1. Carter
1
Carter
AGE SIXTEEN
I learned at a young age that getting people to like me usually afforded me whatever I wanted. It was something about my face, the innocence in my eyes perhaps, or the dimples in my cheeks. It softened people’s resolve, and once I had them laughing, most turned to putty in my hands. Growing up as the oldest of four children in a latchkey house with two working parents made this even more useful. Acted out in class and got detention? One grin and a flimsy excuse later, I was off.
Of the Scott kids, I was the one who had to keep my shit together. I was the one who had to make something of myself, the one setting the example for the rest.
“Did Charlotte do her homework tonight?” my mother asked, sorting through the mail and flexing her hosed feet on the yellow laminate kitchen floor. In the morning, she ran her own yoga studio, but after that, she worked the second shift at a call center to make ends meet.
“Yes,” I said, scribbling in my math notebook.
“And Sophia took a shower before bed?” Her blue eyes wandered over a bill, and she ran a hand through her sunshine-blond hair, brushing it back from her face before opening another envelope.
“Of course.” My reply came absently, my mind too focused on my homework. I wasn’t sure my calculations were right. I’d have to ask someone to compare notes in the morning. Math had never been my strong suit.
“Carter,” my mother snapped. “Are you listening?”
I cleared my throat and looked up at her. “Yes.”
“What about Lizzie?”
“Everyone is bathed and sound asleep,” I said. “Can I finish my homework now?”
Her features dropped, and she sank into the chair next to me. “I’m sorry. I know it’s difficult asking you to take care of your sisters.”
Especially when it should be her and our father.
“When’s he coming home?” I asked.
She’d confided in me a few weeks ago that they were considering divorce. He’d rented an apartment closer to his job with a flimsy excuse about a shorter commute, but none of us bought it. We all suspected what was really going on.
“I don’t know.” She reached across the table to grab my hand. I tugged it away from her.
“I have something to tell you.” I swallowed the lump in my throat and grabbed the acceptance letter from my book bag, sliding it across the table to her. “Some theater groups from around the world came to my school a few weeks ago. I auditioned and got an invitation from the Royal Theater Company to study with them for a year.”
Her mouth hung open, and her indigo eyes, replicas of my own, fell to the letter. The faint glow from the retro overhead light illuminated her confusion as she read through it. This would be an amazing opportunity for me, one that would help me get into Thomas Washington University. One that would help me after graduation. The connections I’d make there would network me into what I’d always wanted.
“A year?” She blew the word out like it had been squeezed from her chest.
“I know you need help with my sisters. But this is important to me.”
She covered her mouth and tears brimmed in the corners of her eyes. “Jesus, Carter.”
“If there’s any way we can make it work…I’ll do double shifts at the video store. I’ll eat Spam and macaroni for the next five years. I just—” I had to go. I needed to go. I wanted it with everything in my body, like something greater than myself was pulling me there.
“Of course, we’ll make it work,” she said. “This is—Wow.” She stood and walked over to me, wrapping her arms around my shoulders before pulling me into a tight hug. “I’m so proud of you. My baby boy.”
I snorted. “Not a baby anymore.”
“Oh, you’re my first.” She wiped at her cheeks. “You’ll always be my baby.”
“Thanks, Mom.”
“You’ll have to tell your father.”
“Ah.” I let out a breath. “I was hoping…”
She pursed her lips. “Okay. Let me talk to him. It’ll soften the blow.”
My father thought my acting dreams were just that. Dreams. Fantasies. Nothing would ever come from them. Sure, the hobby gave me valuable life experience, but my time would be better spent studying business or dentistry like him. Something with a guaranteed return on investment.
But that sounded like a corporate hellhole, and I wanted the glitz and the glamour of fame. There was a downside to it, sure, but I loved the stage, and I was good at it.
“Carter?” came the small voice from the entry to the dining room. My youngest sister, Lizzie, stood in the doorway, clutching at a raggedy teddy bear with one hand. Her messy blond hair stuck out in odd directions, but her chubby red cheeks indicated she’d been crying. “I had a nightmare.”
At six, she’d been the last-chance-to-save-a-dying-marriage child my parents hadn’t expected but had been delighted to bring into the world. In the end, it didn’t save their relationship, and the ten-year age difference between me and Lizzie made it easier for my parents to lean on me for help raising her.
Charlotte and Sophia were closer to each other than to either of us. But Lizzie? Well, she’d had me wrapped around her finger since the day she was born.
“Aww, Lizzie-Bizzie.” I scooped her up and wrapped my arms around her tiny body, my heart melting when she rested her head on my shoulder and let out one final whimper before she relaxed. “It’s okay. It’s only a bad dream.”
“Will you stay with me?” she asked when I put her back in her bed.
“Always.”
“Pwomise?” It came out as a muffled sigh, her eyes fighting sleep but ultimately losing.
“Promise.”
But six months later, I was on a plane to London with my life packed in two suitcases, and a year after that, I met a guy who would change it altogether.
* * *
LONDON
AGE EIGHTEEN
I stood backstage at the King’s Royal Theater, my crown in one hand, my phone in the other. It had been a week since I’d met Lex, and I still hadn’t gotten the balls to text him and ask if he planned to come see the play.
I set aside a ticket at the box office for him every night, but so far, he hadn’t taken me up on it.
Not that I really expected him to. What could someone like him want with someone like me? It’s just…I believed in the power of firsts. First kisses. First fucks. First loves. Not necessarily in that order.
The first girl I ever slept with was Stephanie Hoppenheimer in the treehouse my father built in the backyard. We were fifteen and I came in less than two minutes, so I spent the rest of the night going down on her to make up for it. She didn’t know I was a virgin. Ever since that day, I’d locked a piece of my heart away for her. She got that spot in my life no one else would ever have.
Sentimental, yes, but I was a sentimental shit, and that would never change.
I fucked around with a lot of girls in high school. Who didn’t? I was tall and beautiful and athletic. People liked that, but it meant little to me. I couldn’t afford to fall in love. I had dreams. Hollywood. My name in bright lights. So I purposely kept myself guarded. I couldn’t lose my head over someone who would keep me in Chicago for the rest of my life.
I was meant for greater things.
“Hey,” came the voice from my right. My director, Anthony Michaels, walked closer. He’d been a screenwriter for a couple of different television shows on the BBC and had a résumé a mile long. A tall, thin man with wiry hair and thick tortoise-shell glasses, he liked to joke that he’d been roped into teaching at the RTC for a semester by losing a bet to an old colleague. Most importantly, he’d taken a liking to me and put me under his wing like a mentor. “You ready for tonight?”
“Yeah.” I smiled and shoved my phone in my back pocket, determined not to think about Lex anymore. “I’m always ready.”
He laughed and clapped me on the shoulder. “I know. That’s what makes you such a lucky little wanker.”
I narrowed my eyes on him.
“Your talent? All natural. It’s rare. You should cherish it.”
One side of my mouth pulled into a smile. Luck. Natural talent. I knew what he was trying to say, but he didn’t see the years I’d spent busting my ass for this—pleading and scraping just to be right here.
“You need to keep your head on straight. No distractions.”
“I understand,” I said. And I did, even as my heart ached for a beautiful boy who had promised to show up but never did. “College. Then Hollywood.”
“Exactly. I’m writing a screenplay now. It’s called Fractured Crowns. I think you’d be great for one of the parts.”
“Really?” I raised my eyebrows in surprise. “Are you offering me a job?”
He laughed and held up his hands. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I said I’m writing the screenplay. I still have to finish it and sell it. But stay in touch, yeah?”
“Yeah,” I said, making a mental note to ensure I did.
But I was eighteen, and I’d just sucked a dick for the first time, so my mind was a million miles away. Like I said, I believed in the power of firsts. Lex Fairfax had rocked my world. Yeah, I knew who he was when I met him. I’d seen him on the cover of magazines my whole life.
But in person? Man, those hazel eyes hit differently, like they could peel you apart, layer by layer until they saw all the deep, dark shit you were made of. Matched with the cheekbones, the pouty lips, and the tattoos? The dude was a work of art.
My mother would have called it a meeting of souls and said Lex and I had been lovers in a past life. He looked at me like I lit up the sky at night, and no guy had ever looked at me like that before. Or if they had, I didn’t notice because I was too busy chasing pussy.
I noticed Lex.
Up until this point, I’d never considered the possibility that I might be bisexual. I liked girls a lot. But now? Shit, I’d give it all up for another night with him.
Was it his smile that made my heart beat faster than anyone before him? Was it how he rolled his eyes when he thought I was being facetious? Or maybe it was because he made me feel like I could be all he’d ever need?
I didn’t know, but I liked it, and I wanted to believe I was special, that he didn’t hook up with many guys, that I was somehow unique. Lex was a first for me in a multitude of ways.
Sentimental, remember?
I put my heart into that last performance of Henry V , praying the entire time that Lex was in the audience, watching with that hazel stare, waiting for his night with the king.
When I got off the stage and realized he hadn’t shown, the horrible truth settled in my gut. The experience had been eye-opening for me. Earth-shattering. Revelatory. But I’d been just another fuck to Lex Fairfax.
* * *
I didn’t think I’d see him again. Thomas Washington University had more than 300,000 students. Odds were, he’d go about his merry rich boy life, and I’d keep my place with the peasants. Imagine my surprise when I walked into the cafeteria the second day of being on campus and there he was. His hair was a little longer, and he had his arm around a brunette, but it was undeniably him. I bit back my reaction, my eyes shifting to the person in the seat beside him.
Princess Miriam.
I understood the situation immediately. Lex hadn’t called because he and Miriam were together. That made more sense than his interest in me. Who else could have a prince but an equally powerful princess? Why would he call piddly me when he had majestic her ?
My focus drifted across the table, and my heart came to a standstill.
Ivy Washington.
The atmosphere changed, grew static and charged. Anticipation built in my chest, like magic had tried to tell me then, at this first meeting of the four of us, that we were destined for more . That we would weave a tale so wicked we could only experience it together.
I fell in love with her the first week of freshman term after a night spent studying in the library. It was late, just the two of us, and she’d disappeared into the 600 section some twenty minutes ago. The library announced they were closing soon, so I gathered my things and went to find her.
At that time of night, the racks had that eerie glow to them that made them spooky and haunted for how many lives were immortalized on their shelves. She stood in the last row, a copy of Introduction to BDSM: Kink and Fetishes in her hand. I watched her from the end of the aisle as she flipped through the pages, her cheeks pink, her focus captivated.
I should have let her have her moment, perhaps given her privacy. But the thought of Ivy and that book together made my blood heat, and I couldn’t stop myself.
“Hey, what’s that?” I said, going to stand next to her.
She startled and snapped it closed, hiding it behind her back like she’d been caught with her hand in the candy bin.
Adorable.
“Nothing,” she said. “Just some reading. What’s up?”
“Some reading?” I raised an eyebrow and smiled, taking a few steps closer. “Whatcha reading, Weeds?”
Ivy let out her nervous giggle and forced a smile, clearing her throat as she put the book back on its shelf.
“Oh,” I said. “A new interest or a refresher?”
She balked. “What?”
I snorted and shook my head. “You know, if you need someone to tie you up and turn your ass pink, all you have to do is ask.”
I thought I had her speechless, perhaps flustered and embarrassed. Then she shocked the fuck out of me and said, “Bold of you to assume I’m not the one tying the knots.”
She gave me that classic Washington stare and walked back toward our stuff.
The visual that went through my mind was downright despicable. Me, on my knees in front of her, a collar around my throat, my mouth open and ready to service her. Ivy, a crop in her hand, thigh-high leather boots, all that red hair in a mane around her head.
Good lord.
I’d never been one to let something like that go. If it were any other girl, I’d march my ass up to her and demand she put her money where my mouth was, but Weeds? Well…
She was millions of miles out of my league, and even if I became the richest man on the planet, she always would be. It wasn’t only that I was intimidated by her . I didn’t deserve her, and I couldn’t have her, so I kept my distance.
I forced myself to go home with random chicks, and I closed my eyes when I slid inside them, picturing the way Ivy’s mouth fell open into that perfect pouty O, or the way her hair looked in the sunshine, or the way her skin turned that delectable shade of rose when she got flustered.
When I finally got her alone in my dorm, we matched in every way. There was nothing—I do mean nothing —that Ivy wouldn’t do as long as it was with me.
Like I said, I believe in firsts. I may not have been the first person to be intimate with Ivy Washington, but I was the first person with a cock she let inside her body, the first guy she trusted with her privacy and soul.
My love with Ivy was unmatched by anything I’d ever known. It was the deep down inside kinda love, the stuff that kept me up at night wondering if I was making the right choices. Would I be able to leave her when the time came? Would I really be able to walk away from this? From her?
I had four years to figure it out, and in those four years, I tried not to worry about it.
But you know what they say about the best laid plans…
And in my case, my downfall started with a flight to Ireland and a severely fucked-up trip through the woods.