My eyes widened, wondering how someone who was married could come so close to calling his husband by the wrong name.
“Behave, both of you,” Carson warned them. “I swear, if you screw this up for me, I’ll find a way to make you suffer.”
Danny looked back at his brother, his chin tipped to the floor and his shoulders slumped forward. “Sorry, Carson.”
Blake scrubbed a hand over the top of Danny’s head. Their relationship was odd, but I couldn’t pinpoint why. Then again, it wasn’t exactly my place to dissect.
My stomach was twisted in knots, and I couldn’t bring myself to eat Eleanor’s pizza burgers, no matter how delicious they smelled. I shoved the salad around on my plate for a bit and picked at my sandwich, trying to at least make it look like I’d eaten something so I wouldn’t offend her. Everyone else started getting up as they finished eating, but Carson stayed by me. “Hey, why don’t you come up here and sit with me for a few minutes?”
“Yeah, okay.” He took my plate, setting it on the end table. “I feel like I messed up, but I don’t know what I did or how to fix it, Carson. Things were going so good this morning, but then there was this weird tension during lunch.”
“Sweetheart, that’s not on you,” he reassured me. “Sometime, I’ll explain everything to you, but I want you to believe me when I say you did nothing wrong. Danny was distant for a long time after he came home. As nice as it is to see him relaxing, there are times when he speaks before he thinks.”
“But how did he—” I replayed the conversation in my mind, trying to figure out what he could have said wrong. My mouth fell open when I realized what he’d been implying. “Wait, was he trying to say you’re falling in love with me? That’s stupid. We aren’t even boyfriends, so we can’t be in love.”
“But we could be,” Carson replied.
“Could be what?” I was starting to think being a virgin until the day I died would be less complicated than trying to teach someone to speak in a way my brain could process. Did he mean we could be boyfriends or we could be in love? Those were still very different concepts.
Carson took my hand in his, turning me to face him. “Do you need me to write you a note with checkboxes at the bottom?”
“Huh?” I was starting to get a headache. It was like Carson was talking in riddles at this point.
He brushed the hair away from my face before leaning in to kiss my cheek. “I’m sorry, it was a song reference, but you might be too young to understand. What I’m trying to say is that I’d love to be your boyfriend, Ezra. As for love, that’s something that might come over time, or we might decide we can’t stand one another. But I want to take the chance with you.”
“Why?”
Carson looked at me like I’d grown a second head. “Because I like you. And if my brothers were in here, they’d be giving me shit because I don’t even remember the last time I wanted something more than just fooling around with anyone.”
“To be fair, it’s not like what we’ve done could be considered fooling around.” At least, I was pretty sure some cuddling and one scorching hot kiss weren’t what he was implying. But would he still want to be my boyfriend if he knew I wasn’t sure when I’d be ready to do it? There had been a time when I was in college when I would have surrendered my virginity to just about anyone, if only to say I’d had sex.
But now, there wasn’t the same sense of urgency. I was smart enough to know part of that was fear and anxiety talking. If I didn’t get naked in front of a man, he couldn’t find me lacking. If we didn’t tumble into bed together, he wouldn’t know how clueless I was.
But there was more to it than that. I wouldn’t go so far as to say I’d only have sex with someone I was madly in love with, but it had to be more than a one-night fling. Carson was offering me exactly what I wanted, so why was I so reluctant to throw myself into his arms and say yes?
“Listen, I meant it when I said I have no clue where things are going to go between us, but I’m going with my gut here.” Carson swallowed hard. When he dragged his tongue across the seam of his lips, my body took notice. It remembered what it had felt like this morning when he’d finally kissed me. God, had that only been a few hours ago? “I’ve spent more time than I’d like to admit trying to figure out what it means that I’m constantly thinking about you, counting the hours until I’ll get to see you again, even if it’s just to give you a ride home. When I invited you today, I was scared shitless, but not enough to take it back. That has to mean something.”
“Oh my god, this is painful to listen to,” someone complained from the other room. “Ezra, will you please put him out of his misery so the two of you can get your asses back in here?”
“Fuck you, Anson,” Carson shot back. He opened his mouth to say more, then quickly pressed his lips together. His attention returned to me. “He’s an asshole, but he’s not wrong. I’m dying here, Ez. Can you put a pathetic man who’s in over his head out of his misery and say yes?”
I pretended to think about it for a few seconds. Although I already knew my answer, I didn’t want to cave too quickly. Otherwise, I’d be the desperate one. Then, I threw myself into his lap, forgetting that we were on his parents’ couch and the entire family could at least hear us. I crashed my lips against his as I tangled my fingers in his thick, dark beard. “Yes, Carson. I’ll be your boyfriend on one condition.”
“Name it.”
This was the moment of truth. His response to the request I needed to make would determine whether we had a realistic chance of making it. “Be patient with me? I really, really like you, but I can’t rush things. I need to know what we’re building is real before…”
There was no way I could say the words. Not when I imagined at least one of his brothers standing just out of sight, straining to eavesdrop.
“I promise, sweetheart.” He kissed me once more before pushing me off his chest. “Now, we’d better get back to work before Mom comes in to see what we’re doing.”
That sealed my mortification. Just the image of Eleanor walking in to find me tackling Carson on the couch was enough to send my arousal into hiding.
My face burned all the way to the tips of my ears when we walked back into the dining room, hand in hand, and received a round of applause.
15
CARSON
