Friend Is a Four Letter Word (3 page)

Carter moves dangerously close to me and says, “Eh, I think we’ve all got our secrets.”

I shrug, because I’ve always been happy enough to keep mine wrapped in shiny paper for no one else to see. “I guess.”

“What’s
your
plan after graduation?” Carter’s looking at me like he can see right through my cool and casual front, so I lock down tighter.

Before I confess more crap I don’t need to tell a guy a hardly know.

“I’m not sure,” I say, and that’s all I say.

The truth is, my parents plan on shipping me off to a nice Christian university in some god-awful place like Idaho or something. I have no clue what I actually want to do, and haven’t had the nerve to break that to them yet. Next year—next year will be the year I stand up for myself.

“Well, what do you want to do?” Carter asks. His sturdy arms are crossed over his chest again, and he has this sexy/annoying look on his face, like he’s waiting to hear an honest answer from me.

Like he’s not buying my bullshit avoidance tactics.

“Want?” I pause my steps for the briefest of seconds because the thought of what
I
want is as exciting as it is terrifying. “I haven’t been asked that question in a long time.”

“Okay then, I’m asking you now. Shayna—” He pauses, because he doesn’t even know my last name.

“Gillan,” I offer feeling like sharing this one totally normal detail is revealing more than I’m comfortable with. Carter’s convincing me to go way outside my comfort zone tonight.

“Shayna Gillan,” he says, and I really dig the way my name rolls off his tongue, “what is your five year plan?”

“Wait, five years?” A laugh bubbles up from my throat. Five
years
? I don’t know where the hell I’ll be in five weeks. “I thought you just wanted to know where I was going to school?”

His grin is slow and hypnotizing. “No one said anything about school, doll. What do you want?”

“I want…” I swallow hard and bite my bottom lip to keep it from wobbling before I start again. “I want to find my own place. Not the place where my parents live, or the place where I go to college—I want to find my own place. Where I belong, you know?” It comes out rushed and leaves me feeling embarrassed before all the words are even out of my mouth.

Carter looks away and I think he whispers, “I do know…”

“Like, we moved around a ton when I was growing up,” I blurt out.

I should stop, I know I should stop, but I don’t. I just keep bulldozing all this information on top of a guy who didn’t know my last name three minutes ago.

“My dad is a minister and we did these mission trips all over the world before he became head of the mega church on Ninth. I never felt like I had settled in my real place. Something’s always gnawed at me, this feeling like I didn’t belong, you know? I want that more than anything. To belong, I guess. Not just to live somewhere or move somewhere. There’s probably a word for it, but the best way I can describe it is that I feel…”

“Almost like you’re homesick for a place you’ve never even been?” he finishes for me.

This time he’s speaking clearly—making a connection because we both feel it. Because we both know what it’s like to feel a way there isn’t even a word for.

And it feels so good to have someone understand, but it also scares the shit out of me. I want to tell him to stop looking so closely.

I want him to wrap me back up and retie the bow.

Instead I nod, and let the words keep tumbling out. Let all the layers of pretty paper crumple in his hand and fall to the floor, leaving me exposed. “For the longest time, I’ve felt like I needed to be different—better—not this—”

Carter reaches over and touches my lips with his thumb. “Don’t.” He shakes his head and his eyes are so intense, I have to look away. “Don’t let anyone feel like they can change you… or tame you. The wild spirit you have—that inability to sit still—that’s
you.
”

He says it with such fervor, I
almost
believe him.

“It’s exhausting,” I say, slumping against the car. “I’m just tired.”

Carter takes a step forward and leans into me, his weight pressing on my hip bones in the most delicious way. It’s what I’ve wanted him to do all night. Physical stuff I can handle. What throws me is the way he’s looking at me from under that thick row of lashes, the way that his mouth twitches—conflicted, like he’s fighting something inside of him, debating whether or not this closeness is the right thing.

I make the decision for him by pulling his face toward mine, crushing my mouth onto his, and then nipping at his bottom lip. He pushes his hands up my back and tangles them into my messy, blonde hair, tugging at it and pressing me closer into him. His mouth moves to my throat, where he kisses and licks before returning to my lips. I can’t help the tiny moan that escapes from my mouth into his.

And, for a moment, it feels the way it should: full of passion and free of thought. Free of all the underlying truth locked into that intense stare Carter was giving me. I let my hand drop to the button of his collared shirt and start working on loosening it, unwilling to pull my mouth from his.

But Carter’s willing to end it.

He jerks away from me, then shakes his head like he’s clearing a fog and says, “
Wait
.”

The space where he was just seconds before is now empty—it’s like seeing the sunshine from your window and dressing in your favorite cut-offs and tank top… only to walk outside and find that it’s actually thirty degrees.

Disappointing and frigid cold.

“Wait, what? Why? What’s wrong?” I ask, my mind still reeling. It’s embarrassing how much I want to be back in his arms.

Carter rubs his palm on his cheek, “We can’t do this. You and I—”

Oh. So, it’s me. All the warmth my body built up when we were grinding against each other seeps out, and I’m left feeling like I was carved from solid ice.

“Okay, I get it.” I nod, but I don’t understand at all.

How could someone who looked at me the way he has been looking at me all night shut down what was just happening between us?

I tip my flask, but it’s empty, furthering the disappointment that defines this night. I round the car, sobriety scratching at the edges of my brain like an annoying friend you run into and can’t claw away from fast enough.

Carter grasps at my arm just as I reach for the door handle. “It’s not… I’m not…”

“It’s fine. Really.” I wave him off.

It’s not fine. It’s humiliating.

“I’m not rejecting you, Shayna. I just…” He pinches at the bridge of his nose. “I can’t do this with you… right now,” he says. His eyes betray his words, though, as they linger on my neck. I can almost feel his mouth on my skin again, right at the place where my pulse is thumping wildly in my throat, like it’s begging him to come back to finish what he started.

Carter rips his eyes away from me and scrubs his hands over his face. When he looks my way, I expect more awkward explaining that I’m going to have to grit my teeth through. Instead he says, “We should get home.”

“Home,” I laugh. “To my God fearing parents who look at me like I’m a pariah?
Fantastic.
”

“I doubt that,” he says, and claps his mouth shut tight like he’s done, and I accept that. I watch for a few seconds, expecting him to walk back to the car. But he shakes his head and stomps toward me, all that crazy fire from before lighting his eyes back up. “Did you ever think that maybe you’re searching for something that doesn’t exist, Shayna?”

He asks it as a question directed at me, but the way he says it, he could just as easily be asking himself the same question—like maybe he’s hoping I have the answer to solve the puzzle for the both of us.

“Maybe we could just stay out here a little longer,” I say, carefully controlling my voice so I don’t sound as pathetic as I feel. I’m trying to deflect the serious tone of his voice, the eyes that stare into me in a way that sends goose bumps up my arms and onto the nape of my neck.

A look that’s far more intimate than anything I signed up for tonight.

“Shayna—” he starts.

“Maybe we could find something to do—”

Carter shoves his hands into the pockets of his jeans. He leans in and his lips touch mine softly. It’s just a whisper of a kiss before he pulls away.

“Come on,” he says, never raising his eyes to meet mine. “I’m taking you home.”

When Carter drops me off, we have another awkward moment where he half pauses like he might say something else or maybe he’s thinking about kissing me—but he does neither.

Instead, after the weird moment has passed, I bolt from the car and up the walkway to my front door. I may as well be wearing those god-forsaken black heels of Quinn’s, based on how well this evening turned out. A couple of hours ago I thought she was the stupidest girl alive for feeling so insecure, but now I find myself walking the same walk.

There are a few cars in the driveway that I recognize from my parents’ Bible study group. They always meet at midnight on Christmas Eve. I don’t want to go in. But I can’t go back out, with Carter or without him. I’m too drunk to drive.

“Wait!” I spin around, holding one finger up. My voice is too loud for the holy quiet of this night, and Carter rushes over with a half-panicked look in his eyes. “That’s my car. You take it home, and I’ll get it tomorrow.”

“No that’s okay. My parents’ place isn’t far. Besides, a little walking sounds good about now.” He’s trying to make eye contact with me, but I won’t give in. I feel too humiliated.

“Okay,” I say. My muscles tense up, and I hold in a breath as he reaches for me.

Carter gently takes my clenched hand from my side, pries my fingers open, and presses my keys into my palm.

“Thanks for spending Christmas Eve with me, Shayna,” he says, and his voice clips my name short. I think for a second he wants to say more, but he doesn’t. Instead he dips his head low and kisses me lightly on the forehead.

I want to thank him back. I want to tell him how nice it was to spend time with someone who feels so many of the same things as I do for once in my life. I want to tell him how trapped I’ve been feeling and ask if he ever feels alone even in a room full of people he knows love him. I want to whisper every secret worry I brush off around everyone else, the worries that keep my stomach in knots and rob me of sleep every night.

“Yeah,” is all I can manage.

I feel stupid. I feel like I let my guard down and gave Carter a glimpse of the naive little girl inside, and now I’ll never hear from him again.

I know that and know my own vow to never come off as one of those desperate types: so why am I already trying to devise a stalkerish plan to get his number from Quinn so that I can text him to apologize for tonight? Since when do I care if I get a phone call the next day or ever hear from a guy again?

Besides that,
nothing even happened
.

But there’s a question that won’t stop gnawing at me. How can one night where so little happened turn into this much distraction?

I sure as hell don’t feel like going into the house and playing nice with my parents’ church friends.

All I want to do is forget tonight happened.

And I know
just
how to disconnect from it all.

I sneak around back and slip into the pool house, where I pull down the bottle of Fernet my parents keep in the liquor cabinet for guests. I take a few sips of the cough-syrup-like blend. It nearly chokes me up, but I manage to keep it down because it’s for such a good cause.

All by myself I lift the bottle, toasting the holiday, the beauty of being an independent woman instead of some lovesick ass, and try to ignore how incredibly sad the whole thing really is.

After a few more swigs, I spend a few minutes looking for slippers to replace my high heels, then flip through magazines and comb the place for snacks. My eyelids are heavy, and my body aches with that kind of exhaustion that leaves your eyes gritty and your body feeling hollow. The day has been too long, but there are still lights on in the house. To get to my room, or even the guest room, I have to pass through my parents’ get together. I glance down at my padded, white cotton slippers and decide I can do it. I just have to be quiet.