at. I could really check out then.”
Carter’s profile moved toward me in the barest fraction.
“If it weren’t for Ben…for Ash and Easton, I’d still be that way. They helped me kick the drug habit, but they couldn’t help with the drinks. I liked myself drunk a helluva lot more than I tolerated myself sober. And like I said to them, it was gonna take something world-ending, a moment of such upheaval that it has to be short of death—to make me give up that bottle.” I give an empty laugh and glance over at my daughter. “Turns out, that kind of Armageddon is entirely possible.”