Chapter 12 — Carter #3
“I’m trying not to take too much,” he said.
“I know.” Her thumb moved against his hand. “And I appreciate that. But wanting me there isn’t taking.”
“It can be.”
“Only if you ignore my answer.”
Very fair.
Painfully fair.
“What’s your answer?” he asked.
Then braced himself for no because it was probably better.
“My answer,” she said, “is that I want to be there. But tonight, I should probably rest.”
Definitely annoying.
He nodded. “Good.”
Her eyebrows lifted. “Good?”
“Yeah. I like that you want to. I like that you’re saying no because you need rest.” He gave her a crooked smile. “Look at me, supporting boundaries.”
Her smile softened. “Very impressive.”
“I deserve a sticker.”
“You get a walk.”
At the edge of the quad, Carter spotted a bench under a tree and nodded toward it. Lena agreed, and they sat close enough that their knees touched.
Because maybe this was what trying looked like when nobody was watching.
Except, unfortunately, someone was always watching at Ridgeview.
“Is that Mason?” Lena asked.
Across the quad, Mason stood half-hidden behind a tree, wearing sunglasses and pretending to read a campus map upside down.
Carter closed his eyes. “I’m going to kill him.”
“No. He’s ‘witnessing.’ There’s a difference in his mind.”
Across the quad, Mason looked down at his phone.
Carter watched her laugh and felt the entire day ease.
“I’m sorry,” he said, smiling. “My friends are idiots.”
“They’re kind of sweet.”
“Don’t encourage them.”
“They care about you.”
He looked where Mason had disappeared.
“Yeah,” he said. “They do.”
“Does that surprise you?”
He leaned back against the bench. “Sometimes.”
Lena studied him.
He could feel the question coming before she asked it.
“Why?” she said.
Carter looked across the quad.
A group of students tossed a Frisbee badly. Someone played music from a speaker too quietly to identify. Normal life moved around them like it had no idea Carter Hayes was quietly unraveling on a bench because a girl asked one gentle question.
He could say something about Mason being allergic to sincerity.
Instead, he tried.
“I think I got used to being the fun one,” he said. “The guy people liked having around, but not the guy they needed. Or checked on. Or took seriously.”
She made silence feel safe enough to fill.
“And I probably encouraged that,” he admitted. “It’s easier to be useful for a laugh than… I don’t know. Actually known.”
Lena’s shoulder brushed his.
“You’re known,” she said.
He looked at her.
“By more people than you think.”
“Yeah.” She smiled faintly. “Mason made an illegal shirt about your emotional life. That’s not casual friendship.”
Carter laughed, the pressure in his chest breaking apart. “That’s one interpretation.”
“It’s evidence.”
“Everything is evidence to you.”
“I’m thorough.”
“I like that about you.”
Not frozen.
Just caught.
Carter realized he had said it plainly.
So he kept going, because apparently he had no survival instincts left.
“I like that you’re thorough,” he said. “I like that you make plans because you care. I like that you ask hard questions and pretend you don’t want soft answers. I like that you say things like ‘my emotional likeness’ with a straight face.”
Good.
His favorite color on her.
“Carter,” she said softly.
“I like a lot about you, Brooks.”
This moment felt too delicate to rush.
Finally, she said, “I like a lot about you too.”
“What parts?”
Her eyes narrowed slightly. “Do not get smug.”
“I’m not. I’m gathering data.”
She shook her head, but her smile stayed.
“I like that you’re trying,” she said. “I like that you make people feel included. I like that you’re braver than you think. I like that you’re funny even when you’re scared, but I like it more when you let yourself be scared.”
Right through the center.
“And,” she added, voice softer, “I like that you held my hand in front of everyone today even though I know that was new for us.”
Simple.
Terrifying.
“I liked that too,” he said.
Lena did not move away.
Her eyes dipped to his mouth.
Carter smiled faintly. “You’re doing that thing.”
“What thing?”
“Thinking about kissing me.”
Her lips parted. “You do not get to say that.”
“You said it to me first.”
Softly at first, because the quad was full of people and because Carter was learning that not every kiss had to prove something.
Not just in closets and hospital parking lots and behind curtains when emotions were high.
Carter pulled back with a sigh.
Lena closed her eyes. “Please tell me that was not Mason.”
Carter looked over her shoulder.
Mason stood near the student center, one hand in the air.
Beside him, Tank looked apologetic.
Jonah looked like he wanted to be anywhere else.
Logan, who had apparently materialized from darkness despite it being daytime, stood with his arms crossed and no expression.
Carter waved one finger in warning.
Mason shouted, “FOR LOGISTICS!”
Lena covered her face.
Carter laughed, pulling her gently against his side.
“I’m transferring schools,” she mumbled.
“No, you’re not.”
“I’m changing my name.”
“Can I know the new one?”
She lowered her hands and looked at him. “Your friends are impossible.”
“Our friends,” he said before he could think better of it.
Lena’s expression softened.
“Our friends,” she repeated quietly.
Maybe normal life was Mason shouting nonsense across the quad and Lena pretending to hate it while leaning into Carter’s side.
Later, Carter walked Lena back toward the student center.
Both of them had to sleep eventually, according to every responsible person in their lives.
But neither seemed in a hurry to say goodbye.
At the steps, Lena stopped.
“I should go inside.”
“I should go be a responsible son.”
“You are a responsible son.”
He looked at her. “You think?”
He would never get used to the way she said things like that.
Like she had decided they were true, so he should stop arguing.
“I’m trying,” he said.
“I know.”
“And tomorrow…” He hesitated. “Normal life?”
Her mouth curved. “What does that mean?”
“Coffee. Studying. You pretending not to be impressed by my commitment to academic excellence.”
“Do you have academic excellence?”
“I have academic adjacentness.”
“That sounds more accurate.”
“And maybe,” he said, stepping closer, “kissing.”
She lifted an eyebrow. “You said normal life.”
Aggressively liked.
Lena’s eyes narrowed. “You look too pleased with yourself.”
Lena’s expression changed.
Softened in a way that took his breath.
“Good,” she said.
Sweet.
Enough to carry with him.
Then again, because he had no discipline where Lena Brooks was concerned.
Her fingers brushed his hoodie, and for a second Carter seriously considered texting his mother that he had been delayed by emotional involvement.
Then Lena pulled back, smiling.
“Go see your dad.”
“Yes, boss.”
“And eat something later.”
“I already ate the sandwich.”
“Later, Carter.”
“Demanding.”
“Correct.”
He started walking backward. “Tomorrow. Coffee?”
Failed.
“Maybe.”
“That was a yes.”
“That was a maybe.”
“I’m choosing to receive it as yes.”
“You and your father are very similar.”
Lena: Actual food file updated. Proud of this development.
He looked back.
She was standing on the steps, phone in hand, pretending she had not texted him from twenty feet away.
Carter grinned and typed.
Carter: Dangerous words.
Lena looked down at her phone.
At the hospital, his dad was awake and grumpy, which seemed to be his new favorite medical status.
Michael Hayes looked up when Carter walked in and immediately narrowed his eyes.
“You’re smiling.”
Carter froze. “Am I?”
Anne looked over from her chair. “You are.”
Carter shoved his hands into his hoodie pocket. “This is just my face.”
Michael snorted. “Not since you were sixteen.”
Anne smiled into her coffee.
Carter sat in the chair beside the bed. “How are you feeling?”
Michael studied him for another second. “You saw Lena.”
Carter looked away.
His mother made a soft, delighted sound.
“Stop,” Carter said.
“I didn’t say anything,” Anne replied.
Michael laughed, then coughed, then waved off Carter’s concern before he could stand.
Of course he did.
“I’m okay,” his father corrected. “Your mother’s okay.”
Carter nodded.
Michael’s voice softened. “You?”
Carter looked down at his hands.
Trying.
“I’m better,” Carter said. “Still scared. But better.”
Michael looked at him for a long moment.
Then nodded once.
“That’s a good answer.”
Carter swallowed.
“Yeah,” he said. “I’m learning.”
Michael looked like he understood more than Carter had said.
Parents were inconvenient like that.
“Good,” he said.
They talked for a while after that. About tests. About hockey. About whether hospital turkey sandwiches counted as punishment. Carter told them about Mason’s Team Clipboard shirt, and his dad laughed so hard a nurse came in to check on him.
Mostly.
Anne wiped tears from her eyes. “For love and logistics?”
“I know,” Carter said. “Terrible.”
Michael shook his head. “No. That’s excellent.”
“Please don’t encourage him.”
“I want one.”
“No.”
Anne smiled. “I might too.”
Michael looked thoughtful. “Do they come in navy?”
His family was betraying him.
All of them.
When he finally left the hospital an hour later, his dad was stable, his mom looked less pale, and Carter felt like maybe the ground under his feet was starting to hold again.
Carter: Dad update: stable, grumpy, now wants a Team Clipboard shirt. My family has chosen chaos.
Carter: He asked if they come in navy.
Carter could practically see her glaring at the phone.
He stared at the message under the pale hospital parking lot light.
Carter still had classes, practices, teammates with the survival instincts of golden retrievers, and feelings he did not know how to carry without dropping them.
Maybe kissing.
Lena Brooks’s hand in his.
And for the first time in a long time, Carter did not want to skate away from the things that scared him.