Chapter 28 Donovan #2
She clears her throat. “Like I said—I want your help to become the world’s best book girlfriend.”
We’re right back at square one—only this time, the roles are reversed. I remember exactly how she first reacted that day in the dining hall, and so I decide to go along with it and act out the scene all over again.
“Sorry, but I’m all booked up. I promised to take Lewis to Planned Parenthood—get him on birth control.”
And then I slam the door shut in her face.
I’m surprised at myself, but at the same time… not. If this is how she wants to play it, then I’m down. It’s fucking hard, though—because deep down, I’d do anything for her. Stay strong, Don. Don’t give in to a pretty face. She deserves to have to fight for it. Doesn’t she?
Fuck it.
I fling open the door. She hasn’t budged an inch.
“Is it me, or are you getting déjà vu?”
She looks at me steadily. “So, can I come in?”
I’m frozen to the spot.
“Why?”
“Can’t you at least pretend to be excited?”
“Oh, trust me—you were definitely giving me a hard-on, right up until the point you threw milk at me.”
She winces.
“Say I did let you in,” I continue, softening. “You wanna tell me what the hell happened earlier this week?”
“Yes.”
She’s never sounded surer. My pulse quickens.
“Okay, then. Right this way, mystery woman.”
In the hall, we bump into Lewis.
“I swear, the Wolinskis are taking over the world,” he says, shaking his head.
I push open the door to my room. “Just ignore him.”
“Trust me—I always do.”
She elbows past me and disappears inside. Lewis is still standing there, gazing after her.
“What’s under her c—”
I slam the door shut and turn the key in the lock for good measure. Then I spin around, keeping my back pressed into the handle.
Carrie shivers and rubs her hands together, trying to warm up.
She slips into bed, curling under my comforter, tugging it up to her nose, her brown eyes gleaming.
She thought I’d be excited—and right now, seeing her tucked up in my bed like that, I am.
But I feel like playing hard to get. I don’t want her to know just being here is enough.
She needs to explain herself. And she knows it.
“I’m sorry for what I said to you,” she starts. “I swear I didn’t mean it.”
“What exactly is going on?”
She bites her lip. “I got scared of where this was going. I always swore I’d never have a boyfriend—at least not while I was at school,” she adds.
“Why not?”
“My parents met at college. They got married three years later, and I came along soon after that. My mom was crazy about him. Crazy,” she repeats.
“It was this epic love story, until it wasn’t.
It turned out he didn’t feel the same. He ditched her for another woman, and that’s when she went off the rails. ”
“People get divorced.” I shrug. “It’s no big deal.”
“Except it was.” She swallows. “It started with her yelling. She would yell all the time, and it was tough—but looking back, it was better than what happened next. She started buying dumb stuff for the house. Ordering crap we didn’t need, filling rooms with things.”
Her breath keeps catching in her chest like it’s physically painful to talk about it all. She looks tiny, swaddled in my bed like that. I grip the door handle tighter, willing myself not to move.
“Initially, I thought she was just filling the emptiness, you know? Until it started spiraling out of control—there was stuff everywhere.”
I nod. “Hoarding?”
“Right. It went on for two years. Two years I spent going back and forth to Cincy, tidying away all the junk, throwing stuff away, selling what I could, watching her fall apart. And that made me want to never let a guy in. I never wanted someone to have that hold on me. I was too scared of ending up like her…”
Everything is slotting into place. She overreacted, sure—but now I get where she’s coming from. I feel for her. Living your life in the shadow of your parents is no life at all.
“When Greyson called, they’d just put a fire out. A fire in the living room. It was a candle.” She shakes her head. “One of the stacks of newspapers caught fire.”
“Fuck. Is your mom okay?”
“Physically, she’s fine. But it terrified her.”
“You should’ve let me come with you.”
“I couldn’t do that.”
“I took you back to my dad’s,” I counter.
“Exactly!” Her cheeks flush. “You have the perfect family, Don! Your parents are divorced, but they act like they’re still married. Compare that to my situation—a deadbeat dad and a crazy mom. And then you’ve got me, trying to do my best in this complete shit show.”
“Are you mad?”
“Mad at my mom?”
“At your dad. He didn’t just abandon your mom. He ditched you, too.”
Her eyes widen, like it never occurred to her before.
“I never really thought of it like that. Once he moved out, it was kind of a relief, not hearing them fight. And then later on, I hated how sad he made my mom.” Her eyes are blank. “I never stopped to wonder what I really felt.”
“I’d say that’s the root of the problem, right there.”
She nods slowly. “And that’s exactly why I need to learn to be a good girlfriend. I’ve spent days thinking this through.”
“And after days of careful thought, you decided that flashing me would be the way to go?”
She smiles. “Okay, it didn’t go exactly to plan, I’ll admit it. But it seemed like a good way of saying sorry.”
“Hmm.” I pretend to think. “A week of you being my filthy little sub should do the trick. If you could wash my car, I—”
“I’m serious, Don.”
“Same here.”
“I need us to start over. I want to get better.”
“Wait, is this your way of rejecting me?” I frown. “Again?”
“This is me trying to do things properly,” she argues.
“So I’m just ‘things’ now?”
She eyes me. “You know what I mean.”
“All I know is you’re lying there on my bed looking like a million bucks. Consider yourself forgiven.”
“I need you to give me some time.”
“Request denied. What I saw under that trench makes me think it’s going to take way too long for you to become an amazing girlfriend.
Possibly years.” I sigh. “I’m gonna take you as you are—a batshit weirdo I’m prepared to accept for who she is.
Now, maybe that makes me totally naive, but no, Carrie.
” I shake my head. “I’m not okay with giving you some time. ”
“You don’t get to—”
“Hey!” I hold up a hand. “I’m now the gold standard of boyfriend material, remember? Whatever your flaws, I balance you out with my perfection.”
She scowls. “I should’ve brought more milk.”
“Beep! Beep!” I make flashing signs with my hands. “Bad girlfriend radar, activated!”
“I’m not your girlfriend yet.”
Urgh. All I want is for her to say she’s mine, because she can’t imagine life without me. Is that too much to ask?
“What else can you do for me, then?”
She brings a finger to her chin. “I could bake you gluten-free cookies. Knit you a sweater, organize your boxers by color…”
“You suck at girlfriending.”
“You suck at boyfriending!”
“We both know that’s not true, babe. Why can’t you just admit it? Just admit I’m better at this than you are, and I’ll let you have a kiss.”
Her eyes drift down to my mouth, trailing my body. She sighs.
“Why am I so lame? I really want to do this whole thing.”
“What whole thing?”
She waves back and forth between us. “This thing that makes people act all weird.”
“You can say it, Carrie—I believe they call it ‘being in a relationship.’ ”
“Yeah. That.”
I can’t help but laugh.
“You just rocked up here in that tr—”
“Oh my God!” she yells. “Enough with the trench!”
“How about enough with the trying to do something different, to be something different,” I say.
“I don’t need a plot twist, you know. I’m into it already.
I’m into your scheming, your blackmailing, and your shitty personality.
” I eye her. “So—are we gonna waste more time here, or are you gonna let me worship that body of yours?”
She laughs. “Wow. How could I ever get tired of your egomaniacal tendencies?”
I push away from the door. “What did you say?”
“I think you heard.”
I cock my head. “I’ve got milk in my ear.”
“I missed you, you know.”
She whips the comforter over her head to hide while her words slice right through me.
I’ve never heard her open up this way, and suddenly, we’re not playing anymore. She’s not pretending—this is all Carrie, and all I want to do is scoop her up in my arms. I yank the comforter away.
“Say that again.”
“It was easier to run away than try to make sense of my feelings. But now keeping this distance between us hurts. I want…”
“What?” I murmur. “What do you want?”
“You know,” she whispers.
“Say it.”
She bites her lip, her chest heaving from the effort.
I rest a knee on the mattress. “I want to hear you say it.”
“You,” she says. “I want you.”
I fall onto the bed to straddle her, my arms bracketing her head, and slowly, I untie her coat and leave it to fall open.
The sheer lace leaves nothing to the imagination—it takes a moment for my head to stop spinning.
My fingers graze her waistband as I ease her panties a little farther down her hips.
“Don, this is a serious conversation…”
An inch farther.
“Don…”
“I think you need a guy to rip that off you.”
She hammers on my wrists, and reluctantly, I let go.
“I’ll be back,” I say to her panties.
“Don…”
“So—where were we?” I look up into her face. “Oh, that’s right. We got to the part where you miss me—you miss me so much, you can’t imagine how you ever ran away like that.”
She flips her hair over her face, and I smooth the curls back, feeling their softness slip between my fingers like butter. She’s blushing, and she’s so beautiful when she opens up like this. Something in me gives—I’ve won, I realize. It’s time to give up the fight. I won.
“If you wanted me to be your boyfriend, that’s all you had to say. You didn’t need to pull all this shit. I mean, I’ve enjoyed watching you try to win me over,” I add. “But the truth is, I loved you since I first set eyes on you.”
She gasps. “Seriously?”
“No.” I laugh. “But that line always seems to work in books.”
“You are such an asshole.”
“Hey! You were the one who put us on a break—you’re the bad guy here.”
“Think of it as a cliff-hanger.”
I roll my eyes. “Oh, please. There was no cliff-hanger—we all knew you’d see the light in the end.”
She crinkles her nose, and I know she knows I’m right. I predict a comeback in three, two, one…
“I’m gonna wax your balls in your sleep.”
Right on the money.
“Whatever turns you on, babe. Kiss and make up?”
She props herself up on her elbows and leans in, but I decide to toy with her a little, tilting back, forcing her farther up and into me.
“Don…”
I meet her mouth mid-sentence, covering her lips, rolling my tongue against hers. Her legs wrap around my hips, her arms snake around my neck. I can sense her releasing, giving herself over to me, and I moan into her mouth. I didn’t know kissing her could get any better.
“That’s when I fell in love with you, Carrie Wolinski,” I whisper. “When you spilled the milk for me—when you kissed me that day for the first time.”
“You’re such a romantic.”
“Your turn.”
She frowns. “My turn to what?”
“To tell me how much you love me and when it started.”
“That’s not how it works.”
“That’s what good girlfriends do.” I give her a quick squeeze. “When did you know?”
“When I poured milk on you.”
“So, twenty minutes ago?”
“I’d say fifteen.”
“Absolute disgrace, dude.” I shake my head. “I spent weeks loving a girl who didn’t love me back. So, let me get this straight—your love language is liquid projectiles?”
“Yup.”
“Warm, white, wet projectiles…” I wiggle my eyebrows and make to unzip my pants.
“Don’t even think about it,” she warns.
“I just want to show you how much I care…”
“Pack your shit up, dude. It’s never gonna happen.”
“But y—”
“Like, ever.”
I fall forward and roll onto my back, pulling her in to snuggle against me, her chin flat against my chest as she drapes her leg over mine.
I know I can’t always be the world’s best boyfriend, and I know that Carrie is probably going to be one out-of-control girlfriend—but that’s exactly what I love about us.
“Amelia’s here,” I say. “I’m guessing she’ll have clothes you can borrow.”
“Borrow for what?”
“We’re officially together now,” I explain. “That means we need to go get married and have babies. Ones who have your hair and my eyes.”
“Can we at least get pizza first?”
“As long as it’s to go.”
I trace my fingers over her bare thigh, brushing the black lace covering her ass.
“I think we need to make the most of this set first, though. It got off to a rocky start.”
“Kinda like us.”
“Definitely like us.”