Nine
Leah
T here were two brand new BMWs sitting behind Harold’s clunker of a truck. I stared around their quiet front yard before my eyes scanned the windows on the top floor of the house. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary.
Who had they invited, and why didn’t I know about it?
With no room in the driveway, I parked my ten-year-old Jeep—that I’d slaved myself saving for, by the way—on the side of the street in front of their house. The back wheel went over the curb, and I sighed in irritation as I drove forward and tried to line the beast up. It took me a few minutes. Needless to say, I wasn’t the best driver in the entire world.
When I finally stepped out of the car with my ugly mammoth tote bag stuffed with my change of clothes, I stared at my parking skills and cringed.
You fucking stink, Leah.
Whatever.
My parking skills were currently irrelevant.
I hurried to the front door, eyeing the cars once more on my way. They looked luxury type. I hoped there weren’t rich people inside, or something. I didn’t look all that great today in my hurry to get here on time.
I rang the doorbell and waited a few moments. I heard Marlena’s excited voice from inside. I wondered what she was hooting for. It couldn’t have been me. I wasn’t all that exciting.
The door opened and she stood before me with a radiant smile, her dark hair up in a bun, her green eyes a little wet, as if she’d been… crying.
What the hell?
“Hey, are you alright—”
“Rome’s surprised us with a visit!” she immediately cut me off to say, bursting with excitement.
My face fell. “What?”
“It was absolutely out of nowhere, Leah! Did you know he had a concert the other night in the city? He has a few days off and he showed up not even an hour ago.”
“Wow. That’s… Wow.”
“Come say hello to the boys! They’ve been asking for you.”
The boys?
What?
Oh, shit.
No, no, no.
I shook my head. “Actually, you know, I don’t look all that great. I might slip away and change first.”
“Nonsense, you look fine. Let’s go.”
She took me by the arm and pulled me into the house, forcing me up the spiral staircase as she rattled on about how unexpected their visit was. Did she seriously not know how hard she was squeezing me? Or was she sending me some message, like I wasn’t going to get out of this whether I liked it or not. It was too late to question her, anyway.
I felt my body sag in defeat.
I was going to see the boys.
Why were they even here?
Weren’t they busy being famous and all?
My heart was beating rapidly, and my stomach was twisting in nerves. This was too sudden. I could hardly think, and what I was thinking was repeating itself in my head.
Carter.
Carter.
Carter.
Over and over again that name.
Was he here too?
Of course he is.
When we reached the top, I spotted a long line of suitcases against the hallway wall. There were some pinks ones too.
What the hell did that mean exactly?
My vision was spinning as she led me to the living room, and before I even looked at any of them, my skin prickled, like I could feel his presence without seeing him. Totally impossible, but the feeling was undeniably there, stirring my insides into a frenzy.
“Leah’s here!” Marlena proudly proclaimed, like I was some Queen that’d just arrived.
The first person I saw was Rome in between the kitchen entrance and some dark-haired girl beside him that oddly resembled Melanie. For a split second, I thought it was Melanie, until I noticed her unusually plump lips, fake boobs, and orange spray tan.
It was a completely insipid version of my best friend.
Without wanting to, I gaped at him in shock. Rome looked completely different from his grungy looking days. He was dressed in stylish rocker clothes. Like Leo, he was tatted up, both sleeves done, depicting some sort of abstract design that looked very impressive. A super expensive watch adorned his wrist, its giant face gleaming under the bulbs of the chandelier overhead. He was all… money. Dripping in it, actually. His green eyes looked at me warmly, and he came bounding in my direction, his girl following him closely behind.
“Leah!” he said, throwing his giant arms around me in a tight hug, bathing me in his expensive cologne as he gave me a kiss on the side of my head. “Holy shit, look at you, wearing pink like a girl.”
“Hey, well, I sort of am a girl,” I replied light-heartedly, when really I was feeling suddenly conscious.
It was laundry day back at the condo, and I had only the clothes at the very bottom of my drawers: oversized pink top of the most generic kind and a pair of jean shorts that had seen better days a thousand years ago. Compared to Rome’s girl, who was immaculate in her brand name summer dress, I was dressed like a sack of shit.
I’m just being comparative.
Not that it was a sack of shit in my eyes.
He pulled away and immediately gestured to the girl. “This is my girlfriend, Alyssa. Alyssa, this is Leah, the one I’ve told you lots about.”
He talked about me?
He caught my curious look and quickly added, “All good things, Leah. All good things.”
I forced a smile on my face; it wasn’t the Joker one from before, but it was still forced as fuck. “Hi, nice to meet you,” I told Alyssa.
She scanned me up and down for a moment, her gaze lingering distastefully on my old purse. Ah, yes, the look of a girl assessing me, doing her own comparing. Probably trying to evaluate how much of a threat I was, and I certainly wasn’t by the end of her perusal; she didn’t look very impressed.
“Nice to meet you too,” she replied slowly, like I was five years old and hanging on to every word. Obviously, I was just a peasant, fortunate to even be chatting to such a goddess.
Excuse me while I count my lucky stars .
“Rome’s said… lots of things about you to Molly and me.”
I stilled just then.
The girl was friends with Molly?
What, the same Molly that Carter was apparently screwing? The same long-legged Molly from all over the tabloids? With the famous dad that saved a bunch of elephants on his safari trip recently? Or maybe he was in the news for posing with a dead elephant, the slimy fuck.
I was dumbfounded.
I just stared at her incredulously, and she must have wondered why because her brows came together in question.
“Right,” I eventually muttered.
If they expected me to make conversation, I had nothing in me. I wasn't that kind of girl. Friendly chatter was a thing of the past for me. Besides, my mind was blank. It was an absolutely empty, desolate canvas that was more focused on the fact I didn’t have the courage yet to look at the rest of the room where I knew he was.
I am not ready.
This is not what I signed up for.
But that was life, wasn’t it? It didn’t wait for you to be ready.
“Leah, I have the coffee table filled with snacks and treats,” Marlena then said. “Harold’s out getting dinner. I didn’t have time to cook after the surprise. Help yourself, darling.”
“Thanks,” I told her as my eyes automatically wandered to the coffee table.
I saw two pairs of legs a foot away from the table. One pair was slender and long, tanned and smooth. The other was in a pair of jeans, and one leg was bopping up and down, restlessly. With incredible hesitation, I glimpsed up and saw him. My breath left my lungs and I trembled as my eyes connected with the blues of his.
There was no emotion on his face.
That damn face that did things to me now in the same way they did years ago.
I felt like someone had stepped on my chest and was squeezing the life out of me. He looked so good, so defined. And while my glimpse was barely half a second long, I saw all of him with incredible depth.
Casually dressed in a basic tee and jeans, he was much bigger than I thought, and I knew straightaway those shirtless pictures of him online were certainly not created in the land of Photoshop.
I tried as best as I could to look casual, while my gaze then shifted to the girl sitting next to him. It was indeed the Molly I was thinking of with those endless long legs and conditioned auburn curls.
She looked at me with bored interest.
“That’s Molly,” Rome then said, catching my gaze. It felt silly he was introducing me to a celebrity, like I had no idea who she was. If I’d stuck with not stalking Carter online, I wouldn’t have known who she was at all. But all I saw, as I stared at her, were the ridiculous fucking photoshoots she’d done. I’m pretty sure the most shocking one involved her dressed in a scantily-clad pig’s costume—try to imagine that—while tied and roasted over a pit of fire. It wasn’t real fire, of course, and whoever added that part in needed to be fired because what in the fuck?
I still to this day have no idea what the message of that photoshoot was. But artsy-fartsy people, right? Nowadays, it could’ve been about fucking lotion, or something ridiculously random like that.
“Hi,” I said to her, seemingly filled with words today.
She forced a smile on her face before looking down at her cell phone, sliding its screen with her manicured nails. At least she wasn’t assessing me. Maybe I just wasn’t assessment material looking the way I was.
Carter didn’t say a word to me.
Then again, I didn’t say a word to him, either, and I was too scared to look at him.
Deflated and confused by this entire situation, I turned away from them and clasped my hands together. With nerves raging through me, I stared about the room, wondering where the rest of the guys were. I could use a distraction, and I was sure I’d feel more relaxed talking to them instead.
“Did Leo and Jared make it?” I asked Rome, since he was the only person aside from Marlena that I felt comfortable around.
“Nah, they booked their own trips before I even had a chance to invite them over,” Rome answered. “It’s just Carter and me.”
Damn.
Now I really needed a way out of this.
I glanced again at the happy couple, and I say the term very loosely because they were barely touching each other, or even talking. No, Molly was more interested in her cell phone that had been puked on by sparkling diamantes, and Carter was…still staring at me intently.
I felt my cheeks heat.
Why were things awkward?
We parted ways on a wonderful note.
He’d kissed me goodbye, and though he’d been broken up by it, he had also been ecstatic for the future.
Now it was like we were strangers.
That shouldn’t have been possible.
He should have gotten up and given me a hug! He should have asked me how I was doing, making silly jokes like we used to. Instead, I got this strange indifference from him that had me feeling like I didn’t belong.
Was he pissed because of the letters? Because I’d never answered him?
I opened my mouth to say something to him, but my nerves acted like a noose around my neck. I was too chicken-shit. Story of my life.
Say something, Leah . I told myself. Maybe you need to break the ice. Speak now!
“I gotta go to the bathroom,” I muttered under my breath.
I bolted out of there and into the main bathroom, shutting it behind me. I stood there for a long time, staring at the door like it was a portal to hell. Then I glanced at my face and cringed at my complexion.
Yeah, totally shit looking.
Did I really have to look like this now?
I hadn’t seen Carter in three years. Our heartfelt departure still weighed on my being, and he had suddenly showed up out of nowhere, with arm candy I currently could not compete with, staring at me with such indifference, you’d think he loathed me!
When I thought of what our reunion would be like, it never came close to this. It involved rose petals and sandy beaches and doting smiles under a bright sun. And grovelling. Lots and lots of grovelling.
But never this.
I pulled my cell phone out and quickly dialled Mel. She’d know what to do.
“Hey, hooker. Bored yet? Come home. I can still put on some Jason Momoa,” she said straightaway.
“He’s here!” I whisper-yelled at her.
“Who? Jason Momoa? Holy shit, how’d you manage that?”
“No, not Jason Momoa!”
“Fuck.”
“Carter,” I hardly whispered into the phone.
“What?”
“Carter.”
“I can’t hear you! Speak up!”
“ Car-ter !” I said slowly and a little more loudly.
She went quiet on the other end for a moment. Then, “Go fuck yourself.”
I shook my head, even though she couldn’t freaking see that. “I’m being serious! I’m hiding out in the bathroom right now. Totally blindsided by this, Mel.”
“Is Rome there too?”
“Yes, and he’s brought his girlfriend with him. Oh my God, Melanie, she’s—”
“My look-alike, I know,” she cut in impassively, the damn mind reader that she was. “I’m already aware of that douchebag settling with a less than perfect twin of me. I’m actually tempted to go there right now and have a look—”
“No!” I almost yelled. “No, you cannot do that! You’ll ruin his parents’ anniversary, you selfish witch. Marlena’s so happy right now. Do not sabotage it!”
She cursed. “Well, what do you want then?”
“I don’t know what to do! I’m terrified. He’s in the next room and he keeps glaring at me.”
“ Glaring at you?”
“Yes, glaring! Like he hates me. And he’s with his freaking girlfriend to boot—”
“Molly Anderson is at that house right now?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh, my God.”
“I know!”
“Well, shit.”
“Should I come home? I’ll say it’s an emergency, like you got hit by a car or something. We can pretend you have a broken leg. Didn’t you say your sister was good with her hands? I’ll get her to do a cast and—”
“Hell no!” she interrupted, suddenly getting riled up. “You go in there and you show him how alright you are! Show him you’ve moved on, and you’re happy. Be confident. Rub it in that him tearing your heart open and squeezing every last drop of love from it hasn’t ruined you. In fact, it’s made you a cold-hearted man-hater, and you’re one step away from joining the feminist movement.”
I froze. What did she just say? “What did you just say?”
“You heard me!”
“I’m not a man-hater.”
“Yes, you are.”
“I love men!”
“You always complain about them.”
I frowned. “When was the last time I complained about one?”
“You said your boss was a dick.”
“Because he is a dick! If he was a woman, I’d call her a dick too.”
“You wanted the world run by women just the other night!”
“That was you !”
“Why are you arguing with me?”
My jaw dropped. “I’m not!”
“You’ve taken too long on the phone. They all probably think you’re taking a shit. I’m hanging up now. Tell me everything later.”
My head was spinning. “But—”
“And pretend you’re in a relationship! Nothing screams more proof of moving on than being in a relationship! Avoid being alone with him, don’t listen to his smooth talk, and report back to me later, hooker-face.”
Before I could respond, she hung up and I almost growled at the empty line. Talking to her was like talking to a deranged person at times.
But she was right.
I’d taken too long.
Dear God, I hoped they didn’t think I’d taken a shit. As if I needed any more reasons to feel more conscious than I was already!
Facing the portal of hell, I took a deep breath and opened it.
Be confident, she said. Show him I’ve moved on, she said. Okay, I could do that. After all, it was the truth.
A truth that was slowly diminishing upon seeing him, but whatever.
I re-joined them in the living room just as the front door opened and stocky Harold came barrelling up the stairs with bags and bags of take-out. I could smell Chinese food in the air, and my stomach ached. I hadn’t eaten all day, and while the thought of digesting a couple pounds of noodles and pork dumplings sounded like a dream, I was feeling nauseous being so near to Carter.
Regardless, I stood tall and pretended I was oozing self-confidence. I deserved an award for my acting abilities. Except for my eyes. Sadly, they couldn’t help themselves.
Again, I glimpsed at him.
Again, he was looking at me.
He hadn’t said a word. I was sure I’d feel a little better if he spoke to me casually, like the past was behind us. Yet it felt like the opposite.
Not wanting to stand around and look lost, I decided to help Marlena carry out the trays of snacks on the table. It was on the trip there that I instantly regretted doing it. I was only feet away from Carter, and I felt dizzy from the nerves. Confidence, confidence. But that was easier said than done. I’d never felt this rattled in my life. The tray I picked up quaked in my hands, and on their own, my eyes lifted up again to his.
He was still staring at me.
What is it? I wanted to ask him. Why are you looking at me like that? Do you hate me?
I didn’t realize the tray had tilted on its side, until the crackers fell off, landing noisily on the table. I startled and looked down, feeling my cheeks heat in embarrassment as I quickly picked them all up one by one. It could have been a few seconds, but it felt like an eternity to me. Blushing even harder, I stilled when a big hand reached over and grabbed at a few others. I knew that hand; it had been on me— and in me —in ways that were both sinful and sweet.
Startled, I watched Carter pick up the rest and place them on the tray. I wanted to thank him for the help, but his eyes appeared harder than before, cutting through me like a knife.
“Sorry,” I whispered, and I wasn’t really sure what I was sorry for. The crackers? The last three years of zero communication? Or maybe I was apologizing to myself for being a fucking idiot, driving him away from me to follow his dreams.
Stupid dreams. Who needed them anyway?
“It’s normal,” Molly then said, wrapping her slender hand around Carter’s bulging bicep. “Carter’s used to fans acting like star-struck idiots around him.”
Star-struck idiots . Well, then…
Glaring at her, I was half-tempted to smash the tray over her head for that remark, but I didn’t want to go to jail tonight. The last thing I needed was a criminal record weeks before applying for accounting positions.
Instead, I used my tongue.
“Well, without those star-struck idiots , he’d be absolutely nothing,” I told her sweetly.
Ignoring my tone, she smiled brightly, showing me every perfectly aligned tooth and replied, “The band doesn’t need a fan-base to be huge. Their music carries itself.”
I raised a brow. Was she a fucking idiot? “That’s like saying a book can be a masterpiece without a single person reading it.”
She shook her head and glanced at Carter. “Some people just don’t understand art, baby.”
Like your pig art? I wanted to ask, but then that would appear obvious I’d taken seconds out of my precious life to look this bitch up. I refused to give the gorgeous looking giraffe the satisfaction.
Carter didn’t respond to her. He seemed to be at a loss for words as he shook his arm from her grasp.
Oh, boy, trouble in paradise.
I stiffly turned away from this odd as hell conversation and hurried into the kitchen, nearly tripping over my feet in the process. I set the tray down and studied my shaking hands.
What was happening to me?
I wasn’t a clumsy girl. I was usually so sure of myself around others, even if I was faking it most of the time. But Carter’s mere presence had penetrated straight through my armour. If I’d known he would be here, I might have at least emotionally prepared myself for it. But it’d come out of nowhere! I’d had literally no time to come to grips with this.
It was shock, I told myself. Just shock. Nothing more.
He’s bad for you.
Yes, he was.
And stop imagining him naked.
I wasn’t.
Liar.
I took a few deep breaths and stared out of the entranceway and into the living room. He couldn’t see me from where I stood, but Molly could. Her eyes were pinned to my head, and her thin lips were raised into a smile.
She knew.
I wanted to stab her eyes out with a fork for looking so smug.
I stayed in the kitchen, feeling like shit that Marlena was doing all the work, but I couldn’t push myself to go back out there. I turned to the sink and occupied myself with the dishes for a very long while. At least this way I had an excuse to stay here.
“Come eat, Leah,” Marlena hounded me from the living room. “You love Chinese food, and the boys are putting a huge dent into it already!”
“Just washing the dishes,” I yelled back. Washing the same ones over and over again, mind you.
“That’s what dishwashers are for, darling.”
“I know, but—”
“Just come in and enjoy yourself! Rome’s talking about the concert they had the other night! Apparently, it was amazing!”
You have no idea.
“I’ll be right there.” I sighed and shut the water off.
God, there was no escape, was there? This was like torture without one moment of respite. I dried my hands and re-joined them. Everyone was seated, and Marlena motioned me to a dining chair she’d pulled out of the dining room and placed around the coffee table. By how relaxed everyone looked, I guess it seemed more convenient eating in here.
I took a seat and stared at everyone but Carter. The girls weren’t interested in the food. I caught Molly taking a selfie next to Carter, shooting a duckface with crazy wide eyes. Oh, my God. I cringed before catching Carter’s eye. His lips lifted up just barely, clearly catching my expression.
How did I get to looking at him again?
Rome was talking about their tour, and I watched him in complete awe. I wanted to think that he seemed different because I hadn’t seen him in forever, but deep inside, I knew that wasn’t the case. His whole mannerism had changed. He’d gone from being humble and tentative, to this loud, cocky rocker, talking about his car collection and a third house he was looking to buy in Puerto Rico.
I could see where this was going…
“Careful,” I found myself saying without stopping. “A fool and his money are easily parted.”
He paused and stared at me for a beat, his brows slowly pinching together.
“What is she saying?” his Melanie-look-alike asked in confusion.
“She’s saying Rome’s gonna go broke,” Carter answered in a low voice.
It was the first time he’d spoken.
I met his eye again, and my chest pinched. He hadn’t touched his food, but he was drinking like a fish. On the table in front of him were two bottles of beer and he was holding a third one.
I watched him raise the tip to his mouth. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he gulped a bit down, never looking away from me. My gaze trailed his throat and down his upper body before looking back up again. He noticed my perusal and his mouth flinched upwards, knowingly. A lone tingle ran down my spine.
Fuck you, tingles.
“Are you going bankrupt?” Marlena then gasped, completely getting the wrong idea.
Rome exhaled. “No, Mom—”
“All that money gone? Harold, say something!”
Harold grunted with indifference. “You live and learn, honey.”
“Wait, you’re going bankrupt?” Alyssa suddenly inserted in shock, looking at Rome like her entire world was falling apart.
“The next album will fix that,” Molly muttered under her breath, still typing away at her phone. Bet you she was on Twitter.
Oh, stereotypical Leah.
Why was I being such an asshole?
“For fuck’s sake!” Rome growled out. “I’m not going bankrupt! I just said I was looking for another house to buy! Does that sound like I’m going bankrupt?”
Alyssa fell back onto the couch in relief. Because that’s not a sign enough the chick was in love with more than just his pretty face. Carter let out a deep chuckle, and I felt it all the way down to my toes. That freaking laugh…
Dear God, I was doomed.
Confidence, confidence.
Marlena gasped again. “Language, Rome!”
Rome glared at me for several moments and I shrugged apologetically. Maybe it was time I just shut up, which was pretty ridiculous since I’d barely said a word.
The conversation steered far away from money now, and into their music. I remained quiet, watching them as the boys ate and the girls pretended to be interested.
All the while, I felt the searing burn of his eyes penetrating me wholly.