Carter Read online

  “Why?”

  “He’s trying to mend things. I told him to fuck off, and he exploded at me, bringing up my mom. Bringing up things that happened when she was alive. Shit like that, and I felt blindsided. I let him get to me.”

  I wanted him to continue, but he stopped there.

  “I shouldn’t have spoken to you like that. I don’t know what I was thinking. I’m sorry, Leah.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “It’s not. I can’t afford to fuck this up with you. Sometimes I think all I have is you.” He sighed and squeezed me to him. “Without our friendship, I’d be fucked.”

  I exhaled long and slow and shut my eyes.

  That dreaded word again. I wondered how he could say it after what we’d just done. He was delusional. Or maybe I was. Hell, I was too tired to know.

  “Well, I’m here,” I managed out, just barely.

  He squeezed me to him again and held me for a little while.

  And then he was gone again just as I began to fall back asleep.

  Carter

  There’s a line, and I wasn’t going to cross it.

  If I pushed everyone away, nobody would have the power to ruin me.

  Fourteen

  Summer of 2008

  19 years old

  “Um, excuse me,” said a girl’s voice, patting me on the shoulder. “Can you tell me which one of those guys is Carter Matheson?”

  I turned around from the table I’d just served and saw two girls standing in front of me. They were chewing bubble gum, smiles wide as they shamelessly gawked at a table in the far distance. I sighed for the tenth time today only because I’d answered that question for the tenth time today.

  “The one in the black –”

  “Leather jacket,” one of the girls interrupted with a squeal. “I fucking knew it, Anne. The hottest one is him. Ohmigosh! Thanks, Melanie.”

  Melanie? I looked down at the name on my uniform. Ugh, I’d taken Mel’s one again. She’d been doing her clothes at my place since her washer broke. By the time I opened my mouth to correct them, the girls were long gone. Probably at Carter’s table already, so they could fawn all over him. I avoided staring in that vicinity, only because my jealousy levels might have turned me into a homicidal maniac.

  Just seven months after Fatal Rebellion was formed – and man I hated that name – they were somewhat of a household name in Abbotsford. At least for the younger generation anyway. The bar was overrun by College goers, and so, so many girls. Like flies to shit, Carter was a popular piece of eye candy.

  Just like I predicted.

  Rome’s parents were loving it. Business was booming, the band was getting a nice slice of the pie per night, and I guess I was the only one having a little bit of a problem about it. The problem involved scantily clad girls around a man that refused to call me more than a friend, yet fucked me hard most nights until I was crying into the pillow, riding out the most earth shattering orgasm.

  Yeah, pretty blunt shit like that was going on inside that head of mine.

  No big deal.

  “You’re looking all depressed again,” came Mel’s voice in my ear.

  I plastered on a fake smile and turned to her. “No, I’m not depressed. I’m just… spectacular.” If spectacular meant bitter and pissy.

  She raised a dark brow. “Spectacular?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “It’s Carter again, isn’t it?”

  I didn’t respond. I looked around the bar, hoping to god someone would raise their hand to me and demand my attention. The last thing I needed was Melanie talking my ear off about Carter. From not wanting to tell her anything to realizing she was like my other half, she knew a little too much, had become my best friend since I’d started working here, and I guess I got carried away finding a confidante in another female. But she was great. An absolute life saver in a world of testosterone. It was good to be away from Carter and Rome every now and again, especially in the beginning when they argued non-stop. At least now things had cooled off tremendously, and they got along around the time Rome started jumping girls. I always suspected Carter finally let the resentment go when he didn’t view Rome as a threat anymore, but that was completely wishful thinking.

  Turning to Mel, I quietly asked, “Is he flirting?”

  She looked over my shoulder and I tried to make out the answer in her face. Her thin lips pursed and her eyes flickered to mine. I saw sympathy in her expression, and my shoulders sagged.

  “I can’t say that he’s flirting per say, but he doesn’t look like he’s discouraging the girl who’s talking to him,” she explained.

  “Which girl is it?” I lifelessly asked.

  “Some blonde girl with big tits in a red skirt.”

  “What’s Big Tits doing exactly?”

  “Trying to shove said tits in his face.”

  “What’s he doing?”

  “He’s talking to Leo across the table and she’s leaning over so that her big tits are in his vision.”

  I shut my eyes and breathed through my nose. It was fine. Whatever. He wasn’t doing anything wrong. I knew it would come to this. Women were going to throw themselves at him, and it had happened several times, but I didn’t have it in me to watch. Maybe it was my insecurities that worried I’d see him lusting for a girl that wasn’t me. After all, these girls were beyond gorgeous and had started flooding through the door with the sole intention of seeking him out.

  He’d been so carried away with the music, it sort of became his obsession. But now that they had so many songs under their belt, he was a lot more social than ever before, and that feasted on my insecurities.

  “Are you guys still sleeping with each other?” she then asked me.

  I nodded. “Nothing’s changed.”

  “How can he expect you to be okay with this then? He should be pushing these chicks away the second they get a foot near him.”

  I chewed on my lower lip and muttered, “We’re not officially together. He doesn’t label us, so I don’t feel like I have any right to tell him he can’t talk to other girls. Plus that just makes me sound like a crazy person.”

  “But you guys are together. I see him all over you at your house.”

  “Yeah, at the house, not in public.”

  “Doesn’t matter. You need to insert yourself at that table right this second and get that chick to back off.”

  “But –”

  “There’s no but about it. He needs to make you his girlfriend and start warning these bitches away.”

  I sighed. “He doesn’t look at it like that. He’s not –”

  “That kind of guy, I know,” she interrupted. “I heard him talking to Rome and Jared about it every time they mention their latest fluffs. Says he doesn’t want to label shit, but the thing is, he’s all over you and I bet you he certainly wouldn’t be happy with you chatting with random guys. Or would he?”

  I shrugged helplessly. “I have no idea. At this point I’ll be friend-zoned with sexual benefits ‘til I’m ninety.”

  “You’d be a sexy ninety year old,” said a deep voice.

  I jumped and turned around, my face bursting into flames when I saw a guy standing there with an empty glass. He was incredibly good looking. Black hair, dark eyes, and a smile that was… ah, well, it was making me a shiver a little.

  “Um…” Dear God, then it occurred to me that he heard me.

  “Sorry for eavesdropping,” he said, humour dancing in those dark eyes. “But I’ve been trying to get your attention for the last five minutes.”

  “Oh?”

  “Noticed your back was turned.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “That’s alright. Just wanted a refill of beer.”

  I nodded quickly. “Okay, sure.”

  I took the glass from him and watched him turn and make his way back to his table where a couple of other guys sat. Melanie burst into laughter behind me and I smacked her arm as I hurried to the bar. So not only did I hav
e to endure some girl shaking her boobs in front of Carter’s face, but a sexy man had to hear me talk about my friends with benefits type of relationship.

  This was going to be a long night.

  *

  I gave the damn man his refill – shunning the heated way he grinned at me – and then I watched Carter and the guys at the table. There were two more girls now, and they were staring at him with the most desperate look in their eyes.

  I thought of what Mel said. Inserting myself and getting them to see he was technically taken. Could I muster the courage?

  The way one leaned even closer, rubbing her chest against his arm as he laughed with Jared and Leo had me gripping the tray I was holding tight enough to bruise my palms. I glanced at Mel, and when she met my gaze, I gave her a simple nod. She nodded back, motioning to the table, with a lethal look on her face. I rolled my shoulders and headed for him.

  Of course he’ll say he’s with me, I told myself. There’s no way he wouldn’t. After all the nights we’d shared – the intimacy so naturally engrained in the way our bodies gravitated toward one another – he couldn’t deny what we were.

  As I neared him, my body was jittery and the butterflies inside my stomach danced in circles. This was the effect he had on me, and it was overwhelming at times. He looked deliciously good tonight in his dark jeans and tight blue shirt. He’d taken off his jacket, and his body looked strong and built. You could see the lines of his muscle, and my lust for him just then was magnified by the fact I knew what he looked like underneath.

  I wasn’t surprised to hear Jared making everyone laugh at his dirty jokes. He had the gift of the gab, which drew the ladies in. He was a likeable guy and pretty cute. I could see the attraction, but he was too brotherly to me. Leo, on the other hand, with his light hair and dark smouldering eyes, was the biggest playboy of all, and he was already mapping out a girl across the bar for the taking.

  I stopped by the table and Carter looked up, beaming at me behind his beer bottle that was raised to his lips. “Hey, Angel,” he said. “What’s brought you here?”

  “Came to see how you guys were doing,” I told him, sneaking glances at the girls who were already sizing me up. I would be doing the same, so I didn’t blame them.

  “You came at the best time,” Jared told me. “I was about to tell everyone the story about the chick with the third nipple –”

  “I already heard that one,” I cut in with a straight face.

  “You did?”

  “About five times now.”

  “What’s one more time, though, right?”

  Before I could ask him not to insult my ears for the sixth time, he dived right into it, giving me every horrible detail about his experience with this third-nipple girl. Halfway in, an arm went around my shoulders, and I turned my head to Rome, who was shaking his head at me.

  “Since when do you come to the table?” he asked me quietly, with a knowing smile.

  “Just checking in on you guys,” I answered. I was so lame. Rome already knew somehow. The guy was a mind reader.

  “Drop the arm, Rome,” Carter then said firmly, cutting Jared’s story off.

  Rome dropped his arm, but he gave me a big fat kiss on the side of the head, whispering in my ear, “That should piss him right off, beautiful.”

  Great, because what I needed right now was a pissed off Carter. I looked at him and, sure enough, he was glaring at Rome with the frostiest look ever. I thought I felt an arctic chill sweep through the room just then.

  “Ladies,” Rome then said, motioning to me, “this sweetheart here is the creator of Fatal Rebellion. Without her, we never would have been born into this magnificent world of music and –”

  “And tits with three nipples,” Jared cut in, taking a huge swig of his drink.

  The girls laughed, but it sounded contrived. The blonde girl I aptly named Big Tits stared levelly at me and asked in a slur, “So, who are you exactly?”

  “Just a waitress,” I muttered absently, shrugging off my existence because it was a pretty dismal one at the moment.

  “Fuck off,” Rome countered in dismay. “Just a waitress? Bitch, please. This stunning babe here is Leah Miller, one of the best chicks to ever walk into all our lives. Right, guys?”

  Jared and Leo nodded vaguely, mumbling their yeahs, while Carter just stared at us with an intense look.

  “Isn’t that true, Carter?” Rome then asked him, giving him a pointed look that put him on the spot. “She’s your…?”

  Tensed and pissed, Carter ran his teeth over his bottom lip, answering in a hard voice, “She’s my best friend.”

  I stared at him in disbelief. That’s it? I was his… best friend?

  The world fell away. I swear, it did. The background was all black and empty as I looked to him with hopeless eyes, wondering why he wasn’t calling me something else.

  How long was it going to take for him to open his eyes and see what I truly was? I was a fool for expecting more. I suppose I hoped being around him with other girls would make him realize he was technically taken.

  Rome’s hand suddenly squeezed mine, and I wanted to smack him just then for putting Carter on the spot like that. What was his problem? It was almost like he’d done it on purpose, knowing exactly what to say and…

  I sighed. Fucking Melanie. She’d put him up to this, hadn’t she? They’d been spending a lot of time together. I should’ve known.

  I tried to play it off with a fake smile. I shouldn’t be surprised. Not at all. Carter had never hinted that he would ever call me his girlfriend. It was silly to be here and “insert” myself like she told me to do. I turned away after that, telling them I had to get back to work, when really, I felt like a complete moron.

  Minutes later, the band set up on stage. I nursed my broken ego, ignoring Mel’s questionable looks as I resumed giving people their orders. I wouldn’t let it get to me. Carter was kissing me at the end of every night, so who cares what he called me in front of everybody, right?

  The twisted feeling in my chest said otherwise.

  At the corner of my eye, I watched the guys prepare to perform. Carter wasn’t big about speaking on the mic. That was something Rome did from behind the drums. It should have ruined him somehow, but it gave him the complete opposite reaction. The girls thought he was mysterious, and I tended to roll my eyes when I heard some of the things they’d say.

  “He’s just so deep of a guy.”

  “He’s serious. Serious men are the most soulful.”

  “I bet you he’s the most philosophical guy, like, ever.”

  Puhlease.

  They didn’t see him the way I did. Up every morning with just his briefs on, singing stupid songs on the spot as I walked around. This morning it was about me standing in the kitchen making toast. He rhymed toast and roast in a line that made no sense, and it was far, far from soulful.

  “That doesn’t make sense,” I’d told him.

  He played some cheap tune on his guitar again and sang, “If it doesn’t make sense then Leah you’re” – pause – “tense.”

  Ugh. That earned him a smack on the arm, but the memory made me smile.

  See? I was stressing over nothing. We had something special, so I couldn’t understand exactly why tonight’s incident was getting to me the way it was.

  I took a break sometime later, and with my back leaning against the wall beside the bar, I watched him get lost in his words, singing a song about sad memories. Sometimes he’d drop little things here and there, about a woman with curls and sad blue eyes. I had a feeling it was his mother he was singing about, and I wished he would open up to me about his past.

  He’d come a long way since the very start. I remembered how nervous he was the first night he was due to go onstage. He’d been pacing the suite for hours while I got ready for my shift. After finding two other guitarists to form the band – Jared and Leo – they’d practiced for weeks in the garage. I thought that would have helped him get over his nerves
, but actually being on a stage in front of strangers was different.

  I tried to comfort him, only there was really nothing I could do. But then he came to me right before Rome drove us there and said, “If I asked you to stand where I could see you while I’m up there, would you do it?”

  “Of course,” I told him. “You don’t even need to ask.”

  He seemed extremely relieved by that, resting his forehead against mine. “Good. I need you, that’s all. If you’re there, I can just look at you and pretend it’s just us, you know?”

  I’ll never forget how choked up that made me. I simply smiled at him in response because I was sure he’d hear the break in my voice if I spoke. And when the time came for him to sing that night, I stood where he could see me and he stared at me the entire time he sang. It was just us, at the creek, him unloading his soul to me, and me listening with bated breath.

  Now it was natural for him to be up there. He didn’t look at me anymore unless I stopped in an obvious spot. He was all charm and confidence, no longer the man rocked with nerves at the sight of strangers. He scanned the crowd in front of him, and whether he liked to admit it or not, he shined those fuck-me eyes at every girl, and they lost themselves in his allure. The screams were sometimes deafening. My jaw dropped when a pair of girls took out their cell phones and began recording him. What did they intend on doing with the footage? I wanted to ask, but Melanie had banned me from speaking to the “groupies” as she called them. Something about me causing bodily harm, which was absurd. I wouldn’t hurt anyone… too much.

  Carter was slowly becoming somewhat of a legend around here, and the second he started on the girls, that legend status was going to explode.

  Melanie showed up and sidled up next to me, watching the band.

  “He called me a friend,” I told her quietly.

  “You need to make him jealous, babe,” Melanie replied, indignantly.

  “That’s not who I am. That’s toxic.”