Chapter 16 — Carter #2
“You texting or proposing?”
Carter’s head snapped up. “Dad.”
Michael shrugged. “It was a long stare.”
Anne smiled into her tea.
Carter locked his phone and stood. “I’m leaving before this household violates my privacy further.”
“Bring Lena next time,” Michael said.
“No.”
“Yes,” Anne said.
“Mom.”
“For dinner. Not interrogation.”
“You don’t know how to not interrogate.”
“That is fair,” Michael said.
Anne pointed at him. “You are not helping.”
“I’m recovering.”
“Not from being impossible.”
Carter grabbed his keys, kissed his mother’s cheek, and then paused beside his dad’s chair.
Still real.
“Follow the instructions,” Carter said into his dad’s shoulder.
“Bossy.”
“Alive.”
Michael huffed. “You and Lena are spending too much time together.”
Carter pulled back, smiling. “Probably.”
“Terrible word.”
Carter’s smile softened.
“Yeah,” he said. “It is.”
He met Lena after dinner near the chapel garden.
Then again, maybe every new meeting now carried the weight of the thing they were building.
He slowed as he approached.
“Brooks.”
“Hayes.”
That helped.
Carter stopped in front of her, close but not too close.
“How’s your dad?” she asked.
“Home. Stable. Grumpy. Follow-up test scheduled.”
“Good.”
“Yeah. Really good.”
“And you?”
He took a breath.
“Better. Tired. Still doing that thing where I imagine worst-case scenarios if nobody actively stops me, but better.”
Her expression softened. “Thank you for the honest answer.”
He smiled faintly. “I’m showing off.”
“You’re allowed.”
He took it.
Their fingers fit together with an ease that still felt new enough to hurt.
“I missed you today,” he said.
Her eyes lifted.
“Too much?” he asked.
“No.” She shook her head. “I missed you too.”
Carter’s lungs forgot their job for a second.
He was never getting used to that.
To Lena saying what she meant, even when it scared her.
“Good,” he said softly.
But quieter here.
The good kind.
“How was your day?” Carter asked.
“Productive.”
“Of course.”
“Emotionally complicated.”
“Also of course.”
She glanced at him. “I answered all my emails, finished two readings, and only thought about campus gossip every forty minutes instead of every seven.”
He squeezed her hand. “Progress.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“Proud of this development,” he said.
Carter grinned.
“What?” he asked. “You don’t own the phrase.”
“I might.”
“Can I license it?”
“For charity.”
He groaned. “You and Mason are going to accidentally build a nonprofit out of emotional harassment.”
“Maybe.”
“Do I get veto power?”
“You’re emotionally involved.”
His smile softened.
That phrase still did things to him.
“I am,” he said.
Lena’s steps slowed slightly.
He did not take it back.
The path led them around the side of the chapel, where a stone bench sat beneath a dogwood tree. Carter nodded toward it.
“Sit for a minute?”
Carter liked this.
Not the silence exactly, but the fact that he did not feel pressured to fill it. Lena made quiet feel less like failure and more like trust.
Eventually she said, “Hannah apologized.”
Carter turned his head. “She did?”
“Sort of. Sophie talked to her, I think. She texted and said she didn’t mean to make things awkward.”
“How do you feel about that?”
Lena looked at the fountain. “I think she meant well in the way people mean well when they don’t think through what they’re saying.”
He had been that type more than once.
“She said she was looking out for me,” Lena continued.
“And?”
“And I told her I appreciate concern, but I’m capable of making my own choices.”
Carter’s chest warmed.
“Yeah?”
“Yes.”
“That’s…” He looked down at their hands. “That means a lot.”
“She doesn’t know you like I do.”
His heart kicked hard.
Lena seemed to realize what she said after it was out, because she looked down quickly.
Carter did not let it pass.
Not completely.
“You know me?”
Her thumb moved over his knuckle.
“I’m starting to.”
Starting to meant he was not just a reputation or a rumor or a player she had kissed between emergencies and coffee dates.
He wanted to be worth the study.
Carter looked at her, and his voice came out quieter than he expected.
“I want you to.”
Everything with Lena seemed to start with a question now.
Carter made a quiet sound before he could stop it.
Her mouth opened under his, and the rest of campus faded down to the fountain, the cold air, and Lena’s hand against his neck.
But the feeling was there, pacing behind a locked door.
He eased back first, breathing unevenly.
Lena’s eyes opened slowly.
“Hi,” she whispered.
Carter smiled. “Hi.”
“That was not studying.”
“I didn’t bring notes.”
“Smart.”
“I’m learning.”
Her laugh was quiet and breathless.
He leaned his forehead against hers.
“I like this,” he said.
Her eyes softened.
“Normal life?”
“With kissing,” he clarified.
“Of course.”
“And no shirts.”
“Critical.”
“And no hospital cafeterias.”
“Preferred.”
“And you telling Hannah you can make your own choices.”
Her smile faded into something tender.
“That part too.”
Lena noticed.
Of course she did.
“You okay?”
He smiled faintly. “Your okay or mine?”
“Yours.”
That surprised him.
He looked back at her.
“My okay is allowed?”
“Sometimes,” she said. “When I think you’re being honest with yourself.”
He laughed softly. “Fair.”
He took a breath.
“I’m okay,” he said. “A little overwhelmed.”
“By?”
“You.”
Her eyes widened slightly.
He squeezed her hand. “In a good way.”
“That sounds suspiciously like too much.”
“It is too much.” He smiled, nervous now. “But not too much bad. Just… more than I know how to hold without dropping.”
Lena’s expression softened so much it nearly wrecked him.
“We don’t have to hold all of it tonight,” she said.
His throat tightened.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
She shifted closer and rested her head on his shoulder.
Carter went still for half a second.
Which was not a word Carter used, because he was still a hockey player with a reputation and a teammate who thought Team Clipboard was branding genius.
But sacred was what came to mind anyway.
After a few minutes, Lena said, “Paige wants to meet you properly.”
Carter blinked. “I’ve met Paige.”
“She wants to interrogate you properly.”
“Ah. Very different.”
“Yes.”
“Should I be afraid?”
“Yes.”
“Great.”
“She’s protective.”
“I noticed.”
“But fair.”
“That I doubt.”
“She likes you.”
“She called me hockey boy.”
“With warmth.”
“Debatable.”
Lena smiled against his shoulder. “She saw us outside the student center yesterday.”
“Did she now?”
“She said the kiss was cute.”
Carter grinned. “Cute?”
“Do not sound offended.”
“I was going for life-altering.”
She lifted her head and looked at him. “You’re ridiculous.”
“Was it?”
“What?”
“Life-altering.”
Aggressively liked.
“You don’t get that kind of feedback on demand,” she said.
“So maybe.”
“Carter.”
“That’s a maybe.”
Then her phone buzzed.
She glanced down and laughed.
“What?” he asked.
“Paige. She says if I’m with you, remind you that she knows where the hockey team practices.”
Carter winced. “Terrifying.”
“And that you should bring snacks when you come over.”
“When I come over?”
Lena looked suddenly very interested in her phone.
Carter leaned closer. “Brooks.”
“She is assuming.”
“Are you?”
Her cheeks pinked.
“I mean, eventually. Maybe. Not tonight.”
“Okay.”
“Just to hang out,” she added quickly.
He smiled softly. “I know.”
“I don’t want—”
“Lena.” He touched her chin lightly, guiding her eyes back to his. “I know.”
She searched his face.
Whatever she found seemed to settle her.
“Okay.”
His thumb brushed once along her jaw before he dropped his hand.
“Snacks, though,” he said. “That’s clear.”
“Paige can be bribed.”
“With what?”
“Sour candy. Salt and vinegar chips. Anything involving chocolate and peanut butter.”
Carter mentally filed that away.
Lena noticed.
Her eyes softened. “You’re remembering that?”
“Of course.”
“For Paige?”
“She’s important to you.”
There it was again.
The thing he said without planning that landed like more than he knew how to explain.
Lena’s gaze turned glossy.
“Stop,” she whispered.
“What?”
“Being like that.”
“Like what?”
“Good.”
Carter’s chest tightened.
“I’m trying.”
“I know.” She looked down, smiling faintly. “That’s the problem.”
They sat until the air grew colder.
When Carter walked her back to the dorm, he held her hand the whole way.
A miracle.
At her dorm entrance, Lena turned toward him.
“I should go.”
“Yeah.”
Neither moved.
He smiled. “We’re bad at goodbyes.”
“We are practicing.”
“How are we doing?”
“Poorly.”
“Good. I hate them.”
She laughed softly.
He stepped closer.
“Can I kiss you goodnight?”
“You ask every time.”
“I like hearing you say yes.”
Her hands slid up his chest, and his arms wrapped carefully around her waist. Carter felt the kiss everywhere, but especially in the part of him that kept whispering dangerous words behind locked doors.
He pulled back before the door opened.
Barely.
Lena’s eyes were bright.
“Goodnight,” she said.
“Paige’s snacks. Sour candy, salt and vinegar chips, chocolate peanut butter.”
Entirely her choice.
When she pulled away, she looked surprised at herself.
Carter smiled slowly. “What was that for?”
Carter stayed there until the door closed behind her.
Then he walked back toward his SUV with his hands in his hoodie pocket and a ridiculous smile on his face.
His phone buzzed halfway across the lot.
Lena: That kiss was maybe life-altering.
Then a third time.
Carter: Maybe?
Lena: Don’t get greedy.
His reputation still existed.
Campus would still talk.
Lena was still scared.
He was still scared too.
But tonight, she had chosen him in a chapel garden, told him Hannah didn’t know him like she was starting to, kissed him under dorm lights, and texted him maybe life-altering like she knew exactly what it would do to him.
Carter started the car, still smiling.
Trying did not feel like punishment tonight.
It felt like possibility.
And possibility, he was beginning to learn, was the riskiest thing of all.