7. Carter
Chapter seven
Carter
Jonas shifts in his seat. “I can take her.”
“No.” My response is short. I keep my eyes on the windshield. Liam glances over his shoulder and then away before I can. “You’ve done enough.”
I can’t look at them. Either of them. Jonas clears his throat uncomfortably. “It’s going to be fine.”
Is it fuck.
Rosie shifts against me, and I nudge her head back against my shoulder. The faint huff of her breath against my neck, that familiar cherry almond scent of her skin, feels like the only thing keeping me going.
The only thing keeping me from fucking breaking straight down the middle.
My shoulder screams with that small effort, and I grit my teeth. The painkillers I popped before leaving Elena have done precisely nothing, and it only adds to my rising temper. “We do this exactly as we discussed. If you still plan on moving forward.”
My voice drips with the same fury that’s been building in my chest since I watched Rosie walk away from me this morning. “We deviate from the agreement, and we’re gonna have a fucking problem.”
Liam taps his fingers against the steering wheel. “I asked Miles to meet us at the apartment.”
The atmosphere plunges, and it was pretty fucking low to begin with. It’s a battle to keep my voice down. “Why the fuck would you do that? That wasn’t what we agreed.”
I want her to sleep as long as possible. I’d be happy if Liam just kept fucking driving, and ideally kept his mouth shut too.
He meets my eye through the mirror. “I think it’s a good idea. An outside perspective. A level head.”
“There’s going to be more than enough outside perspective,” I hiss. “This is a pack issue. You had no right—"
“You gave me lead on this,” he snaps back. Rosie stirs again, and all of us fall silent. Liam’s knuckles tighten against the wheel. “That’s what we agreed on. I can make this work, Cart, but you’ve got to work with me or everything’s gonna fall apart.”
“I agree,” Jonas murmurs, and I whip my head to look at him. He’s staring out of the window, as far away as he can get from the tension now saturating the air around us, but his words are resolute. “We have to be united in our approach.”
Of course you’d fucking say that, I almost bite, but I manage to hold it back.
If this doesn’t work, our pack will fracture, and Rosie will be in the middle. And that’s unacceptable to me.
We have to make this work. “I promised her a pack. You promised her a pack.”
“And that’s what we all want to give her.” Jonas spreads his hands placatingly, Liam switching lanes as we approach the turn-off. “A working pack with strong dynamics, Cart. A pack that’s right for all of us.”
They clearly had a few discussions throughout today that I wasn’t part of, and my mood darkens further. When I catch sight of our building in the distance, my mouth turns to ash. “You’re absolutely sure this can work?”
“I’m sure.” I sometimes wish I had Liam’s rigid certainty. Especially now. “It’s going to be tough, Cart. We talked about that too. If you shoot me down every time I manage this, we’re not going to get far.”
“She’s not an arrangement to be managed.” Fucking hell.
“Rosie’s part of this pack,” he shoots back tightly.
“And a pretty important part. So yes, in this, so we can move forward, she does need to be managed. All of us do. And if you can’t get on board as our pack leader, this will fail before it’s started.
I can’t be the enforcer for this pack if I can’t enforce. ”
I hate that fucking word. On the rink, sure, but not in a pack. In a family. “Don’t fuck this up.”
And especially not in my family.
“Have a little faith,” he says drily. “Please.”
My head thumps back against the leather.
Between this and the agony searing through my shoulder, I’m not sure I’ve got any faith left in me. Digging in my pocket, I thumb open the plastic tub and send a mental apology to Elena before tipping a few pills down to top up the dosage.
I have to be on top form.