Chapter 21 — Lena #2
Anne Hayes had taken her arm gently after Michael and Carter disappeared for coats, her expression warm but serious.
Then, after Lena had nodded because words felt too fragile, Anne had added:
He cares deeply, Lena. Sometimes he jokes because caring scares him. But last night, he didn’t look scared of caring about you. He looked grateful.
That had been the part Lena could not stop replaying.
Grateful.
Carter waited beside her.
Not pushing.
Just there.
“She said you looked happy,” Lena said.
“You told me that.”
“She also said…” Lena swallowed. “She said you care deeply. And that sometimes you joke because caring scares you.”
Carter looked down, mouth curving faintly. “That sounds like Mom.”
“She said last night you didn’t look scared of caring about me.” Lena’s voice softened. “You looked grateful.”
His face changed in a way Lena had come to recognize.
Not deflection.
Feeling arriving before he could armor up.
“She said that?” he asked.
His jaw shifted once.
“She’s dangerous too,” he said, but the words were quiet.
“Family trait.”
A small laugh left him.
Then he looked back at Lena.
“She wasn’t wrong,” he said.
Lena’s breath caught.
Carter held her gaze.
She didn’t.
“For you,” he said. “For this. For… I don’t know.
Getting to be someone who sits beside you at diners after big nights.
Getting to learn your coffee order and your roommate’s snack requirements and the way you line up pens when you’re nervous.
” His smile flickered. “Getting to be taken seriously by you even when I don’t know what to do with it. ”
Lena’s eyes burned.
“Carter.”
“I’m not trying to make it too much.” His voice stayed gentle. “I just don’t want to pretend it’s small.”
Maybe it had never been.
Maybe it had started in a supply closet with a banner typo and grown into something neither of them had planned quickly enough to prevent.
Lena put her fork down.
“I’m grateful too,” she said.
His eyes softened.
“For you. For this.” She smiled faintly. “For emergency cookies and emotional improvement and someone who asks before he kisses me even when I already know my answer.”
His laugh was soft.
But his eyes stayed bright.
“You always know your answer?”
“Right now?”
Her pulse jumped.
“What are you asking?”
A plate of pancakes between them.
“Can I kiss you in a diner after breakfast,” he asked, “or is that too much for low-pressure company?”
Lena smiled.
“Low-pressure kisses are allowed.”
Sweet enough that it made her ache more than the heated ones sometimes did.
When he pulled back, he stayed close for one second.
“Thank you,” he whispered.
She smiled. “For what?”
She was falling in love with Carter Hayes.
Just Carter looking at her over diner coffee with gratitude in his eyes and syrup on the corner of his plate.
It was breakfast.
And somehow breakfast undid her.
Carter noticed something shift.
Of course he did.
“You okay?”
Lena looked down quickly. “Yes.”
She hesitated.
Then, because honesty had become the terrifying habit between them, she said, “Mine. But big.”
Too much.
But maybe not wrong.
“Scary big,” she said instead.
Carter’s breath caught.
He nodded slowly, like he understood exactly what she could not say yet.
“Yeah,” he said. “Me too.”
Maybe he was falling too.
They finished breakfast slowly after that, not because there was anything left to say, but because neither of them seemed ready to step back into the day.
Outside, Carter took her hand again.
Ridgeview Lake shimmered in the late morning sun, the water broken by slow ripples and the occasional duck moving with absurd confidence.
Lena loved that path. It was quieter than the quad, just far enough from campus noise to make everything feel less observed.
Carter glanced at her. “Walk?”
No Mason. No Paige. No donors. No parents.
Just them and the lake and the soft crunch of gravel under their shoes.
After a while, Carter said, “I used to come here freshman year.”
“You did?”
“Yeah. When I needed to think but didn’t want anyone to know I was the kind of guy who thought.”
Lena smiled. “Tragic.”
“Deeply.”
“What did you think about?”
“Hockey. Classes. Whether I could survive on dining hall waffles alone.”
“Could you?”
“Emotionally, yes. Nutritionally, unclear.”
She laughed.
He smiled, then looked out over the water.
“Sometimes I thought about leaving.”
Lena’s steps slowed.
“Ridgeview?”
“When?”
“Freshman year. First semester mostly. I was playing, but not as much as I wanted. Classes felt pointless. Everyone else seemed like they knew who they were trying to become, and I was just…” He shrugged. “Good at hockey and jokes.”
Lena squeezed his hand.
He looked at her.
“I didn’t know that,” she said.
“I didn’t tell people.”
“Why not?”
“Because then they might’ve taken me seriously.”
Carter stopped too.
The lake moved beside them, bright and careless.
“I like taking you seriously,” she said.
“Yeah?”
“Yes.”
“I’m not always serious.”
“I know.” She smiled softly. “I like that too.”
Carter lifted their joined hands and kissed her knuckles.
It was worse.
It was tender.
Lena felt herself falling another inch.
They kept walking until the path curved beneath the trees.
A bench sat there overlooking the water.
Carter nodded toward it.
The sun warmed her face. The lake glimmered. Carter’s hoodie smelled faintly like laundry detergent, cold air, and him.
For once, she did not try to analyze the feeling.
She just let herself have it.
Carter’s voice was quiet when he spoke.
“This feels like low-pressure company.”
Lena smiled. “You’re very good at it.”
“Don’t spread that around. I have a reputation.”
A habit he was learning to set down.
“You can have a new one,” she said.
His brow furrowed slightly.
“A new reputation?” he asked.
For being brave enough to become.
“For being someone people can count on,” she said.
He looked away toward the lake, and for a second she thought she had said too much.
Then his arm tightened around her shoulders.
“Dangerous words,” he said.
But his voice was rough.
Lena rested her head against him.
They sat there until the sun shifted and Lena’s coffee wore off and Carter’s phone buzzed three times.
Mason.
Of course.
Carter read the message and groaned.
Mason: Optional skate became less optional. Coach is looking for you with disappointment eyebrows.
Neither moved.
Carter looked down at her. “I don’t want to.”
“I know.”
“This is where you tell me to be responsible.”
“You should be responsible.”
“Unconvincing.”
“You should go to optional mandatory skate.”
She sat up reluctantly.
They walked back toward campus slower than necessary.
At her dorm, Carter stopped.
“I’ll see you later?”
“Yes.”
“Dinner?”
“I have to study.”
“After?”
“Maybe.”
His mouth curved. “Real maybe?”
“Okay.”
He reached for her hand, then paused.
“What?” she asked.
“I want to kiss you, but I’m trying to decide if I should ask or if it’s obvious.”
“Ask anyway.”
His eyes warmed.
“Can I kiss you?”
Not small.
When he pulled back, his forehead rested against hers for a second.
“Scary big,” he whispered.
She had said that at breakfast.
He had remembered.
“Yes,” she whispered back.
He walked backward for a few steps. “Text me your real maybe.”
“And tell Paige I respected the pancakes recovery protocol.”
“No, she won’t.”
He laughed, turned, and headed toward the arena.
Lena watched him go.
Inside, Paige was in the lounge with a textbook open and sour candy beside her.
She looked up immediately.
“Well?”
Lena sat down beside her.
Paige stared at her face.
Then her expression softened.
“Oh,” she said.
Lena looked down at her hands.
“I think I’m falling for him.”
Paige did not say doomed.
She did not joke.
She just reached over and squeezed Lena’s knee.
“Yeah,” Paige said gently. “I know.”
“No.” Paige cut her off softly. “Not yet. Don’t spend the first honest second of knowing by punishing yourself with every possible ending.”
Annoying.
But good.
Paige leaned her head against Lena’s shoulder.
“Just know it for a minute,” she said.
She sat in the dorm lounge with her best friend beside her, Carter somewhere across campus heading into a hockey rink, and the knowledge settling quietly inside her.
Big.
Real.
And for one minute, before fear found its voice again, Lena let it be beautiful.