49. Forever Down The Driveway
CARTER
Forever is a funny concept.
People talk about it all the time. It’s the only thing they want, a forever spent living the life they’ve always dreamed of, with the people they can’t imagine ever losing.
But nothing lasts forever, does it? We spend our days waiting for it to come, that moment we want to last, that person we never want to let go of, and when we have it, we grab hold. We grip it so tight, say this is it, my forever, and I’m never, ever giving it up.
The thing is, sometimes— most times —it’s not up to us. Moments are fleeting, and people are too. Sometimes these things run their course; they get up and leave willingly. And sometimes they’re stolen from you, forced to leave, torn from your grasp as you hold on with all your might.
Twelve hours ago, I had my forever, my perfect. I had every single thing I’d always dreamed of. Fuck, I’d even convinced myself I’d still had my dad, right there inside me where Olivia told me he’d always be.
And now, I have nothing.
Right now, I feel empty, broken, and lost, but the hardest pill to swallow is it’s all my fault.
The Stanley Cup sits on my table, taking up space. A reminder of something I don’t deserve, something meaningless. I spent my whole life working toward it, telling myself it was all I wanted. But I was wrong, wasn’t I?
Because Olivia’s my dream, and it all means nothing without her.
I haven’t looked at the pictures, the articles.
I don’t need to. I was there when the cameras were in our faces, lighting up the night around us.
I know what it looks like, what it was meant to look like.
And I know I just stood there in front of the woman I love and didn’t put her fears to rest. Didn’t give her the truth she begged for, which is that I’d smash my reputation into the ground before I’d hurt her that way.
The words wouldn’t come, stuck on my tongue, caught in my throat, because the last thing I ever wanted to be was the person who disappointed her, hurt her.
But I don’t know how to solve this, this clusterfuck of a shitstorm, and therein lies the problem. How can I open my mouth and be honest with her when I don’t have all the answers?
I wish I could blame alcohol, but I’m perfectly sober.
Something’s not working inside me, a connection that’s been severed at the mere thought of a life without my best friend.
My hands won’t stop shaking, my heart racing, and with every moment spent staring down at my phone, the influx of messages, phone calls from everyone except the only person I want to hear from, it gets worse.
Because this phone . This fucking phone is the bane of my damn existence right now, and I hate it.
I stare at my screen, the background on my phone. Her smiling face, the Oreo in her hand. She’s everything, my girl, and there isn’t a way I could love her more than I do. My thumb hovers over the folder affectionately labeled My pumpkin , but I can’t do it.
Why was I so stupid?
I don’t fucking know why, and that frustrates me beyond belief.
Maybe that’s why when I get the only message that matters, the one from Emmett that lets me know Olivia is safe, my phone goes flying across the room.
The shattered screen shines in the refracted rays of sun that shine through the break in the curtains, and I wonder if I’ll ever feel it again, the sunshine Olivia brought.
It hasn’t always been perfect, but it’s always been worth it.
We’ve grown so much together, learned what the other needed, so maybe we weren’t perfect, but the way she’s loved me has always been perfect.
And that’s how I’ve always known: my forever is a person.
It’s wide chocolate eyes that peer up at mine, and dark, silky curls that slip through my fingers.
It’s a small hand in mine that warms my entire body, a smile that gets my heart thudding a little bit harder, a little bit faster.
It’s the ears that hear all my dreams and the arms that hold me up when I’m tired, when I forget how to stand.
It’s the lips on my jaw, my cheek, my hand, the ones that whisper my favorite I love you , that promise me a lifetime against my skin.
I don’t know everything. All I know is I just chased my forever down the driveway.
* * *
I’m not surprised that Olivia ran to the same place I did after leaving home. I don’t have a doubt that she’s been here. I can smell her hair, that intrinsic scent that reminds me of home and Sunday mornings cuddled together on the couch while the coffee brews and the muffins bake.
“Carter,” Hank calls from his spot, staring out his balcony door. How he knows it’s me standing silently in his doorway is beyond me. “You gonna come in or just stand there?”
I don’t say a word as I cross the room to take a seat beside him. He unfolds his hands, tapping a single finger for a moment of silence that stretches way too long. When he sighs, shame makes my neck damp, makes my skin prickle and sting as I wait for him to tell him how disappointed he is in me.
But he doesn’t.
He sits in silence, a deep crease set between his brows as he keeps his gaze trained ahead, for ten minutes, and then twenty. It’s not until the first half hour comes to a close that he finally opens his mouth.
“I’m gonna tell you the same thing I told Olivia.
You are not a man who would intentionally betray someone’s trust, someone who loves him, who he loves without a shadow of a doubt.
” He twists in my direction. “You wouldn’t hurt that girl if your life depended on it.
She’s your whole world. Not hockey. Not that cup sitting pretty in your house right now, the one you’ve been working toward your whole life.
Olivia. That girl. She’s your world and she has been right from the beginning.
If you took your last breath right now, your final words would be—”
“A declaration of how much I love her.” The words leave my mouth without thought because I don’t need to think about it. Olivia’s my first thought when my eyes open in the morning and the last one before I fall asleep. She occupies about 99 percent of the space in between too.
“Exactly.” Hank points across the room toward the general vicinity of the Nespresso machine Olivia and I bought him when he moved in. “So, you’re gonna make me a damn cappuccino, strap on your boots, and tell me what actually happened so we can figure out how the hell you can make this right.”
He waves a hand around my face. “I don’t need to be able to see to know you look like a damn mess, son, and I won’t sit by and let you throw your happiness away because you didn’t know how best to keep her safe without breaking her heart.”
* * *
My driveway is half-full when I get home, which is both a blessing and a curse. I want to be alone, but I probably shouldn’t be. My mind is a dangerous place to be right now.
I note the pile of shoes in the doorway and my na?ve heart is desperate enough to think Olivia might be here too.
Emmett, Garrett, and Adam poke their heads into the hallway. Garrett’s got a bag of chips out of the cupboard. He stops when he sees me, midcrunch, and slowly drops the bag.
My head swivels, following the movement I hear upstairs.
“Carter,” Emmett cautions, but it’s too late; I’m already halfway up the staircase.
“Olivia?” Heart racing, I halt in the bedroom doorway, watching Cara pack Olivia’s clothes in a suitcase. I tear the clothes from her hands, ripping them from the suitcase, head wagging back and forth. “No. No. It’s not—she’s not—you can’t! She’s coming back! She’s coming back, Cara. She has to.”
I don’t know what I expect from Cara. To yell at me, shake me, maybe detach my balls from my body like she’s so often threatened if I ever break her best friend. What I don’t expect is the tears pooling in her eyes, the grief reflected in her gaze, the sympathy.
“She’s coming back,” I whisper, but the words are fractured, broken, like the expression Cara wears. When I blink, when a single tear rolls down my right cheek, she flings herself into my arms.
“You have to fix this,” she cries. “Carter, fix this!”
“I-I-I…I don’t know how!” Hank told me how. He told me what I need to do. But it feels stupid, pointless. Then again, I don’t have many other options, do I? “Help me,” I beg softly.
The floor creaks behind us and Cara releases me, wiping at her eyes. The boys trickle into the room, quiet and careful, like they aren’t sure what to do or say.
“I would never cheat on her.” My eyes fall on Adam, though he’s looking at the ground. He may be done with Courtney but that doesn’t mean that what’s happened, or what everyone thinks happened, hasn’t hurt him. “Adam, I promise, I didn’t—”
His arms come around me, a hug I didn’t know I needed. “I know, Carter. I know.”
“We all know.” Cara sinks to the edge of the bed, a small velvet box in her hand.
She pops the lid, examining the sparkly diamond inside, the ring she helped me design for Olivia back in May.
I picked it up last week, and I spent hours hiding it while Olivia was at work, choosing one spot then changing my mind five minutes later, picking another I thought might be better.
That Cara’s somehow managed to find it is not surprising, and I don’t have it in me to be mad that she went snooping.
She brushes Olivia’s clothes aside and pats the spot next to her. When I take it, she squeezes my hand. “We’re going to help you figure this out, but you have to tell us what happened.”
“I don’t know where to start,” I admit. I’m in way over my head and I knew that from the second Courtney approached me last night.
“Start from the beginning.”
My chest inflates with an inhale meant to bring strength. “Ollie, she…she let me take pictures.” Too many pictures. Months and months of pictures of my favorite girl in my favorite positions.
“What kind of pictures?”