I’d wanted to make a joke about him being so tall that another few feet wouldn’t matter, but firstly, he wasn’t all that tall—six feet even to my five-nine—and secondly, I could see the idea genuinely freaked him out.
He didn’t even like looking atmeup here.
Which made it worse that his mom had been planning on letting him do this by himself. She either didn’t realize or didn’t care, and I wasn’t sure which one was worse.
“You asking?” I teased, tacking teal, white, and gold bunting to the wall. The wedding colors, it turned out. I hoped no one was expecting me to coordinate my tie or anything, because I’d brought the only one I owned, and it was purple.
“Have youseenhow much work this is?” Carter said, gesturing at the room. “I’m never getting married at this point.”
“Can’t believe you won’t make an honest man out of me,” I tutted, turning back to the bunting.
“What does that evenmean? What’s dishonest about not being married, exactly?”
“I think it’s the part where women used to have to lie about not screwing their boyfriends if they weren’t married. I also guess they didn’t really have boyfriends. Suitors?”
“Suitors is a nice word,” Carter said.
“You wanna be my suitor instead of my boyfriend?” I asked, grinning down at him.
“Does sound a little classier.” Carter stepped back so I could get down from the ladder. “I feel like it might involve a chaperone, though.”
I opened my mouth to respond as I stepped down, but my stomach dropped as the final step under me gave out, breaking away from the frame with a sickening crack, and suddenly I was in free fall.
I stumbled back, hoping like hell that if I went down I at least wouldn’t crash into the edge of one of the marble-topped coffee tables and die the stupidest death ever recorded.
Something warm and solid got in my way, and it took my panicking brain a half-second to realize it was Carter, and I wasn’t falling anymore.
A sigh of relief welled up in my chest as he wrapped his arms around me, steadying me while my heartbeat pounded in my ears.
“See,” he said, close enough for his breath to tickle my neck and send a little shiver running down my back. “This is why I don’t like ladders.”
A bark of laughter escaped me, head still spinning and heart still trying to beat its way out of my chest.
Carter’s grip on me tightened for a second, a reassuring squeeze that pushed back the worst of the residual panic, his familiar scent catching my nose and reminding me that I was safe.
He had no right to feel as safe as he did, but I’d felt that way about him since he’d rescued me from a fight on the second day of high school.
Carter probably didn’t remember that day. I didn’t think he’d realized what was going on, even. All he’d been doing was looking for me so he could drive Kieran and I home. All he’ddonewas call my name, but it’d been enough to scare the other boys off.
I’d always been easy to impress.
“You okay?” Carter asked, low and soft. He still hadn’t let go of me, and I didn’t really want him to.
“What the hell have you done?” Mrs. K shouted before I could get a word in.
Carter let go of me like he’d been burned, backing a full pace away.
My guts twisted. He hadn’t minded touching me until his mom interfered.
“Got into a fight with the ladder,” I said, forcing myself to grin at her like everything was okay and she hadn’t just set my pulse racing again, undoing all the gentle care Carter had taken of me in the space of a breath.
“You broke it,” she hissed, looking from the dangling final step to me, then to Carter. “Youwere supposed to be doing this.”
“I volunteered,” I said, shuffling sideways to put myself between her and Carter.
I could take her yelling at me, but not at him. She couldn’t hurt me.
“And look where that got us.” Mrs. K gestured at the ladder. “What do we do now? You have beendeterminedto ruin this wedding since you got here,” she added with a sniff, still looking directly at Carter as though I wasn’t there.
