26
Did you make it home?I text Sage while Carter and I finish off our takeout.
Yes.That’s all she writes back and I swallow, waiting for another text. About anything. I don’t even care if she wants to push the leatherwork class again. But there’s just nothing, even after twenty minutes. Finally I add,I really am sorry, Sage. I know it’s probably very hard to believe, but I’m trying to be better.
This time she writes back,I can tell, Teal. I’m not mad, okay? I’m just getting busy with Tenn
Ew, I type back quickly, but my shoulders have instantly relaxed.
“Who are you texting?” Carter’s got a crease between his eyebrows.
“Sage.”
He instantly relaxes. “Did you guys fight or something?”
“What makes you say that?”
He waves an arm in my direction. “You always get the same look on your face when you fight with Sage.”
I snort. “Do not.”
“Yeah, actually, you do. You sort of scrunch up your nose and grimace like this.” He makes a face that resembles something Jim Carrey did in that Grinch movie, and I can’t help but laugh.
“Dammit, Carter, you’re making my ankle hurt!”
He’s staring at me in awe, like always, when he makes me laugh. Like glitter just appeared around me in a swirl, and I was suddenly dressed like Glinda the Good Witch. “How can that hurt your foot?”
“My body shakes when I laugh. If you didn’t notice.”
“Oh, I noticed.” He looks me up and down and I turn away.
I don’t know how to flirt with Carter. Which is what I think he’s doing. So I swallow and say, “You know why I agreed to marry you? For real?”
Now he’s the one swallowing. He shakes his head and finally says, “The money, right?”
I shrug and try to make it look casual. “Partly. But mostly, I wanted to be best friends with you again.” My eyes unexpectedly fill with tears when I say it.
“Hey.” He lifts from his chair and comes to me fast, kneeling and wrapping his arms around me. I can’t help but cry even more, right into his shoulder. “Youaremy best friend. Even when we weren’t talking. I thought about you every damn day. I wondered what you were eating for breakfast, what you were doing before bed. If you still wore those perfumes your grandmother got you—”
I laugh into his collarbone. Amá Sonya agrees with Coco Chanel that “a woman who doesn’t wear perfume doesn’t have a future.” When she found out that all I had was a bottle of Pear Crème Brûlée body mist from a cheap lotion store, she marched me into Nordstrom and forced me to choose four perfumes, one for every season. Gucci Bloom for spring, Tom Ford’s SoleilBlanc for summer, Tom Ford Tobacco Vanille in the fall, and for winter, Byredo Vanille Antique. It was winter when she bought them for me, and so I was working at the gym, wearing Vanille Antique when Carter visited me. “Damn, Teal, what are you wearing? It smells…” he’d said, then bowed his head toward my neck. It was the first time in our history that Carter had gotten close to me likethat—something almost bordering on intimacy.
I was filled with so muchwantit frightened me. I wanted him to close the distance. I wanted to feel his lips on my neck, his tongue sliding down my cleavage. So of course, being the scaredy cat I was, I took a big step back and said, “Geez, Carter, ever hear of personal space?” and watched with equal parts guilt and delight as his cheeks turned bright pink.
“I still wear my perfumes,” I mumble into his shirt.
“That one, though. You haven’t worn that one…whatever it was called.”
My face flushes. “It’s not winter, that’s why.”
He pulls back with half a smile I don’t know what to do with. “I’ll be counting the days till winter, then.”
I close my eyes.You shouldn’t say stuff like that to me.It’s on the tip of my tongue, but I’m afraid he’ll pull away if I say the words aloud.
Luckily he speaks instead. “I’ll be your best friend again, Teal. It’s what I want, too.”
My heart melts and I lean back to look at him. “Really?” I must sound so dumb, so breathless, so desperate. But I wasn’t expecting this. For my greatest wish to be mutual.
“Yes.” He looks right at me with those gold fire eyes. “I’ll start right now.” And then he lifts me up, kicking and squealing, turning me around and around, just like when we were teenagersand in one summer, he’d grown a head and a half taller than me and wanted to show off.
