Similar to what Hailey said she was doing. Only she wasn’t a wild child. Her career literally depended on her traveling. Carter cranked up the radio and tuned out his soon-to-be failing relationship and let Metallica fill his head instead. He was normally a Jack Johnson or chill country music kind of guy, but today he needed the distraction.
Once he got home, he sent out a group text to the guys asking if anyone was up for a poker night this week. Brady had early mornings, so he was a quick out. Ty and Cameron had late nights with their little ones, so they were out. Ryan surprised him with an I’m game response as did Tristan, and Ben was a possibility.
Tristan offered to host the game at his place since it was the biggest, and Jenna would be out in the barn working on her pottery all night. The rest of the morning dragged. The only highlight was a quick text from Hailey telling him she’d landed and was catching an Uber into the city.
His creativity wasn’t on point with Hailey gone, so he closed up the projects that required him to come up with branding from scratch and focused on the clients who had a clear vision of what they wanted. Normally he liked being given free reign with only a few directions from his clients. Not today, though. Not when all he could think about was Hailey a few hundred miles away and starting a new career that would take her even further away.
The afternoon turned to evening, and all he had the energy for was heat up a lasagna his mom had put in his freezer a few weeks ago. Three bites in and his phone finally rang. Hailey’s smiling face filled the screen.
“Hey, beautiful. How’s the big city treating you?”
“It’s crazy. I’ve been here a million times before, and yet I feel like a tourist. When did people become so rude? I swear, I had to ask someone to move aside so I could walk through the door of the hotel. She was on a smoke break, and you’d have thought I asked her for a kidney.”
“I’m sorry your trip isn’t starting out on the right foot.” Yet he secretly smiled on the inside.
“Oh, it’s been fantastic since then. Joe and Amanda are amazing. Amanda Harper, she’s kind of like my assistant, although I’m going to feel like hers until I get my bearings. And Dylan Adams, all I can say is, wow. He’s phenomenal. I’ve never met a nicer guy. We went over my future projects during lunch and I... Sorry. I’m rambling. How was your day?”
“Fine.” Not wanting to sound like a jealous lover, he didn’t ask the questions that formed on the tip of his tongue. Why is Dylan phenomenal? Are you interested in him? Did he hit on you? Do you miss me?
“Are you okay?”
If missing you is okay. “Busy. I got a lot of work done today and am meeting up with the guys for poker in a bit.” He hadn’t played cards since he and Hailey stopped by Ben’s. “Maybe later when I get home we can Facetime a game of strip poker.”
“I have early morning meetings with Dylan.”
Gone for less than twelve hours and it was already starting. “Sure.”
“Carter, I’m sorry. I don’t want to screw up this opportunity.”
Maybe he didn’t do such a great job masking his disappointment as he thought. Laying on a guilt trip was not the kind of impression he wanted to give her.
“They’re not worth it if they don’t see your talent.” He pushed his barely touched dinner away.
“Thank you.” Hailey let out a long yawn. “I’m sorry.”
“I’ll let you get some sleep.”
“I wish. I’m meeting Joe and Dylan at the bar downstairs in twenty minutes.”
“The bar?” In the city not even a day, and she’d succumbed to drinking.
“Hopefully they have decaf, but if our meeting goes late, I might need something stronger to keep me awake.”
“Stronger?” From the stories she’d told him over the past month, alcohol made her make bad decisions. There went his hope for making their relationship last.
“Coffee. Carter, are you okay?”
“Sorry. Yeah. A little tired myself.”
“I’ll call you tomorrow in between meetings. Is that okay?”
“Of course. Whenever you can squeeze me in.” There. Totally supportive boyfriend. “Be safe there in the big city, okay?”
“Always. Night, Carter.”
“Good night.”
He waited until the phone went silent, and then he slid it in his back pocket.
HAILEY WAS IN HEAVEN. Not only were Dylan, Amanda, and Joe phenomenal people, but the opportunities in the nonprofit company were well beyond what she’d expected. She never thought she’d want to do anything other than photography, but so many doors had opened to her in the three days she’d been in training.
There was the recruiting, the brainstorming and organizing of events, marketing, coordinating sponsors, vendors, swag, media coverage, and of course, photography. Moving Hearts was based out of New York and had branches all across the United States. The possibilities for growth and change were endless.
She’d never make a ton of money working for a nonprofit, and that didn’t bother her one bit. Growing up on the lesser side of poor, making ends meet was all she cared about. Besides, she could still pick up photography jobs on the side if she really needed the extra cash.
Working with and for those with special needs or who needed extra funding and support was way more up her alley than the body building competitions. She was more than ready for this change.
The only hesitation was being apart from Carter. The pilot’s voice spoke through the overhead speaker of the plane and announced their landing time to be in twenty minutes. The flight from New York to Bangor was quick, which was a bonus.
She’d been able to switch her Friday afternoon flight to Thursday night and couldn’t wait to surprise Carter. Her heart raced in anticipation of seeing his face again. Had it only been four days since he dropped her off for her early Monday morning flight?
When the plane landed, she quickly exited and rushed toward the exit. Her father had been more than willing to pick her up, even if it was an hour past his eight o’clock bedtime.
“There’s my girl.” He greeted her with a hug at the curb of the pickup line.
“Hi, Dad. Thanks for coming to get me.” She stowed her carry-on in the backseat and climbed in the front.
“You don’t need to thank me, honey.” They buckled up and headed south on the turnpike. “I figured Carter would be picking you up. Things okay with you two?”
“I’m surprising him. I wasn’t supposed to fly in until tomorrow.”
Her father laughed. “That’s my girl. Rosie did that once to me back when we were dating. I was sore about not seeing her for two weeks while she vacationed down in Florida with her girlfriends. Turns out she came back on day eleven cause she missed me so much. Her best friend Annie gave her hell for weeks about being whipped.”
“We could say the same for you.”
“Sure can. Ain’t no shame in a man pining after a good woman.”
For the rest of the ride she rambled on about her job and the crawl-walk-jogathon she was helping out with next week in Vermont. They reached her apartment a little after ten.
“I won’t keep you, Dad. Thanks again.” She reached across the center console and hugged him. “I’ll see you on Sunday for dinner.”
“You’ll bring Carter?”
“I’m pretty sure you’d give me hell if I didn’t.”
As soon as he left, she got in her car and raced to Carter’s. His truck was in the driveway, and all the lights were off inside. She tried the side door. Locked. So was the front.
It would have been more exciting surprising him by slipping into bed when he was sleeping, but she had no way in. She breathed into her palm, checking her breath, and knocked on the door.
She literally danced on the front step and bit her lip in anticipation.
Nothing.
She knocked harder and waited. This time not dancing around.
Nothing.
“Carter? It’s me. Are you home?” He didn’t sleep t
hat hard. There wasn’t a single stirring in the house. Reaching in her bag for her cell, she called him. No answer. “Carter. Where are you? I’m standing on your doorstep, but you’re not home. I was hoping to see you tonight. Call me back when you get this message.”
Since it was nice out, she sat down and waited. Twenty minutes later, she couldn’t keep her eyes open and worried about falling asleep behind the wheel. She sent him a quick text telling him she was going back to her house, and left.
The long work week and traveling wore her out, so she had no problem falling asleep once she got home, even though she was worried about Carter. Falling asleep alone in her bed wasn’t her plan but at least she’d be able to see him first thing in the morning instead of having to wait until later in the day. She wanted to spend every free minute she had with him.
She couldn’t have been out long when a noise from the living room woke her. She sat up in bed and listened. A knocking. No, a tapping. She unplugged her cell phone and gripped it tightly in case she needed to call 911.
Peeking her head out of her bedroom, she listened. Tap, tap, tap. There it was again, followed by a hushed voice. “Hailey, let me in.”
“Carter?” She stumbled into the hall and over to the living room window where she could barely make out his silhouette. “What are you doing out there?”
The window was partially cracked to let in the cool night air. She lifted the sash and popped out the screen, careful not to drop it. The narrow roof above the Eggersons' kitchen bay window didn’t leave him much room for stable footing.
He crawled through the window, falling to the floor, and she snapped the screen back in.
“How did you get up there?”
Carter scrambled to his feet. “Brady founda ladder. God, Imissedyou.” His words slurred together, and he fell into her, covering her mouth with his.
The wall saved her from crashing to the floor. He ravished her mouth while his hands roved all over her body. She’d never seen him like this, so ... hungry for her. Granted, it could be the mix of beer and whiskey she tasted on his lips.
She wanted more than anything to get naked with him, but she had a few questions taking up space in her head and interfering with her lust.
“Wait, Carter.” She pushed at him lightly, and he moved his hands to her butt while he sucked at her neck. Returning to work on Monday with a hickey was not the impression she wanted to give her new boss. “Where’s Brady?”
“Why do ya want my bwother?”
Yeah, he was drunk. “You said he had a ladder.”
Carter’s hands stopped moving, and he dropped his head to her shoulder. “Found it. The garage.”
“Here? The Eggersons?”
They’d have a conniption fit in the morning if they discovered Carter had spent the night, and they'd freak out if they found their ladder missing.
“Heez gone. Just you an’ me, baby.” He pinched her butt.
“He left you here? What if I wasn’t home? You could have been stranded on the roof.”
“I mizzyou, baby.” He ran his hands through her hair, his fingers getting tangled in her knots, and he jerked her head as he tried to pull them away. Not exactly a smooth operator tonight. “Iloveyou,” his words slurred together. “Loveyourbody.” He cupped her breasts and swayed to the right.
“Easy there, big fella.” She held on to his triceps and led him to her bedroom.
“Yeah, baby. Lesgetnekkid.”
“I’m not so sure that’s going to work tonight.”
“BudI mizzyou,” he whined. His eyes were nearly all the way shut as he followed her blindly down the short hall. “I wanna kizzyou ... awover.”
She could forgive his stench, his slurred speech, and not being home if he continued to pine away after her like this. Sad, mopey and kind of pathetic, Carter was cute.
“Maybe after you’ve slept this off and brushed your teeth.” She laughed under her breath. “Here. Lay down.” She pulled back the covers for him.
Carter fell onto her bed face-first, his mouth scrunched into her pillow. “Don’t weaveme again.”
“Go to sleep. We’ll talk in the morning.”
“I wuvyou ... Newman.” His lips barely moved, and his body was still except for the light movement of his back as he breathed in and out. A second later he was snoring.
“So much for our romantic interlude.” That was the third time he’d called her Newman. She wasn’t going to get an explanation from him tonight.
She eyed his jeans and how, even with him stupid drunk, they cupped his perfect backside beautifully. His work books hung off her bed as did his right arm, his fingers scraping her floor.
Kneeling at his feet, she undid the laces and pulled off his boots. They were big and heavy, and she set them by her closet. While his ass looked delectable in his jeans, it wouldn’t be very comfortable to sleep like that.
Rolling him to his back sounded a heck of a lot easier than actually doing it. She finally got him rolled over and had broken a sweat in the process. One hundred percent dead weight. Eyeing the button of his jeans, she attacked that next, followed by his zipper.
Carter didn’t budge. Yeah. He was passed out cold. Just for fun, she ran back into the kitchen to get her phone and came back to snap a few pictures of him. She even posed by his snoring mouth and took a selfie.
Giggling, she sent it to his phone. She heard it vibrate in his back pocket. Going back to her task, she wrestled his jeans over his hips and down his thighs. She had to pause and reassess when the material bunched around his knees, and by the time she was done, a bead of perspiration dotted her upper lip.
She raked her gaze up his strong legs, past his black boxer briefs, and up his flat torso, still covered in his gray shirt. “You’re a beautiful man, Carter Marshall, even dumb drunk.” She climbed over him and squeezed between his big body and the wall.
After tossing and turning for over an hour, with little room and Carter’s loud snoring, she finally got up and went out to the couch to sleep.
CHAPTER TWENTY
The sun hit the right side of Carter’s face. He must have been sleeping at the foot of the bed; normally the sun came from the left. He didn’t open his eyes—couldn’t open his eyes—and his head pounded something fierce.
His bed seemed smaller, the mattress too firm, but the blankets were softer than usual. The sandpaper that had replaced his tongue grated against the roof of his mouth. Instead of the smell of sandalwood and freshly cut grass coming in from the window, his room smelled like a bar.
Moaning, he rolled his tense shoulders back and slowly stretched his legs. He sniffed the air again. Bacon? Coffee? God bless his mother, or maybe even Brady for coming over to make him breakfast.
Carter stilled mid-stretch and opened his eyes. Last night started to come back to him. Brady. Ladder. Hailey. “Shit.” Closing his eyes again, he scrubbed his hands across his face and coughed. Before he apologized to her, he needed to sterilize his mouth.
Moving with the speed of a ninety-five-year-old man, he slid his legs to the edge of the bed and sat up. Sort of. With each movement he let out a ragged sigh, squeezing his eyes tighter and hoping it would lessen the pounding in his head.
After a few minutes he stood, not moving his feet until he was sure the floor wasn’t slanted and the room wasn’t spinning. Taking in a deep breath, he put one foot in front of the other and crossed the hall to Hailey’s tiny bathroom.
He avoided glancing down the hall where the amazing breakfast smells were coming from, too ashamed to have Hailey see him like this.
There wasn’t a window in the bathroom, so he was forced to turn on the light. Bracing himself before he hit the switch, he closed his eyes, turned on the light, then gave himself a few moments before opening his eyes again. The shower stall was small which was a good thing. If he fell, at least the wall would catch him.
He turned on the tap and only gave it as much time to warm up as it took for him to slide out of his boxers and shirt
. The water gave a shock to his system which only intensified the beating drums behind his eyes. Gradually, the water warmed, and he blindly picked up a bottle and squirted a glob in his hand. His arms were heavy as if he’d done shoulders and arms for two hours yesterday at the gym instead of legs.
The shower suddenly smelled like warm sugar cookies. Like Hailey. Almost instantly the pulsing behind his eyes ceased, replaced by a dull ache. Last night was a blur, but bits and pieces started to come into focus.
He’d been a six-pack of beer and half a bottle of whiskey deep when he got Hailey’s messages. Brady and Grace had humored him by letting him stay well after dinner was done. They’d had a fire out back and were chillaxing when he started in on Hailey and her hob-knobbing with guys in the city.
One drink led to another, which led to him being out of beer and swiping his brother’s rarely touched whiskey. At some point during the night, Grace had gone inside to bed, and Brady appeased him by listening to him ramble. And ramble Carter did.
He ducked his head under the spray and rinsed the suds, inhaling their Hailey scent. After scrubbing his body with her pure as an angel smelling soap, he rinsed and shut off the water. Pulling back the shower curtain, he scanned the small space for a towel. Only a hand towel on a hook by the sink. There was no linen closet or shelf with towels.
He stepped out of the shower, dripping water all over the bath mat, and searched under the sink. Cleaning supplies, toilet paper, and feminine products. Eyeing the hand towel, he took it off the hook and dried off the best he could.
Yesterday’s clothes weren’t filthy and, as far as he remembered, hadn’t been soaked with alcohol or dirt. He put on his shirt, smelling the traces of campfire, and underwear again, then he padded across the hall to Hailey’s bedroom to find his jeans.
They smelled faintly of campfire too, which was a hell of a lot better than the stench in the room. He opened the window nearest the bed to let in some fresh air, and braced himself for the onslaught of apologies he owed Hailey. Bacon and coffee called to him, and he headed down the hall for his walk of shame.
All of You (A Well Paired Novel Book 7) Page 21
