People weren’t kind to Carter. His mom, his ex, the few people at work he’d complained about to me while we’d been driving here.
I could be kind.
“What’s up with Mandi?” I asked, leaving plenty of leeway in the question so Carter could tell me what hewantedto say, and nothing he didn’t want to.
“That… that’s a huge question,” Carter said.
“Pick an angle,” I offered, sure now that I’d phrased it perfectly.
“She’s… very driven. Corporate ladder mountaineer. Assertive. None of those are bad things and I don’t mean to sound like they are, but…”
“She seems intense,” I said.
“Intense is a good word,” Carter agreed. “Too intense, y’know? She told me once that she planned to be married by thirty.”
“You don’t think that was maybe a hint?” I raised an eyebrow.
“Oh, it was,” Carter said. “No question, Mandi meant I should marry her. But not because she likedme. Because it was a milestone to tick off. Like buying an apartment and getting promoted to C-level management. I was the quiet, meek, moderately successful husband who got paid okay but whose career would never overshadow hers. And like… none of those things are unreasonable, exactly, but they’re not…”
“What you want,” I finished for him.
“They’re what my dad had.” Carter chewed his lip. “I want to be loved. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.”
“It’s not,” I said, swallowing past an ache in my chest. “Kind of the bare minimum.”
“She’s not a bad person,” Carter said. “She’s really not, she cares so much about so many things. But not… me. I’m not the easiest man in the world to love, but I’m hoping one day someone might be able to anyway. Mandi leftme, but Mom won’t drop it.”
It kept coming back to Carter’s mom, didn’t it? She was the elephant in the room.
Well, I wasn’t about to let her walk all over him. I planned to take my developing role as protective, devoted boyfriend very seriously.
“I don’t think you’re especially hard to love,” I said. “No more than anyone else.”
Carter looked at me, the light of the fire dancing in his uncertain eyes. He drew a breath to speak, but then clearly though better of it and turned back to look at the fire.
“My turn?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “Knock yourself out.”
“Kieran said you had a crush on me in high school,” Carter said. “Is that, umm.” He scratched the back of his neck. “Did you?”
Shit.
Shit.
I’d been afraid of what he might have said to Carter, and now I knew.
The thing was, he clearly hadn’t meant any harm by it. What teenager didn’t have an embarrassing crush or two in their closet?
Except mine was still going strong, and Carter was sitting here with a head full of questions about his sexuality.
I’d set up the rule where I could justnotanswer instead of lying to him, and I should have stuck with it, but how would he take me refusing to answer?
There were only two options—either he’d think Ididhave a crush on him and he’d been uncomfortable, or he’d think Ididn’tand wonder why the hell not.
And he already felt unlovable. I didn’t want to make that worse.
“I think we should head to bed,” I said. The coward’s way out, avoiding the question entirely. “We’re not gonna get any warmer than we are now, and if we grab an extra blanket we should be toasty all night.”
