“Any I can see?” she asks.
“No.”
“Oh,” she replies, and I silently kick myself for being so abrupt.
I expect Carson to quickly fall asleep to the purr of the engine, but we’re barely to the highway when she starts talking. The words come fast, her drunken brain spitting out sentence fragments, and I only get part of the story.
“—tried to make me eat a veggie burger and, like, whatever, vegetarians, I can get down with a black bean burger but this was clearly fake meat and I’m so sorry to the Earth but fake meat is theworst, or at least this was, and hesucked, Dan. He, like, sucked out loud. So who cares that he left to meet another woman. I mean, I just feel sorry forherbecause I cannot imagine that Gabe has ever heard about the clitoris, not to mention knowing where to find it. And I’mdonehaving sex where I don’t come. I know I can! I’ve done it by myself so many times! But these, theseboysare just hopeless.”
My foot slips off the gas pedal.
And of course now she stops talking, and I worry it’s my turn to talk. But I have no idea what to say to that. I mean, she’s right—that guydefinitelydoesn’t know where the clit is. And burgersmade of fake meatareterrible. I should probably go with that. If I start talking about the clit with Carson, I’m going to have to pull this car over, because it will be unsafe for me to drive.
But before I can say anything, Carson sighs.
Then sucks in a deep breath.
Then shouts into the night, “I just wanna getfucked, you know?!”
Thank god there’s no one on the road at this time of night, because I swerve clear into the other lane. Carson doesn’t even seem to notice.
God bless tequila.
“Everyone around me is just so disgustingly in love. Grace and Decker, Wyatt and Owen. And I want that. I do. Love seemsgreat. But that’s not what Ineedright now. I don’t need a great love. Great love will find me eventually. It’s never too late. I’m not in a rush. But in themeantime, I just want to have great sex. And I never have! Not even close! My boyfriend in college, Kyle, was very sweet, but he seemed to think I was made of candy glass and he always called it ‘making love,’ which, like, gag, but also it was just boring in and out. I have yet to encounter a man on Hinge or even in the wild who can, like, really give it to me, you know? They’re all trying too hard or not trying hard enough or chasing after their exes, and I’m sotiredof these disappointing men and all their stupid large fish.”
I’m not sure iffishis a euphemism for something or if she’s somehow dated a string of disappointing fishermen, but I’m not going to ask. Couldn’t even if I wanted to. My voice is trapped in my throat, and I need every ounce of my focus to keep this car on the road. Because while my mouth can’t form words, my brain has plenty.
You could give her great sex. You could pull this car over right now and erase all those disappointing memories. The back seat is tight, but you could make it work. For her.
Absolutely the fuck not. Not with my little sister’s best friend. Not while I’m living in her house. Not in my car on the side of arural Indiana highway. Not when there’s a semi-decent chance that if their lawyers are good enough and my lawyer is bad enough and a judge is annoyed enough, I could wind up spending some time in a federal prison.
Not when my life is probably over even if I escape conviction, even if this whole case goes away. I’ll probably never work in finance again regardless.
But that doesn’t stop me from spending a few miles of dark, empty highway imagining what it would be like to show Carson just what she deserves and how much I want her.
It was almost two years ago that I saw her, reallysawher, for the first time since she was a kid. Everything in New York had just fallen apart. I’d lost my job, my friends, and I’d had to put my condo on the market. The legal implications were only just starting to become clear, and I’d already started draining my bank accounts trying to defend myself. All I knew then was that I needed to get out of the city, and with no money and nowhere else to go, I went to the last place I ever wanted to be.
I went home.
I walked into the Half Pint one warm summer day, and there she was, sitting at the bar with my sister, her golden hair shining in the dim light of the bar.
I didn’t recognize her at first, not as the roly-poly little kid who used to spend the night in Grace’s room, the two of them making up dance routines and giggling way too loudly. It had been a long time since I’d been home, nearly five years. And I hadn’t seen Carson—or maybe I just hadn’t noticed her—for years before that.
But there she was. Unmissable now, and a total knockout.
That was how I felt when I saw her: knocked the fuck out.
Over the last two years, as I’ve moved back and forth between Cardinal Springs and New York, trying to salvage my career and my life, trying to avoid prosecution or prison, I’ve tried to keep my distance. Tried to ignore the way I feel every time our paths cross in our tiny hometown. I’ve done what’s always come naturally to me—kept quiet.
But now I’m living with her, this luminous woman who just told me she wants to getfucked. God, is she asking? Because if that’s what she wants—not a great love, but great sex—I could be the perfect person for her. I’m not a permanent fixture here, and I’m sure as shit not the love of her life. I could give her what she needs and then disappear so she could find the great love she desires.
I could just…fuck her.
If that’s what she wants.
But she has to ask. She has to want it. This can’t be about what I want.
As if in answer, I hear the sound of light snoring from the passenger seat.
