Playboy Pilot (36 page)

I pulled the SUV into my designated parking spot and broke our silence. “It’s not as homey as Silver Shores, but this is where I live.”

Carter looked at the sign on the lawn. “The Charleston Chew Lofts, huh? Pretty sure no one at Silver Shores can eat Charleston Chews. Those things were always killer on the teeth. I chipped a baby tooth eating a frozen one once. Probably tougher on dentures.”

“The building is actually the old Charleston Chew Candy factory. It was converted into condos but still has a lot of the original factory details, like exposed brick and wooden beams. My place is small, only a studio that I can barely afford now that I’m a working girl, but the building has a great rooftop deck that I spend a lot of time on.” I pointed up to the top of the building. “I’ve spent hours staring up at the sky and thinking over the last few months.”

I had been looking up at my apartment building, and when I turned to Carter, I realized he had been staring at me. “What?” I asked.

He shook his head. “Nothing.”

Carter took our bags, and I led the way to my place. In the elevator, it felt almost surreal to be standing next to him again. Over the last year, I’d often dreamed of him being here with me. So it wasn’t surprising that I was currently feeling like I was in the middle of a hazy fantasy rather than reality. Which is probably why when the elevator doors opened on the third floor, I didn’t move.

“Is this your floor? You pushed three when we got in.”

“Oh. Yes. Sorry.”

I fumbled with my keys when I unlocked the door to my apartment. Once inside, I spun around holding my hands out. “This is your tour. You can pretty much see most of the place from here.”

Carter set our bags down and looked around. “Very nice. It’s modern but warm. It suits you.”

“Thank you. My neighbors on both sides work at the airlines, too. Gabby is in 310; she’s a flight attendant at Delta. Max in 314 is a pilot at American. We barbeque together once in a while on the rare occasion that our schedules are in sync.”

I caught Carter’s jaw tense. “A pilot lives next door?”

“Yes.”

He nodded.

The fact that he was restraining his comment made me offer more. “He just turned fifty-three and is thinking about retiring to Florida. Maybe when he gets a little older, he can be
your
neighbor.”

“Wiseass.”

I kicked my shoes off and walked to the refrigerator, grabbing us some drinks. “Speaking of Florida. How’s your posse? Muriel, Bertha, Gordon?”

Carter’s face fell. “Gordon’s not doing too good, actually. Had a stroke about four months ago, and the physical therapy isn’t going as well as they hoped. He lost complete use of one arm, and his speech is still pretty slurred.”

“That’s terrible. I’m so sorry. Does he have any family at all near you?”

“None. I took a few weeks of vacation after it happened to help him out. But when I’m gone for four or five days, he doesn’t get out much. Muriel and Bertha take turns looking in on him, but they can’t lift him. The physical therapist comes to the house to do his exercises, but other than that, it’s been tough on him.”

“He’s lucky he has you.”

“You mean Brucey.” Carter smiled.

“Yes, his wonderful son, Brucey.” I hesitated before continuing, unsure if I should be so forward. Ultimately, I decided what I wanted to say was about Carter and not us, so I said it. “You know…that first time we went to visit Gordon, and I realized that you were not only taking care of a man who was once a stranger to you, but you were letting him call you Brucey and filling the void of missing his son, that was the moment I admitted to myself that I was in love with you. Because you weren’t just this beautiful man on the outside who was fun to spend time with, you were just as beautiful on the inside.”

Carter stared at me. When he spoke, his voice was hoarse. “If you really loved me, how could you have left me, Kendall?”

Ashamed, I looked away. “I don’t know.”

“Do you regret it now?”

“I’ve regretted it every day since I left you in that airport bar.”

“So why didn’t you do something about it? You knew where to find me. You knew where I worked, where I lived…you knew everything there was to know about me for Christ’s sake.” He raked his fingers through his hair.

Even though I’d asked myself that same question over and over for the last year, I
still
had no answer. “I don’t know. I’m sorry, Carter.”

After a few tense minutes, Carter spoke. “Are you hungry? Do you want to order something? Or do you want to get some sleep? You must get up early to work the shuttle.”

“I’m actually really tired.”

“Okay. So let’s get some sleep.”

I looked around the apartment, oddly unsure of what our sleeping arrangements would be, even though we’d just been intimate in the car. “I can sleep on the couch if you want. You can have the bed.”

Carter walked to me, he lifted my chin so our eyes met. “I’m confused about a lot of things that have to do with us. But wanting to share a bed with you is definitely not one of them. If you’re good with it, I’d like nothing better than to sleep next to you again.”

“I’d love that.”

His hand at my chin moved to cup my face, and he leaned down so that our noses were almost touching. “And another thing. When we wake up, I plan to fuck you on that bed we’ll be sharing. Only this time, it won’t last two minutes like it did in the parking lot.”

I swallowed. “I’d love that, too.”

“Good. Now let’s get you some sleep. Because you’re gonna need it.”

CARTER AND I WERE
sitting on the rooftop deck next to an electric heater that doubled as a light post. It was a little after midnight, and I was curled into him on the wicker couch with a blanket over us. He hadn’t been kidding around when he’d said that the second time we were intimate, it was going to last more than two minutes. After an hour and a half nap, we spent three hours going at it in my bed. I was sated and content as he stroked my hair, and we both stared up at the stars.

“I met your mother.”

Well
that
got my attention. Surely, I never expected those words to come out of Carter’s mouth. I pulled my head back to look at him. “Did you just say you—”

“I met Annabelle.”

“Where? How?”

“I went to Dallas after I found out that the baby wasn’t mine. I needed to see you.”

“How did you get the address?”

“It’s not hard to find people on the Internet, Kendall. I mailed her a letter, and she never responded. My therapist told me I needed closure, so I decided to take a chance and went to the address that I’d sent the letter to.”

There was so much in that answer that I had more questions about. Therapist? Closure? But my curiosity about dear old mom won out. “What did she say to you?”

He shrugged. “Not much. She basically said she didn’t know where you were and insinuated you left her destitute.”

“I sort of did. My lifestyle wasn’t the only one to drastically change by the decisions I’ve made. I was selfish in making my choices.”

Carter grew angry. “Fuck that. You weren’t the selfish one. She had no right to expect you to go through with that crazy clause your grandfather put into his will. When I thought there was a chance I could be a father, at first I did a lot of thinking about what that would mean for
me.
Then one day I was standing at the front of the plane greeting passengers and a couple boarded with a baby. I didn’t know them, but I looked at that little screaming blue-eyed monster and realized how it affected me didn’t matter anymore. I wouldn’t have much to give my kid, but I would give him the best of me no matter what. Anyone can father a child, but a good parent puts a child’s needs before his own. A parent should be selfless, not selfish. What your mother expected you to do was selfish. She should never have pressured you.”

“Wow. It sounds like you were really prepared for that baby to be yours.”

“I don’t know about that. But I decided if that’s the way it turned out, I was going to give him my all.”

“Him. She had a boy?”

“Yeah.”

It was dark, but I saw pain in Carter’s eyes. “It hurt you when you found out he wasn’t yours, didn’t it?”

He nodded. “I didn’t expect that. But, yeah, it did. As much as I didn’t want to have a baby with her, I’d somehow started to care for the unborn child.”

I lifted to my knees to look him straight in the eyes. “You’re an amazing man, Carter Clynes. Someday you’re going to be an incredible father.”

THE NEXT MORNING
came too quickly. Even though I didn’t have to be at work until the following day, Carter had an afternoon flight, and he still had to get back to New York before that. I found myself looking at the time every few minutes while he was in the shower. When he came out with his airline-issued pilot’s shirt and pants already on, rather than in the towel I expected to see him in, I was disappointed.

“I was looking forward to seeing your body all wet after the shower, you know.”

He sat on the bed and pulled on his socks. “I can’t be half-naked around you. That would wind up with me half-naked inside of you. And I need to get to the airport if I’m going to catch the ten o’clock shuttle back to New York and make my flight.”

We still hadn’t talked about what was going to happen after he left today. Were we back together? Was this just physical for him? I knew he still loved me, yet I had the distinct feeling that he wasn’t as sure about wanting to be with me as I was about him. It would be painful if he didn’t want to try again, although it might be what I deserved after running away from him when he needed me most.

I broached the subject hesitantly. “Will you be in Boston anytime soon?”

He looked at me and shook his head without saying anything. My heart sank.

“How about New York? You must have a layover in New York on your schedule.”

He slipped one of his large feet into his shoe. “Haven’t checked.” When he was done getting dressed, he stood and zipped his suitcase. “We should probably get on the road in case there’s traffic.”

I nodded and somehow managed to keep my tears at bay. Swallowing them down my throat as I dressed left a large lump of emotions clogged in my chest.

Just like the drive from the airport yesterday, the trip to the airport was silent. Every single minute that ticked by was making it harder and harder to focus. We’d only just found our way back to each other, and I wasn’t ready to lose him again. I didn’t need a commitment, but I needed to know that this was the beginning of
something.
That we’d try to figure things out. Yet as I exited the highway into Boston’s bustling airport, it was beginning to feel more like the end than the beginning.

Oh my God.

Was
it the end? Was this the closure he’d talked about with his therapist? It was a good thing we were almost to the terminal drop off because I was fighting the palpitations in my chest and beginning to feel a hyperventilation-style panic attack coming on.

I parked at the curb and stared straight ahead. I knew if I looked at his face, I was going to lose it. Carter was watching me intently; I could feel it.