June 2025 #4
He’d been using her the entire time. Hooking up with a college student five years younger because it was easy and convenient.
Because Carly had a painfully obvious crush on him and he liked the attention (not to mention, he liked being able to sleep at her place without taking the Google bus back to the city).
Nate was right; there had been all sorts of red flags.
The way Thomas ghosted her for weeks at a time, claiming he was busy with work, or the fact that he barely introduced her to his friends.
She needed to call Google’s HR department and tell them she wasn’t coming back.
How could she set foot on that campus and see Thomas again?
Even if they weren’t in the same group, she would inevitably run into him.
But every time she picked up the phone, she set it down again.
She couldn’t bring herself to formally decline her offer.
All the drama about Thomas aside, she had loved that job. So much.
Carly walked through the empty hallways of Tree Fort, feeling oddly like she’d entered the zombie apocalypse.
She’d never seen the house this empty, this clean.
It was usually full of music and laughter, stray jackets tossed on couches, coffee mugs abandoned on the counter.
But all her friends had moved out within the past couple days, heading to apartments in San Francisco, or to the East Coast, or, in Anna’s case, to a new job with Teach for America.
At the door to her old bedroom, Carly flicked on the lights.
Everything was exactly as she’d left it a week ago, before she’d fled to Texas: the bed unmade, dirty clothes still in the hamper in the corner.
The realization of all she had lost—giving up on graduation, on the chance to say goodbye—it made her want to curl up on the bed and cry.
But as her grandmother always said, Hard things don’t get easier if you put them off.
If she was going to do this, she might as well do it now.
Carly began sorting through her closet, folding sweaters and sundresses, rolling up a yoga mat for donation, recycling old handouts from school. At the sight of a black beanie marked with the Google logo, she went still.
It was the hat Thomas had placed on her head, affectionately tucking her hair behind her ears, the night it all began. An artifact of a relationship that never existed.
She should have been warned, Carly thought wearily, by the fact that the only gift Thomas had ever given her was a piece of free corporate swag.
At the scrape of a key in the front door, she shot to her feet.
For an illogical moment, Carly thought it was Thomas. She knew that made no sense, and yet she stood, fists clenched in confrontation—
“Liana?”
Nate was here, calling out for someone named Liana. The realization carved through Carly’s already-hollow chest. “It’s me,” she called out.
Moments later, Nate stood at the door to her room. “Carly,” he said cautiously, almost hesitantly. “I didn’t know you were coming back.”
“I’m just here to move out my things.” Carly gestured needlessly to the mess of clothes that surrounded her, half-sorted into the two empty suitcases.
“Right.”
Nate lingered awkwardly in her doorway. Distance yawned between them and grief hit Carly all over again.
This was Nate, who’d driven her through In-N-Out more times than she could count, passing a chocolate milkshake back and forth as they each took sips.
Nate, who had dragged her to a country western bar when she got homesick freshman year, listening as she belted out Trisha Yearwood and taught him how to line dance.
Nate, who’d always been there for her no matter what.
Who knew her better than anyone, because she’d always been wholly and completely herself with him.
She realized now how much she had diminished herself with Thomas—trying to make herself into the girl he would want to date, too afraid of losing him to question the way he treated her.
“Are you heading home after you pack?” Nate asked.
“I guess so?” It came out like a question.
Nate leaned against the doorframe, his dark eyes on hers. “If you need somewhere to crash while you figure out what’s next, you can always come stay with me and Lucas. It’s a really small house,” Nate said quickly. “But you can have one of the rooms.”
“That’s sweet of you to offer, but I’m okay,” Carly forced herself to say, though she longed to accept. “I need to…I shouldn’t…”
To her mortification, she was crying. Something that seemed to be happening with alarming frequency these days.
“Hey, it’s okay.” Nate stumbled forward and pulled her into a hug, the way he had so many times throughout their friendship.
A friendship that she had always taken for granted.
A friendship that had never grown into anything more because of timing—because, for so long, Nate had been dating Emma, and then, when he was finally single, Carly had become consumed with thoughts of Thomas.
Who had been all wrong for her the entire time.
Carly had run off to Texas because she wanted space, but that space had only revealed what she really needed. The person right in front of her.
For a moment, Carly let herself lean into Nate. She closed her eyes, relishing the warmth of his chest, the sensation of being held and cherished.
Then she took a step back, tucking her hair behind her ears. “I’m sorry,” she said hastily. “I shouldn’t—I know I’m too late for us, that I blew it, and I’ll get out of your hair—”
Nate stared at her in confusion. “What are you talking about?”
“I heard you when you walked in. You were looking for someone named Liana.” Carly forced herself to add, “She’s your new girlfriend, right?”
“Liana is the head of the new pass-down group,” Nate said, bewildered. “The seniors who are taking over our lease of the house.”
“Oh,” Carly breathed. “Oh.”
Then she did the only thing that made sense. She fisted her hands in Nate’s shirt, tugged him toward her, and kissed him.
Nate was startled at first, but after a moment of surprise, she felt him lean into the kiss, opening his mouth beneath hers.
Carly arched her back, looping her arms around his shoulders, playing with the soft curls of his hair.
It felt impossible that she and Nate had been friends for years and yet she was still learning so many electrifying new things about him.
If she’d ever thought of kissing Nate (okay, yes, Carly had imagined it), she’d assumed that kissing him would be sweet, warm, deliberate.
Because Nate was sweet and warm and deliberate.
But this kiss was something else entirely—eager and white-hot and all-consuming.
It made Carly want to tug him back onto the bed right this minute and lock the door.
It was like no kiss Carly had ever experienced in her life, but that made sense. Things had always been different with Nate.
When they finally pulled apart, Nate stared at her with something like wonder. “Sorry,” he said, “but I thought—are you rebounding from Thomas, or was that real?”
“I don’t want to ever think about Thomas again,” Carly said emphatically.
Though she would have to think about him, in order to do what came next.
Why should Carly walk away from a future at Google just because she and Thomas had an ugly history?
He should be the one to leave, go find another group or leave the company altogether.
He was the one who’d violated company policy, sleeping with an intern.
If she reported him to HR, he would be fired, not her.
Not that Carly planned to report him. She just intended to remind Thomas of that fact and make sure he stayed out of her way.
“But…when I asked if you wanted to come live at the house, you said no,” Nate replied, confused.
“Nate. I can’t work for you, or live with you, if I’m going to date you.” Carly realized how that had come out and hurried to add, “I mean—if you want to date, that is.”
Nate broke into a grin that lit up the dreary little room. “Carly Miller. Surely you know that I’ve wanted to date you the entire time I’ve known you.” He held out a hand like a character in a Disney movie. “Shall we?”
“Shall we…” Carly waited for him to finish the sentence, and he smiled even wider.
“Go on a date.”
“Right now?”
“Like I said, I’ve wanted to go on a date with you for a long time. I’m not losing my chance now that you’ve finally said yes.”
“I’ve finally said yes?” she cut in with a smile, an eyebrow lifted. “I’m sorry, but I was the one who was available for most of college while you were—”
“I think we can both agree that our timing has been atrocious,” Nate said quickly, his smile matching hers. “But we’re here now.”
“We’re here now,” Carly repeated. She wasn’t quite sure where here was; she still had so much to figure out. None of which seemed to matter as long as she had Nate.
He laced his fingers with hers. “Let’s go on a date,” he said again. “And then we’ll come back and finish packing your stuff, together.”
Together. The thought of being alone with Nate in this empty house made Carly go hot all over in the most delicious, delirious way.
“I’m a very efficient packer,” she said meaningfully.
Nate leaned over to drop one more kiss on her mouth, then started toward the door. But there was one more thing Carly had to do before she could fully begin things with Nate.
She bent down to grab the Google beanie from the floor, tossing it in the garbage can on her way out.