Page 40 of Trusting You
“No, we don’t. I work from home for the most part.”
Silence fills our space as she waits for me to elaborate. I stop typing and say to her, “I’m freelance.”
She angles her head. “Freelance what?”
I make my tone uncaring with a touch of flirt and my killer smile. “Freelance bachelor.”
She frowns, but I don’t fill in the creases. After my injury on the field, my contract with the football league still paid in full. It was a rookie contract, but in professional football, it was more of a salary than most college grads on the fast track to corporate success could put together. I’d been living off that for the past year—that, and beer. Then it was beer and pain killers, which was a scary few months the boys and I don’t talk about.
It’d been fine. Comfortable, even. And since learning Lily was a part of me, I hadn’t touched either. Been going back to the gym, working on physical therapy for my leg. Thinking about what kind of career I should go for.
Except, now that Carter’s on her knees in front of me, and not in the way I’m used to, I feel weird about my past and current situation. Like a thick syrup has painted my gut. Like there’s something I need to be ashamed of.
I don’t like it.
I know I have to clean up my act for Lily, and it’s exactly what I promised the social workers casing my joint like I was guaranteed to jam Lily’s finger into an electrical socket.
I may feel sorry for myself, but I’m no moron. Lily means a lot, and there’s no way I’m going to turn out to be her loser father. She’s not going to look at me the way Astor looks at our dad. No fucking way.
Carter doesn’t ask any further questions. She stands, and, just like that, exits the apartment.
When she comes back, and I’ve put Lily to sleep for the night, she’s hooked something up for herself.
Just like that.
If someone told me that after injuring my knee and having my dreams snuffed out in the form of one bad tackle, all I had to do was roll off my couch and travel a few blocks to find other employment, I would’ve thrown a crutch at them. Yet here Carter is, less than seventy-two hours in a new state without even a second pair of pants to her name, and she’s employed.
“Freelance,” she says breezily as she makes her way to the kitchen to prepare dinner, and just as she meant it to, I feel the bite. “I didn’t want anything full-time since my priority is to have time with Lily.”
I set my computer beside me on the couch. “Understood.”
Something must have made her want to tell me anyway, because she adds while searching through the silverware drawer, “It’s at the coffee shop down the road. They’re letting me display some of my art.”
“Art?”
I don’t think I’ve ever met a bona fide artiste. I picture Carter in a room full of windows, with those white boards…what do you call ‘em? Oh yeah, canvas, surrounding her. Bathed in sunlight. She’s in a smock—an apron thing spotted with stains and color at the center of the room—paintbrush in hand, guiding strokes against the white, the apron lifting slightly, and…
I’m unable to imagine any clothes on her. Apron only.
I rub at my chin to dislodge the image of her hot body—which she’s made difficult since her impromptu show for the boys and me—and give my jeans a good readjustment.
Carter shrugs while searching my drawers for…some kind of utensil that I probably don’t have.
“I painted. Paint. Before Lily was born, that’s what I was pursuing. Sophie—my roommate—can ship some pieces I can display over there.”
Lured by both the delicious smells going on in the frying pan and Carter’s story, I get my ass off the couch and head over.
“What happened after Lily was born?”
Carter’s body language is dismissive, but I can spot an act when I see it. “Money was an issue. It was only Paige and me, and she…she didn’t want to put Lily up for adoption. So we sat down, and we figured it out. With her income, plus anything I could find with a moderate salary, we could make it work. Line up our vacation days so there’d be someone with the newborn in the beginning. Paige’s job didn’t give paid maternity leave.”
“So, you dropped everything to help out Paige and the baby.”
Another shrug as she dumps onions and garlic in the sizzling olive oil. “It was a no-brainer.”
Unbelievable. This girl put everything in her future on hold for a baby that wasn’t even hers.
“Why didn’t she tell me?” I ask.