Series: Fever Falls Series by Riley Hart
Total pages in book: 96
Estimated words: 92704 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 464(@200wpm)___ 371(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92704 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 464(@200wpm)___ 371(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
We stood there staring at each other, neither of us speaking, both of us breathing heavily. And that’s when I saw it—the sadness, the vulnerability in Carter’s brown eyes. Maybe we weren’t so different, Carter and I. We just dealt with our shit in different ways.
“Fuck,” I whispered before walking over and falling down to the couch.
“You can say that again.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry too.” He walked over and sat beside me. His right leg bounced, and my left one did too, and that made me smile for some reason, but I bit my cheek to hold it in.
“I’ve never told anyone all that before…not even Cam. He, Ash, and Beau know about high school, but not Julian.” No one in the world knew more about me than my brother, but now Carter did.
“Yeah, I don’t make a habit of going around telling people all that either.”
“I know it makes me sound like a prude, but I just… I don’t get the no-strings-attached-sex thing. I don’t say that to judge you. I mean, you’ve seen my friends and my brother, so yeah, no judgment, but that’s not me. It wasn’t me before Julian, and it wasn’t me after him.” I wasn’t a saint, of course. It wasn’t as if I hadn’t had sex with anyone since Julian, because I had. But it was typically people I’d at least gone on a few dates with, someone I thought maybe there could be more with. I didn’t find random guys at the bar or look up tricks on Grindr.
“Believe me, I don’t think you’re a prude. I think you’re even less of a prude than you might realize. Carter sees all.” He said the last part with a smile. “I think there’s an animal in there, waiting to burst free, and maybe I wanted to be the one to do it, but now that I know, I’ll try and be a good boy. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”
I groaned, then rubbed a hand over my face, not wanting to admit what I was about to, but feeling like I should. “You didn’t make me uncomfortable in the way you think. It’s because…for the first time…I considered throwing out all my rules and just going for it. And that both scared me and pissed me off.”
He didn’t reply, and I wished I could take the words back. Finally, I forced myself to look at him. Carter’s brows were pulled together, this expression on his face that I couldn’t read. “So I’m allowed to flirt, then, or not?”
This was the moment I could tell him no and he would stop, but the thought suddenly sat heavy in my gut. “Yes,” I found myself saying. “Just maybe not as much? And I’ll work through my shit so I don’t go crazy when you’re flirting with someone else.” That was the hardest part for me—that I felt jealous when Carter flirted with others. That I felt less than, and I knew that came from me, not him.
“I think we just came to a truce,” he said, and I smiled, holding my hand out to him.
“I think we did too.”
Sometimes I felt like I was on the outside looking in. I knew my friends cared about me, that there was nothing Beau, Linc, Rush, or Ash wouldn’t do for me, and I sure as shit knew that about Cam, but yeah, sometimes I felt like I didn’t quite fit. Or that I was there because I was Cam’s brother or simply because we’d been friends for so long.
But in that moment, as I sat there with Carter, I felt this bond with him I wasn’t sure I’d ever felt before. Like he understood a part of me, at least to some extent, even when I didn’t always get it.
I said, “I don’t know if you’re aware, but I’m the world’s best chocolate-cookie baker.”
He gave me an electric grin. “That sounds awesome, but we don’t have the stuff.”
Shit. I’d forgotten about that. “Maybe we can go out tomorrow and get it. In the meantime, do you want to…I don’t know, watch a movie or something?”
“You wanna be my bestie now, don’t you?” Carter teased, making me laugh. Then he stood and held his hand out. I took it, and he pulled me to my feet, then let go. “Yes, but let’s watch it in bed. I have to be in bed to watch movies. I’ll keep my hands to myself, I promise.”
“Get your ass upstairs, then.”
We went to our separate rooms, where I changed into my pajama bottoms again, then took out my contacts and put my glasses on. A couple of minutes later, Carter came into my room, wearing… “A onesie?”
“I keep your secrets, Sawyer, and you keep mine.”
We climbed into my bed together and found a horror movie to watch on Netflix. Not more than half an hour later, Carter fell asleep in my bed. He hadn’t gotten much sleep the night before, I didn’t think, so I didn’t wake him, just watched the movie, and when it was finished, I turned out the light and went to sleep too.