38. Carter
38
Carter
T he morning light filters in through the blinds, casting long streaks of gold and pale blue across my room, soft and quiet, the kind of light that makes everything feel suspended in time, like the world hasn’t quite woken up yet.
But I have, and so has the weight of everything Haven said last night. I glance down at her, still tangled up in my sheets, my shirt swallowing her frame, her hair a dark mess against my pillow, her breathing slow and steady, completely fucking exhausted from everything that’s happened over the last few days.
She’s leaving today. The realization almost burying an ache in me.
All I know in this moment is that I can’t let her go without talking to Tate first. I carefully ease myself out of bed, making sure not to jostle her, my muscles aching as I push myself to my feet, still feeling the lingering soreness.
I move quietly through the hall, avoiding the creaky floorboard near the end, feet cold against the hardwood as I pause outside Tate’s door.
He’s awake, I can feel it. I don’t knock. I push the door open, stepping inside, and sure enough, he’s sitting at his desk, his mask discarded on the nightstand, his hair a mess, his hands gripping the edge of the chair like he already knows why I’m here.
His eyes slowly find me, unreadable, guarded. Sometimes I wonder if he even really sleeps.
I cross my arms, leaning against the doorframe. “We, uh we need to talk.”
Tate exhales sharply, dragging a hand down his face. “Yeah,” he mutters, voice rough from exhaustion. “We fucking do.”
He leans back in his chair, arms crossing over his chest, he clearly knows what this is about. He knows why I’m here, and I know him well enough to know that he’s already figured out a way to twist this conversation in his favor before I even say a word. I don’t give him the chance.
I step inside, shutting the door behind me, the click of the latch sealing us in, forcing this conversation to happen whether either of us wants it to or not.
“Haven told me what she’s thinking,” I say, my voice steady, even though my pulse is hammering against my ribs, even though this feels like stepping into some kind of dangerous territory, some place neither of us have ever been before. “About you, about me. About… all of this.”
Tate’s jaw tightens, his fingers tapping against his bicep, his expression almost unreadable, but his silence says more than enough. He’s letting me talk, he’s waiting. So I keep going. “She doesn’t know what to do with this, Tate,” I admit, running a hand through my hair, exhaling hard, trying to shake the tension out of my shoulders. “She’s confused as hell, and honestly? So am I.”
Tate lets out a low breath through his nose, his gaze looking past me for half a second, like he’s searching for an escape route, like he’d rather be anywhere but here. I won’t let him run from this, not this time.
I step closer, standing directly in front of him, forcing him to look at me, to face this, to deal with what we’ve gotten ourselves into.
“Do you even know what you’re doing?” I ask, voice quieter now and treading more careful. “Or is this just another game to you?”
Tate’s eyes snap back to mine, a sharp edge cutting through his expression, but it’s not anger. “You think this is a game to me?” he says, his voice low, almost bitter. “You think I don’t fucking know exactly what’s happening here?”
I clench my jaw, fists curling at my sides, because that’s not what I meant, but fuck, maybe it is. Maybe I need to hear him say it. I need to know what the hell is going on inside his head before this whole thing spirals even more out of control.
“Then tell me,” I demand, my voice firmer more fucking desperate. “Because I know how I feel about her. I know what this means to me. But you—” I shake my head, narrowing my eyes. “I don’t trust you not to fuck this up, even if you don’t want to.”
Tate doesn’t say anything for a long time, and I let the silence stretch, let the weight of everything press down on him, let him sit with it, let him figure out if he’s actually ready to say it out loud. Then he exhales sharply, drags a hand through his already messy hair, and mutters, “Yeah. I fucking like her too.”
I stare at him, waiting for the deflection, for the usual Tate bullshit, the joke, the sarcastic remark, the way he always twists things to make them not feel real. But it doesn’t come, instead, he looks at me, there’s something raw there that isn’t just about sex or control or winning some fucked-up game.
“I don’t want to fuck this up,” he says, voice lower now, “But I will. If we don’t figure all this shit out, I will.”
I exhale slowly, letting that sink in. He’s right. If we don’t figure this out, it’ll all fall apart before it even has a chance to be something real. I sit down on the edge of his bed, elbows resting on my knees as I force myself to say the next part. “Then we have to decide what to do, how to figure this all out and make it work.”
Tate lets out another breath, rubbing his face before nodding once. “Yeah.” He leans back in his chair again, rubbing a hand over his jaw, exhaling slow, heavy, like he already knows this isn’t going to be easy, like he already knows we’re both in way too deep to turn back now.
I run a hand through my hair, trying to shake off the lingering tension, trying to figure out how the hell we do this without completely ruining everything. “So?” I finally say, glancing at him. “How do we make this work without fucking her up in the process?”
Tate snorts, shaking his head. “No idea, it’s all kinda fucked regardless” he says, but then his expression sobers, his fingers tapping against his knee, his gaze aiming toward the door like he’s already thinking about Haven, already calculating. “But I know she doesn’t want to choose between me or you.”
I nod. That part’s clear. I get it, I really fucking do. I don’t want her to have to choose, despite the situation being what it is.
“Then we don’t make her,” I say, the words landing firmer than I expected, like they’ve been waiting at the edge of my throat this whole time. We don’t make her choose between us, not if we can help it. Not if we care about her the way I think we both do. We figure it out. We set rules. We don’t—” I swallow, forcing myself to keep going. “We don’t put her in the middle of our shit Tate.”
Tate arches a brow, a slow smirk tugging at his lips. “You mean you don’t want me reminding her which one of us can actually make her scream?”
I roll my eyes. That’s exactly the kind of shit that’s going to make this impossible if we’re not careful. “That’s what I mean,” I mutter, rubbing my temples. “This isn’t some fucking competition.”
Tate leans forward, his smirk fading slightly. “Maybe not for you,” he says, voice quiet. “But for me? It’s survival.”
I pause, my stomach twisting at the weight of his words, at the honesty in them, at the way they feel heavier than just Haven, maybe we’ve been circling something like this our whole damn lives without realizing it. But I don’t have time to unpack that now.
Tate shakes his head, pushing himself up from his chair, his hands bracing on the desk as he exhales. “Fine. We figure it out. But for the record—” he tilts his head, his eyes finding mine, a sharp glint behind them. “I never want your cock that close to my face again. Ever.”
I scoff, standing up and pushing him as I pass. “Trust me, I don’t want that either.”
Tate grins, following me out of the room, and there’s something lighter about it this time. Like, for once, we’re not on completely opposite sides of the universe, like maybe we can actually do this without burning everything around us down.
I head toward the kitchen pulling out pans, thinking about what the hell we’re going to make before Haven wakes up, because she deserves at least that, at least one morning that isn’t just chaos.
Tate leans against the counter, watching me. “You think this is really gonna work?” he finally asks..
I pause, my grip tightening on the pan, my jaw clenching. “I don’t know,” I admit. “But I’m not willing to let her go just to find out.”
Tate doesn’t respond right away, but when he finally does, it’s quieter. More honest. “Yeah,” he mutters. “Me either.”