Me? I’m amassing respectable billable hours with some big-issue cases, like class-action environmental lawsuits. I can digest dry statistics and paint human pictures with the numbers, which my co-counsels envy.
I know that, eventually, Susa is going to put the house in New Tampa on the market and we’ll be moving. I don’t know when that’s going to happen, or where, exactly, we’ll be moving to in the area. It’s up to Carter, and Susa’s leaving it in his hands. I know he has specific criteria for when and where we move, but he hasn’t yet shared that with either of us.
That means it doesn’t matter, to me. Carter will handle it.
I’ve made more money in this year than I ever imagined possible, as have Carter and Susa. We’re the envy of our associates. There are already whispers that we might be eyed for junior partner status by the end of next year, if we keep this up.
Katie had her baby, and my two youngest siblings are a joy to visit. Dawn is six, Paul is four. The three of us fly out to Vegas several times a year, and Dad’s working on gettingtransferred to Tampa.
I post family pictures of me with them every time we visit.
Out of curiosity, I look up Mom’s Facebook profile, just to realize she’s blocked me at some point.
Oh, well.
Thirteen months after we start working for the Tampa firm, Carter sends me a text one morning to see if I have a couple of hours free around lunchtime, which I do. He asks me to reserve the time for him. I mark myself as unavailable on my calendar and I’m ready to go when he stops inside my doorway just before eleven that morning.
We always play things cool in the office, even between Carter and Susa. No PDAs, not even innocent kisses. People know we live together, that we’re all friends, and that Carter and Susa are married, but we don’t want rumors flying. I follow him down to the parking garage and we climb into his car. Carter doesn’t tell me where we’re going today, which doesn’t surprise me.
He only tells me a destination when he wants to.
Or when he wants to mindfuck me.
Again, didn’t say I objected.
Honestly? Doesn’t matter to me where we’re going. It’s nice to spend some time alone with him, just like it’s nice to spend time alone with Susa. Once we’re in the car, he reaches over and holds my hand as he drives, and I can unplug for a little while and just be his boy.
Carter’s pain isn’t nearly as bad as it once was, even though he still has bad days from time to time. His nightmares have also eased up, although when he has one, it’s a doozy, and usually when I’m not in bed with him because one of us is out of town for work.
While Carter and I still work out together nearly every morning, we’re frequently discussing work while we do. We’ve become workaholics, wanting to build a name for ourselves. Susa doesn’t join us because she’s not a morning person and prefers to work out in the evening, in air-conditioning, usually in our office building’s gym. She normally drives herself to work in the morning, while Carter and I frequently ride together. It’s not uncommon for us to swap cars so that two who didn’t ride in together ride home while the third drives.
This arrangement works for us, and I love everything about it. We spend every night in bed together, except for the rare nights one of us needs to travel for work.
They haven’t brought up me running for office in a while, so part of me is starting to relax and think maybe they’ve put that aside, that we’ll be focusing on Susa running in several years, once she’s ready.
I’m fine with that, even if there’s still a tiny little pang inside me that will always wonderwhat if.
Right now, Carter’s wearing sunglasses, so I can’t really read his eyes. And he’s driving—of course, #controlfreak—and, well, I’m along for the ride.
Maybe literally, maybe metaphorically.
ThisisCarter the bastard extraordinaire, so maybe some of both, in this case.
If I’m lucky.
We take the Crosstown and head east, away from downtown and toward Brandon. Once there, we leave the highway and slow a few minutes later, turning in at a gated community, stopping for the kiosk at the front gate where a touchpad is located. He rolls down his window and, without even looking at the directory, punches in a number he’s apparently memorized.
Did I mention it’s annoying as hell to me that the man is blessed with an eidetic memory?
The gate swings open. It’s notjusta gate, but a damngate. Like it belongs on one of those houses in a Hallmark movie about a woman marrying a prince or something. Framed by rough-hewn rock walls that look impressively fancy, not faux-natural, like the stonemasons were too lazy to do much about them, and ornate iron scrollwork I could imagine a blacksmith laboring over for weeks, probably.
It’s a motherfuckinggate.
Carter flashes me a sneaky smile as we pull forward, through thisgateand into the bowels of this obviously ritzy enclave. I’m not sure if we’re still technically in Brandon or one of the nearby zip codes, but we are still inside Hillsborough County.
It’s yet another Florida subdivision carved out of what had been orange groves, or cattle pasture, or Florida prairie, who knows? Quiet, well-manicured lawns front fairly expensive homes. Not exactly McMansions, but definitely not your average retirement condo community, either. Sedate money that goes out of its way to pretend it’s not waving a freshly printed stack of Ben Franklins in your face as a fan against the warm humidity.
Carter obviously knows his way without needing Waze—#ratbastard, #yesiamenvious—and we make several turns down streets with custom-made wood signs identifying them and designating the speed at a frolicking 15mph. It’s far fancier than where Mom and Austin live. I’ve never lived in a place like this before and wonder about the people conducting their lives behind the luxury blinds perfectly crafted to fit in front windows.
