31. When Push Comes To Shove #2
“Stop!” The demand comes without warning. There’s a wild drum sounding in my ears, and a pulsing in my temple that won’t ease. “I-I-I can’t. I can’t, Carter.” I scoot out of his hold and slip over the edge of the bed.
“Hey.” He reaches for me when I rocket to my feet and back myself up against the wall, my hand at my throat. “What’s wrong, princess?”
“Don’t. Don’t call me that.”
He approaches me like I’m a feral animal, caged and terrified. “Talk to me, Ollie, please. What’s wrong?”
“I-I-I can’t, Carter. I can’t be with you.” My trembling gaze lands on the bed. “Not there. Not where you…not where you’ve…” Not where he’s been, night after night, with girl after girl.
His gaze flickers and softens when understanding hits, and a moment later I’m wrapped up in him, my face buried in his chest as I beg with my brain to hold onto my tears. I don’t want him to see them, to see this part of me, so weak, so scared, so fucking vulnerable.
His palm runs slowly over my back, tender and reassuring.
“I’m sorry, Ollie. I’m so sorry. I wasn’t thinking.
” With my face in his hands, his worried, patient gaze searches mine.
He presses a lingering kiss to my forehead before fixing my shirt back over my head.
“I’ll get the car, okay? We’ll go home.”
I don’t know what makes me do it, why I want to torture myself, but while Carter calls his driver, I open the drawer of the bedside table. Mass amounts of condoms spill out, phone numbers scrawled on paper, punctuated with lipstick kisses.
Covering my quiet gasp with my hand, I creep to the living room. It’s as stark as the bedroom, and when I open the side table drawer, I’m graced with more condoms.
“He’ll be here in ten minutes,” Carter calls out, stepping into the room, fully dressed and head down, eyes on his phone. He comes to a full stop when he looks up, gaze moving between my face and the drawer of condoms I’m staring at. “Olivia…I haven’t been up here since—”
“Why did you bring me here?”
“I…” His gaze holds mine as he searches for a reasonable excuse. “I didn’t think. I just wanted to be alone with you. I didn’t want to wait.”
“Do you miss the life you had before you met me?” The words are out of my mouth before I can swallow them down, but God, the weight of them is so heavy, and I’m tired of carrying the worry in the back of my mind.
I think I’ve been trying to convince myself that my fears are no longer warranted, that Carter’s been great for a whole week and I have nothing to be insecure about.
But that’s just it, isn’t it? It’s been a week. I walked away from him for very real reasons, very valid fears, and just because I want them to leave doesn’t mean they simply get up and walk away, even if I wish they would.
And God, do I wish they would, because I can’t stand the way his face crumples at my words, my accusation, but it’s always been simpler for me to disguise my pain and worries than to admit them.
I’m not used to having to do it so often, because it’s always been easy for me to separate my feelings from genuine and deep to fleeting and lackluster, which means that I had no trouble ending relationships that didn’t feel right to me.
Feelings didn’t run deep enough to warrant any complex emotions.
Still, I always assumed that the right relationship would be all smooth sailing, a puzzle that falls together painlessly.
But Carter’s been the exception to every rule, every familiarity. He’s the axis that spins my entire world, and it’s dizzying and unnerving for one man to hold so much power over me.
I tell myself not to do this, not to spiral through this endless loop of doubt. I can’t live in a place where I’m constantly wondering where the media will rank me on his list of conquests.
And yet the article from only days ago plays over in my head, the speculations, the inclination that I can’t possibly be enough of a reason to make him change, that I can’t give him what he really needs or wants.
Pair that with the fleeting time we’ve managed to spend together over this past week, and this position where I stand right now in the very place I never wanted to be, like all the women before me, the strings of meaningless hookups…
All of it only heightens my insecurities, my fears.
I’ve always been confident in who I am as a person, what I have to offer someone.
Except now half of North America is watching, placing bets on how long it will last.
And so, for the thousandth time, I realize, in all honesty, I don’t know if I am enough.
I don’t want to find out the hard way.
I need him to help me through this, but I don’t know how to ask.
“Do you want your freedom back? Is that what you bringing me here was about?”
Carter’s eyes cloud over, a stormy night that steals the brilliant green in his forest. “Don’t.
Don’t do that. Drop the act for, like, five minutes, okay?
I know you’re trying damn hard to pretend like you’re some tough chick whose feelings aren’t hurt by seeing me with someone else, by that fucking article from Monday, by seeing all this—” he gestures around the condo, at the condoms, “—but I fucking see you. I know you, Olivia, so be real with me. If you’re scared, tell me you’re scared, but don’t spew your accusations like they’re the truth just because you’re too afraid to come right out and admit it. ”
He twists away from me, scrubbing his hands over his face before running them through his hair, a sound of exasperation coming from his throat. Anger, sorrow, defeat…It’s all there in his expression when he turns back to me.
“You said you were all in. You said that, Ollie, but I gotta be honest, this thing you’re doing feels a whole lot like you’ve already got one foot out the door, ready to bail as soon as things go sideways. And I can’t…I can’t do this.”
I clutch at my chest, right where it feels like it’s cracking wide open, and then the tears come.
They fill my eyes, pooling until I can’t see.
I refuse to blink, because if this is it, if it’s over already, I don’t want to let him see them come tumbling down my cheeks.
I don’t want to show him how hard I’ve fallen so quickly.
I can’t see his hand close over mine, only feel as he tugs on it, leading me over to the door. He slips my coat over my shoulders and helps me back into my shoes. When he walks me out into the hallway, the tears spill down my face, betraying me.
I won’t look at him. I can’t. Not in the elevator while he tenderly holds my hand.
Not when he leads me through the lobby or out into the cold night, murmuring a quiet warning for me to keep my head down as I barely register the flash of camera lights.
Not when he helps me into the limo and slides in next to me, all without a word.
I stare out the window at the passing landscapes as I cry silently for the relationship that’s over so soon, the only man I’ve ever felt so deeply for, my insecurities that led me down a deep, dark hole that I can’t climb out of.
Not now that it’s over, that I’ve repeated too many mistakes because trust didn’t come easily enough, fast enough.
My eyes widen when we drive past the street that will take me to my house, and I finally turn to Carter. “You-you…he missed the—”
He doesn’t look at me. “You’re coming home with me.”
“But we—”
“We fought.” Carter’s hard gaze shoots to me. Something tender flickers through it, something unsteady, like maybe…maybe he’s scared too. “That doesn’t change anything.”
I stay quiet, staring down at my lap, at the agitated finger he taps on his knee.
Until he twists back to me.
“You know what would happen if I took you home right now?”
My lips part to give him an answer, though I don’t really have one. He cuts me off anyway.
“First of all, it would be the last thing I’d want to do and the last thing you’d want, too; let’s be honest. I’d leave beyond angry with myself and you’d pretend you were done with me, that it was for the best. Then you’d get inside, put on your pajamas, have five minutes to cool down, and realize you’re angry with yourself too.
You’d cry over our fight, like you’re doing now, because you’d feel bad that you hurt me with your words.
And me?” He gestures at himself as he looks me over, watching my tears continue to fall.
“I’d get home, be pissed at myself for letting you walk away, leaving you when you’re upset and vulnerable, that you’re once again dealing with the consequences of my reckless past choices.
And I’d get in my car and drive all the way back to you. ”
Carter bends his neck, his lips so close his breath becomes mine, and my spine quivers.
“I’d throw you over my shoulder if I had to, but I wouldn’t need to, because the second you saw me, you’d fling your arms around me and cry.
And you know what I’d do, Olivia?” His nose touches mine, trailing up the length of it, then back down.
“I’d hold you. I’d kiss you. I’d tell you it was okay, that I forgive you for the words you said when you were hurting and scared.
Then I’d ask you to forgive me for acting without thinking, for bringing you there and contributing to a narrative that only feeds your fears. ”
With a low sigh, Carter sinks back against the seat, letting his head fall backward. “You wanna fight, get your self-doubt out, that’s fine. But you’re gonna do it with me, at my house, together.”
His searing stare swings my way. “I refuse to let you push me away again.”