Page 31 of I Think He Knows
Fanfreakingtastic.
I’m definitely awake. Because my dreams would never do me dirty like this.
“Imani lent that to me,” I lie swiftly. When in doubt, blame your coworker, as the famous saying goes. Not because I’m ashamed to be reading a spicy book, but because the trope of this particular spicy book hits a bit too close to home.
As in,I wish.
Wished.
Past tense, remember? I’m no longer the Lana Mae with a hopeless unrequited crush. Now, I’m the Lana Mae who goes out with rude doctors and gets pulled over by even ruder cops.
“It’s funny. And hot.” He looks me up and down, then grins cheekily. “Nice pants, Llama. Those new?”
“Har har. Are you gonna tell me what on earth you’re doing here?”
In my bed.
And not Freya’s.
Carter sets down my book and smiles a tad sheepishly, a flush touching his cheeks. “Oh, yeah. Sorry to show up in your room like a creep. You weren’t downstairs and I heard the TV so I figured you weren’t asleep. I came over to bring you post-date snacks. Just in case the doctor was a health nut and didn’t want to order any dessert.”
He holds up a bulging grocery bag as proof, and I can’t help but smile. This man knows me so well. I’mthatperson—the one who goes to the grocery store with great intentions, buys a cartful of healthy food… then two nights later ends up raiding her pantry and snacking on old Halloween candy because she didn’t have the foresight to buy proper junk food for soothing PMS and bad days at work. Or in this case, bad dates.
It’s a vicious cycle, but Carter is one step ahead of me, as per usual. Even with the thousands of miles separating us the majority of the time, he still knows all the little things that make me tick.
“Thanks…” I sit on the edge of the bed beside him—woah, it’s been a long time since we sat on my bed together—and accept the bag. “But I know you didn’t take a four hour flight to bring me chocolate.”
“Okay, okay, the snacks were my excuse. I needed to talk to you about something and felt it would be better to do it person than over the phone. Hence the surprise bedroom appearance.”
I can’t believe that Carter bailed on whatever he was meant to be doing with Freya DiMauritz tonight to fly across the country to talk to me about something. But I’m too exhausted at this moment to read into what could possibly be going on.
“But first and much more importantly, how did the date go?” He flashes me a dimpled smile as he leans back, supporting his weight on the mattress with his hands in a way that makes his corded arms flex tantalizingly.
He’s been gorgeous from the moment I met him, but it sometimes dazzles me that this twenty-eight-year-old manly man is the same person as the nineteen-year-old boyish man-in-progress who drove to the store to grab extra diapers for Allegra when I ran out at 11pm one night. He came home with six different boxes of Huggies and Pampers because he didn’t know which ones to get, plus Reese’s peanut butter cups—my favorite—because he thought I might need the, and I quote, “moral support only chocolate can provide.”
Tonight, his shopping bag of goodies has my still-favorite lying on top. It reminds me that, though so much has changed over the years, some things remain exactly the same. Carter is still Carter—the best man I’ve ever met. And I will always make sure I’m a supportive friend to him, too. He’s an only child, with parents he’s not close to, and he was a bit of a one-man island when I met him. He had casual friends, lots of girls lining up to shoot their shot with him, but he kept everyone at arm’s length. Didn’ttrulytrust anyone.
He was paying his own way through college when I met him, and he had no concrete idea what he wanted to do with his life. But Carter was so… unique. I knew he was special, destined for big things. He had so much drive and ambition, this unbelievablehungerto prove himself, and yet, he was aimless. Had this energy but nowhere to go with it.
Which is why, when he started finding his groove with acting and the opportunity for him to go to LA presented itself, I threw myself behind him. Encouraged him to go and became that person who would always stand in his corner. Because no man is really an island.
It was right then that I realized I loved him. Truly loved him. Because I let him go when everything in me was screaming for him to stay, stay, stay.
“How did it go, you ask?” I look at Carter sheepishly. “Well, there may have been a small fire involved.”
“Of course there was.” He grins. “Do go on.”
“Well, basically, my hair committed arson. And then I got pulled over on suspicion of driving under the influence.”
Carter shuffles his position to look at me through narrowed eyes. “I’m going to go ahead and assume that you weren’t actually drunk driving.”
“I was not. I was pulled over for driving like a blind octogenarian.” I rub the back of my neck and make a face. “Yup. I was driving so badly, the guy rudely assumed me to be inebriated.”
Carter laughs. “That sounds more like you.”
“Hey!” I protest, but he raises his brows and I accept defeat. I am a super competent person, in general—I’m one of the top agents at my office, I mow my own lawn, clean my gutters, and can change a tire with my eyes closed—but I do not have the best driving record, and my car has the scars to prove it.
In my defense, why are there always so many poles in parking lots? It’s like they exist to beckon you to back into them.