15. Not a Fan, Karma #2
“Don’t you fucking say there’s nothing going on between us!
” I’m shouting again and I hate it. I get worked up easily and I’m really on edge right now.
I’m loud and demanding and I like to be in control, and right now, all I’m doing is losing all semblance of control.
This girl owns me— for some fucking reason —and I refuse to let her make the wrong decision for both of us.
So I stalk toward her, backing her into the wall. Her whiskey eyes widen, that bottom lip doing a full tremble now. I grip her biceps, willing her to look at me as I steady my breathing.
“Stop it. Stop pretending like you aren’t scared out of your mind right now, like that hasn’t been the only thing holding you back this entire time.
And that’s not my ego talking, by the way.
It’s my brain, because I can see what’s right in front of me, and that’s you, beautiful, sarcastic, smart, strong, sensitive, and fucking scared of the way you feel for someone you never wanted or intended to have feelings for. ”
Her phone slips from her shaking hands and clatters to the ground and I scoop it up before she can. My face fills the screen, except it’s not only mine. Over and over again, picture after picture of me with my arm wrapped around a different woman, heading into my condo, into hotels.
I’m not sure if that’s the worst part. It might be the headline, the one with today’s date beneath it.
“New Year, Same Carter: Carter Beckett’s Twelve Hottest Conquests and What We Can Expect of Him This Year”
I look to Olivia. The weight of the turmoil she wears, the sympathy, the fear, all of it is heavy, turning down the edges of her mouth, guiding her gaze downcast.
“This isn’t me.” I tip her chin up, stealing her gaze. “This doesn’t have to be me.”
Her voice cracks when she finally speaks.
“How can you promise that? We barely know each other. You admitted last night that you didn’t know if a relationship was what you wanted.
Christ, Carter, look at that!” She gestures at her phone in my hand.
“I can’t compete with that, not even in my own head, which is where it’s most important.
You may think I’m strong but I have no qualms admitting that I’m way too insecure to pretend that how many gorgeous women you’ve been with doesn’t absolutely fucking terrify me, that I wouldn’t be constantly waiting for you to get bored of me.
” She presses her fingertips to her forehead like she’s got a headache. “You have a condo for sex.”
It’s technically not why I have it, more so why I haven’t ever gotten rid of it, but I’m not sure making that distinction right now would help my case.
“None of those women mean anything to me, Olivia.”
“I got so wrapped up in you last night, lost so much control, that we didn’t think to wear a condom. That’s so reckless.”
I rub at my neck. “I don’t have girls here, Olivia.
Ever. I wasn’t lying.” Maybe it’s a piss-poor excuse, but I don’t have a single condom stashed in the house.
The condo, sure, drawers full. I do keep one in my wallet, but that was stored down here in the entryway table, and in the heat of the moment…
“Are you not on the pill?” Fuck. Didn’t I ask her this?
“I’m on the pill, but…” She trails off as her gaze settles on the lump between my legs.
“I’m clean,” I whisper. If I sound defeated, it’s because I fucking am.
She’s never going to get over my past. “That’s the first time I…
” First time I went in bare, but I don’t finish that thought out loud.
“I get tested.” My throat is tight and dry.
“I don’t want you to go. I like you, and you said you like me too. ”
“I do like you. I like what you’ve shown me, what I’ve learned, but there are other things I’ve seen…
” She squeezes her eyes shut and shakes her head.
“I wish I could overlook everything else and jump right in. But I don’t know how, Carter, because when I look down, there’s not a single part of me that can see the ground.
I don’t want messy and scary. I want steady and sure. ”
Steady and sure, got it. I can be steady and sure. I can figure it out.
“Listen, I know I’m not boyfriend material, but I can try. Really, I can. I’ll be good. I’ll-I’ll—”
She places her hand on my chest, stopping me. “I don’t want you to change for me, Carter. This, us…It was a mistake.”
Ouch. I step back, rubbing my palm across my chest, trying to soothe the sharp pain that passes through it. Olivia’s gaze softens as she watches me.
“I’m not trying to hurt you.”
“It sure as hell doesn’t feel that way,” I bite back, because everything fucking hurts.
“I’m sorry. I really am.”
“You don’t have to be sorry. You just have to trust me.”
Her eyes fall shut, shoulders slumping. “I wish I could, but I don’t know how to.” She reaches out, taking her hand in mine, clutching it to her chest. “We’re not right for each other.”
“How do you know that? Everything has felt right since I met you. It hasn’t been easy, but it’s felt right.”
It would have been na?ve for me to think it would be easy, that we’d be able to fall into some sort of…
relationship. But after last night, I thought she’d give me a chance.
I thought she’d at least consider it. Consider me.
I’m fucking trying here. I’ve decided what I want.
Isn’t it supposed to be easy from here on out?
I understand the hesitation, the fear. How can I not?
The media isn’t blowing smoke; my reputation is exactly the way it’s been painted.
She’s allowed to be terrified. I’m terrified.
I’m in unchartered waters here. I’m scared I’ll hurt her.
I’m scared I don’t know how to be a partner.
I’m scared that this could…work. I’m scared that she could be my forever. Christ, that’s petrifying.
But right now, I’m most terrified that she’s going to walk out that door and never come back.
“I don’t know,” she admits. “I don’t know anything except that I’m too afraid of walking into something that feels like a heartbreak waiting to happen. It’s like running into a burning building, Carter. We’re too different, and the only way this can end is up in flames.”
“Sometimes different is good,” I argue quietly. “I like different.”
The corner of her mouth lifts with a sad smile, and I know. She’s leaving, even if there’s a part of her that begs her to stay, even if all of me begs too.
“We shouldn’t have had sex,” I whisper. She told me last night that she couldn’t trust me enough to move forward, and yet when everything fell away for a few hours, all the insecurities, the apprehension, the hopeful part of my brain thought those things might be gone forever.
But fears don’t disappear overnight. Even I know that.
“No,” she agrees, squeezing my hand. “We shouldn’t have. And I’m sorry, because I’m the one who initiated it. I took something I wanted but told myself I couldn’t have. You would have never pushed me into it.”
And then we wouldn’t be here, with her walking out on me like she has every intention of putting too much space between us, too much distance I don’t want at all. If I give her space, will she come around? Give me a chance?
“Is it forever?” I ask as she slips her arms into her coat. “Good-bye?”
She lifts her head, watery eyes searching mine as silence hangs heavy in the space between us.
All I can hear is the rapid thump-thump of my angry, bruised heart, the shift of Olivia’s feet.
She doesn’t want it to be forever, the same as me, but I can tell by the look in her eyes that it’s the way she thinks it needs to be, so before she can answer, I beat her to it.
“You leaving right now doesn’t change how I feel about you, and it won’t change your feelings for me either. I know you’re hoping they’ll disappear so you don’t have to deal with the way I’ve been living my life, but they won’t. Running from things you’re afraid of won’t get you very far.”
I head back to the kitchen, pulling open the drawer I slammed shut in a hurry when Adam swept Olivia into his arms last night.
I take out the small package wrapped in brown paper with little white stars, the burlap bow tied around it with a tiny jingle bell.
I tried wrapping it myself five times over before I finally enlisted my sister’s help.
I meet Olivia at the door, and a lump forms in the back of my throat as I let myself take her in one last time. Even when she’s leaving me, she’s still beautiful.
“Do you need a ride?” I ask.
“Thank you, but I ordered an Uber.”
I nod as she pulls the door open and steps onto the porch.
“Ollie?”
Everything in the way she holds herself tells me it’s taking everything in her not to fall apart right now.
“Just so we’re clear, you’re the one who’s walking away right now. This isn’t what I want.”
I tuck the small gift into her surprised hands. “Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.”