Chapter 17 Well.
Well...
Crew
When I told Carly to get some popcorn ready, I was joking.
Maybe I should have told her to cut a mango and grab some spoons—she probably would have reacted differently.
It's too late now, because the microwave timer makes a beeping sound, and Carly plops back onto the couch with a big green bowl of buttered popcorn on her lap and all her attention on me.
“What are you sitting around here for?” She tosses a piece of popcorn in her mouth, gesturing for me to begin.
This girl…
“So, I’ve been in the industry since birth,” I begin with. “If you asked me what my first project was, I wouldn’t be able to tell you.”
“Wow,” she mouths.
“It was all I knew,” I continue. “For the first eighteen years of my life. My mom has been a part of it since she was my age, and when I was born, she took the first opportunity for a mother-son duo to appear on screen.”
And I tell her. From the time I was on that kid’s show to the first movie that made me a household name at thirteen years old—some of it, I’m certain she already knows, but she doesn’t interrupt me once—and even the last film set I ever stepped on.
The sun is already setting by the time I get to that part.
“It was a horror movie, and there were some very…” I trail off, trying to word it. “Gruesome stuff I wasn’t comfortable doing. But it was up to my parents, because I was under eighteen. I told her about it almost immediately, but she didn’t care.”
A light gasp leaves Carly’s lips, but she doesn’t say a single word. If I'm being honest, I was expecting her to, even if it was just to ask a question. She lets me speak, and I don’t miss a beat.
Revisiting the past isn’t something I enjoy doing at all. Even thinking back to that time, when I thought I was being dramatic for quitting right there because I thought I was acting like a brat. I was a teenager, and the betrayal I felt at the time stung worse than any bee sting could.
“I know you’re dying to ask questions,” I tell her when I’m finished. Based on the way her forehead scrunches, the farther I get into my story, the closer her dark eyebrows are to touching. “Throw them all at me.”
Carly doesn’t say anything for a minute. I’m wondering if she’s sitting in shock or practically paralyzed at what I told her, and her brain is imagining every single scenario I just played out for her.
However, when her arms wrap around me and pull me closer, all I can feel is the tension slipping away from me.
“I’m proud of you,” she whispers into my chest. Slowly, my arms come around her, and my eyes close on their own accord, embracing the comfort she brings.
She’s the definition of sunshine. Wherever she goes, a huge beam of light, of warmth, follows her, and you can’t help but be at ease when Carly’s around.
Am I falling for her? I think I am. Scratch that—I’m a thousand percent sure that I’ve already fallen and created a life-sized crater into the Earth, where I lie with the image of Carly in my arms, dancing in my head.
I could stay like this forever.
Carly lifts her head off my chest to face me. “I know this wasn’t easy, Crew, but I’m thankful you told me. Even if you’re not over what happened.”
“I am.”
She lifts a brow at me. “Are you?”
There’s that question again. Vinny was the last person to ask this, and I truly believed, at that time, that I was over it. I was done letting those emotions and these memories control me.
But I’ve never doubted that until now.
Maybe I’m not over everything. I should have pieced it together a long time ago, but I was too stubborn to accept that it would take much longer than multiple therapy sessions in a year for my brain to realize that my past doesn’t dictate the decisions I make today.
At least, not all of them.
“I don’t know,” I admit to her. “How do you know it’s all over? When the worst of it’s behind you?”
“You don’t,” she whispers, and it’s not until now that I notice how close she is to me. Physically and mentally.
Mentally, she’s managed to push through the walls I’ve built up throughout my entire college career in the span of a few months and has not once treated me any differently from her Ali and Vinny.
Physically, as she glances up from my chest, our noses are closer to touching.
It would only take one of us to move even a centimeter forward for our lips to touch, and I’m itching to make the first move.
Her eyes dart down slightly to my lips and quickly back to mine, blinking ever so rapidly.
Fuck it.
I close the distance between us and thank fuck that I did because as her soft lips press onto mine, I prepare myself for anything that can possibly separate us in the moment.
Carly freezes at first before molding into me and slanting her lips, bringing the kiss deeper. She tastes like the popcorn she just ate, both salty and sweet, complex and vibrant, and I can’t get enough.
ANSWER ME! ANSWER ME!
A male voice breaks me out of my spell, and Carly pulls back, eyes wide and in a haze, and slightly out of breath.
Twenty seconds, all interrupted by the world’s most interesting ringtone.
Partially shocked, she glances at her phone and groans, grumbling, “Really, Carson? You had to call now?” With her thumb, she declines the call and safely places her phone on the coffee table.
Meanwhile, I’m still trying to gather myself. What is time, anyway? I lost track of the minutes, hours, seconds—hell, I don’t even know the concept of time anymore. I kiss Carly once, and nothing around me makes sense, except for her.
If I thought I was falling hard for Carly before, I’m accelerating now.
Not once did I ever feel this way when I had a crush on Ali. The world around me never ceased to exist every time I looked at her. It does when my gaze is fixated on the brunette sitting next to me, glaring down at her phone because of a stupid phone call that ruined a heart-thumping moment.
She turns back to me, and at the proximity, I’m tempted to go back in for another kiss. Instead, she places her hand on my chest, eyes wide. “Wait, we shouldn’t be doing this!”
I furrow my brows. “Then why is your hand still on my chest?” She could keep it there, for all I care.
But she slowly lifts the palm of her hand off my chest, right above my heart. A million thoughts are probably running through her head at this very moment, and I’m willing to guess she’s trying to decide which one to deem appropriate enough for this very moment.
Her gaze moves from my eyes back to her lap. “Uh, just have to take care of…” She reaches for her phone. “This. That’s all.”
Before I can respond, she rushes out of the living room and slams the door to her bedroom shut. Meanwhile, I’m stuck to the couch, wondering what the fuck just happened.