Chapter 24
24
T he rest of that day and night in Paris wasn’t entirely spent in bed. There were also a few sessions in the shower, over the arm of the sofa, and one heartbreakingly perfect fuck against the window as the Eiffel Tower twinkled at midnight.
Our flight home the next morning consisted of us both sleeping like the dead…until Carter woke me just before landing so we could join the Mile High Club.
And then on the drive back to Nevaeh, he closed the privacy screen and ate my pussy like he had something to prove. Like he wanted to make thoroughly sure I wouldn’t be running back into Heath’s arms when we arrived.
When the car pulled up outside my dorm, he took his time kissing me in the backseat, stealing the breath from my lungs and the sense from my brain. He murmured something about needing to get home to sort some “things” out, and I didn’t even bat an eyelid.
Carly had been waiting for us to get back and threw herself at me when the car—and Carter—drove away.
“You’re back!” she exclaimed, hugging me tight, “I need to know all about it. Tell me everything. Oh my god, you smell like sex.” She gave a dramatic gasp, pressing her hands to her mouth.
I winced, shushing her. “Just…let’s get up to my room. I should get changed.”
“And shower,” she added with a heavily judgmental glare. “I hope you used protection.”
Another wince. We definitely did not.
Stupid? Yes. Hot as hell? Also yes. Who knew I had a kink for fucking bareback? And exhibitionism, apparently, seeing as some of the best sex with Carter had been the quickies when we were undoubtedly seen by strangers.
With a sigh, she tucked her arm through mine and walked with me up to our rooms on the third floor, chatting about some drama that happened in her last class.
“So is Carter the reason I haven’t heard from you since Saturday?” she asked once I returned from the shower wrapped up in a bathrobe with a towel on my hair.
I dodged her intense stare and tried not to blush. “Um…sort of. I lost my phone on Saturday night.”
“Oh damn, that sucks,” she lamented, sitting cross-legged on my bed.
“Yeah,” I agreed, tugging the towel from my hair to dry it. “I got it back, thank goodness, but uh…things happened and I haven’t had a chance to charge it.”
Her lips pursed. “ Things happened, hmm?”
“Yup. Things. So, um, what’d I miss here?” I busied myself hunting my phone out of my overnight bag and plugging it into the charger. I was exhausted. Between the whirlwind two night trip to Paris and time zone changes and…extracurricular activities…I felt like I could happily sleep for a month.
Carly was filling me in on some gossip but my head was buzzing and I hadn’t been concentrating at all .
“…talking about where you guys placed your ducks to win…” she said as I forced myself to pay attention. “Nate was so confident he’d won—like he always does—that he had the whole Paris trip booked for him and Paige.”
I grimaced. “Yay, another reason for him to hate me.”
Carly wrinkled her nose. “Sorry. I should have warned you to let him win.”
“No, don’t be silly. I never would have let him win, even if it was in my best interest. Besides, he and Paige are probably over.”
She quirked a brow. “Uh…that’s news. What happened?”
I hesitated, realizing I was treading thin ice with her own history with Nate. “She’s cheating on him.”
Her jaw dropped. “You’re fucking kidding. With who? How’d you find out? Was this a pillow talk thing with Carter? Oh damn, does Heath know?”
“About Nate and Paige? Probably.”
She gave an exasperated growl. “About you and Carter, Ash, keep up!”
I groaned and scrubbed my hands over my face. “No. Unless Carter says something…I don’t totally know where we stand on all that.”
“You didn’t talk about it before getting back?”
My face heated. “We were, uh, occupied.”
She snorted a laugh and hopped up off my bed. “Okay well, I say this as your friend because I don’t want to see you hurt…Carter isn’t a relationship kind of guy. Set your expectations low, for your own sake.” Carly grabbed me in a quick hug. “You’re clearly half asleep. Let’s catch up before class tomorrow?”
Thank fuck. I locked my door after her—not that it seemed to stop Nate from breaking in—and crashed out in my bed. Her question about Heath kept tugging on my mind, though.
Grabbing my phone off the nightstand, I powered it up and searched for my chat thread with Heath. No new messages. The last one was when I’d replied and asked when he was free to chat, before leaving for Paris with Carter.
An uncomfortable feeling of dread curled through my belly. Was that a coincidence? My paranoid mind immediately jumped to conclusions, wondering if it’d been Carter’s plan all along to sleep with me in Paris…that he’d discussed it with Heath before we left. Fucking hell, what if it was all a joke?
I shook my head, raking fingers through my hair.
“Don’t be stupid, Ashley,” I whispered to myself. There was no way he could have orchestrated that incident with the mugging and how the adrenaline affected me afterward. Right?
So why could I suddenly not stop thinking about Abigail’s diary? All the horrible things she accused the DBs of in those pages…I desperately wanted to read it again.
Unable to shake the anxiety, I typed out a message to Heath, letting him know I was back.
I stared at the screen for several moments, waiting, then it updated with read and the text bubble popped up to show Heath typing.
My heart lodged firmly in my throat as I waited for him to reply, holding my breath. We’d been fake dating…but it still felt a little bit like I’d cheated. It wasn’t an enjoyable feeling, that was for sure.
Heathcliff: You’re back! How was Paris?
I bit my lip, analyzing his message and then over-analyzing it in search of tone. Was he being snarky? Like how was Paris, you whore? Or did he mean it as a bored pleasantry like how was Paris? I genuinely don’t care.
Or…fucking hell.
Maybe he just wanted to know how Paris was?
So…should I tell him? No. No, not like this.
Riddled with indecision, I typed out my reply.
Ashley: It was okay. Have you been?
He responded quickly, like he was waiting for my message. That was a good thing…right?
Heathcliff: I have, it’s a beautiful city. What are you doing tonight?
A heavy breath gusted out of me. He seemed…normal?
Ashley: Sleeping. I’m wrecked.
I bit my lip again, taking a chance with my next message.
Ashley: Coffee before class in the morning?
Because I really wanted to tell him about me and Carter in person. Yeah I definitely still had a bit of a crush on Heath too, but more importantly I wanted to keep him as a friend, if that’s what we could call what we were.
Heathcliff: Dancing Goats at 8? It’s a date.
He undoubtedly meant it platonically, but I still didn’t love the twist of guilt and anxiety that knotted up my stomach. Then again, would I change anything given the chance? Did I regret sleeping with Carter? Not in a million years.
Sleep wasn’t hard to find once I turned out my light and put my phone back on charge. I didn’t dream, and didn’t stir even once, and when my alarm went off I hit snooze three times before forcing myself out of bed.
“Damn girl,” Carly greeted me when I answered my door to her knocking. “You look…is that a bruise?”
I groaned and touched a hand to my cheek. “Yeah.”
Her brows shot up in alarm. “Do I need to kill Carter? It’s against society rules but I’ll do it.”
I grinned, unable to help myself because she was dead serious. “You’re off the hook for homicide today, babe. Carter actually saved me when I got mugged in Paris.”
Her lips parted in shock. “Oh. Really? Carter did that?”
I nodded, my cheeks warming at the memory of everything that happened after . “Come in while I cover this up with concealer. Heath is meeting us for coffee in ten.”
She playfully teased me about my so-called love triangle while I dabbed concealer all over the bruise on my cheek. It’d darkened up enough that even a double layer of makeup couldn’t hide it entirely, but it was better.
Carly wrinkled her nose at the finished effect, but shrugged and looped her bag over her shoulder. “Let’s go. We don’t want Heathcliff thinking you’ve stood him up, do we now?”
I sighed, tucking my arm through hers as we walked. “Hey, you said something last week about you being related? Heath never mentioned any siblings, though…”
“We’re cousins,” she explained. “Not super close, either. But the family money started with our grandfather, Atticus Briggs. You know, Atticus Records?”
“ Ohhhh , I see.” They were one of the biggest record labels ever , so the wealth of both Heath and Carly made sense. “So you encouraging me and Heath is a purely biased opinion then?”
She laughed. “Yes. Mostly. But also Carter is a scary motherfucker with a short fuse and history of broken hearts. I just don’t want you to be the next in his long line of collateral damage.”
That was a sobering thought and I mulled it over a few moments while we walked across the campus lawn. “I don’t think that’s…Ugh, I don’t know. Am I a total airhead if I say it felt different with him? Like I felt like I had peeled back the mask for a day.”
Carly gave a thoughtful hum. “I hope so. Hey, how’d you go with our Early Modern Europe assignment? Did you get it done?”
“I did, thank fuck, on the flight over to Paris. The whole…duck challenge sort of derailed my plans to study for Language Acquisition and Literacy Development though, so I need to buckle down tonight. Library session?”
“You got it,” she agreed. “I can give you a copy of my notes from yesterday’s class too.”
I murmured my thanks, but up ahead I’d spotted a familiar face that made my heart race. Shit. Why was Carter here with Heath?
“Ash!” Heath called out, noticing us. “Good morning, sunshine.”
I gave him a tight smile as he approached, but my gaze kept darting to Carter who stared back at me with a dark, unreadable look in his eyes. What was he thinking? Had he told Heath already? Were we a thing now?
“Hey, you,” I replied, accepting his warm hug. “How was your weekend?”
“Boring as batshit compared to a whirlwind tour of Paris. Did you have fun? I know your company was fairly unpleasant, but Carter said he was on his best behavior, right?” He tossed that question over his shoulder to the man who’d so recently had his tongue inside my pussy.
Carter just nodded. “Mm-hmm. I had better shit to do rather than play tourist. Ashley had the guide all to herself.”
It wasn’t entirely untrue, at least for the first day…but the harsh tone he used made me feel an inch tall and my stomach dropped.
“Probably a good thing,” Heath shot back, smirking as he looped an arm around my shoulders. “I was a little worried you might have tried to seduce my girl in the city of love and then we’d have a fight on our hands.”
He said it jokingly, but my skin turned to ice. My eyes locked with Carter’s just waiting for some kind of reaction. Some kind of acknowledgment of what we’d done.
What I didn’t expect—even though I should have—was the cold laugh that he huffed out. “You know me better than that, Heathcliff. I don’t generally entertain overpriced whores, and she’s definitely not my type.” His sneer in my direction cut me like a dozen knives. “No offense.”
“Dude, not cool,” Heath sighed, shaking his head.
Carter just shrugged. “True, though. I’ve gotta run. Catch you later, bro.” He nodded to Heath, then walked away without even glancing my way again. I stared after him, shocked to my core, but his lazy swagger didn’t falter as he disappeared into the morning student crowd.
“Ash, are you okay?” Carly asked softly, touching my arm and making me realize I was still staring.
I wet my lips, trying to control my emotions but it was a losing battle. My stomach clenched and rolled, and my palms started to sweat.
“Yeah. Totally fine,” I lied. “Just need to run to the bathroom real quick. Grab my coffee? I’ll be right back.”
Heath called out after me, but I was already bolting for the Dancing Goats restroom.
I felt so stupid .