by Mariano, Sam
Carter comes over and grabs my waist, nodding toward the stage. “We should probably head over there.”
Somehow I managed to forget that—to the surprise of exactly no one—Carter was announced homecoming king at the football game last night. Cartwright is on the homecoming court, too, so he wanders up by Carter.
“Yeah, we probably should,” he agrees.
Brianna comes up beside Cartwright, glancing up at him hopefully. “You’re picking me for princess, right?”
“Eh, I don’t know. I might pick Erika.”
Carter slides a dry look his way. “Not funny.”
Cartwright grins. “Come on, it’s kinda funny.”
“If you pick anyone but me, you better be sure they’re sucking your dick tonight, because if I don’t get that damn sash, I’m sure as hell not,” Brianna informs Cartwright.
“Well, shit, I guess you get a sash then.”
Smiling victoriously, she mutters, “Damn right, I get a sash.”
It also slipped my mind that at our school, only the guys get voted to homecoming court. Then the guys pick their own counterparts. Blinking in sudden realization, I look up at Carter. “Oh, God. Does this mean I’m…?”
Carter’s attention is on the stage, not on me. The junior class court has already been called to stage, and now it must be our turn. Carter flashes the principal a smile, nods, and grabs my hand to drag me closer to the stage. He stops at the stairs, drops my hand, and heads up on stage.
My heart beats irregularly. I don’t like being the center of attention, but unless this is the long con from Hell, I don’t see Carter picking anyone else to be his queen.
Everyone on the floor claps as Carter takes the stage. Last year’s homecoming queen is up there with his crown and sash. Other than the sizeable baby bump she’s rocking, she looks like a retiring pageant queen, all smiles as she stands on her tiptoes to reach the sash over Carter’s head, then she puts the crown on him. Carter doffs the crown and winks at the crowd, causing a few chuckles and more than a few dreamy sighs.
I crack a smile at the reaction and look back up at him under the spotlight. Cartwright is called up next. He doesn’t get a crown, but he does get a sash, then the former queen hands him a tiara and the “homecoming princess” sash.
He knows what’s good for him, so when the principal asks who his princess is, Brianna is called to the stage. She grins and waves as she ascends the steps, then pleasantly thanks him and grabs the sash, putting it on herself. He tries to put the crown on her, but it gets caught in her hair and she ends up doing that herself, too. I can’t help laughing a little. Poor Cartwright.
When the focus is back on Carter, the principal can’t help praising him some more for the incredible football season we all know he’s largely responsible for. Finally, the principal is done kissing Carter’s ass.
“Well, son, don’t keep us all in suspense. Who is going to be your homecoming queen tonight?”
Carter leans in to the mic, flashes me a smile, and says lightly, “She’s my queen every day, Mr. Cousins. Zoey Ellis, get up here.”
Even though I knew it had to be me, my heart plummets. Everyone claps and I gather my dress, heading up the steps onto the stage.
After watching Cartwright fumble with the sash, the former queen decides to drape that on me herself. It’s a gold, satin sash with black font, while Carter’s is black with gold font. I’m not sure if it’s by coincidence or design, but they match our outfits like they were made specifically for us. Carter takes the crown before she can put that on my head, then he meets my gaze, smiles at me, and puts it on me himself.
“Perfect,” he murmurs.
Last year’s queen turned away to retrieve a big bouquet of roses from the table. She hands them to me now and I’m struck by their beauty. Ordinarily I believe the homecoming queen gets red roses, but these are white with gold glitter lining each petal.
“Wow, these are beautiful. Thank you,” I tell her, though I’m not sure who I’m supposed to thank. Never in a billion years would I have expected to be homecoming queen at this high school or any other.
The former queen leans in to confide, “Your boyfriend ordered ‘em special for you.”
Carter leans in to whisper jokingly, “Why are you giving away all my secrets?”
She smiles at me. “You’re a lucky girl.”
I do feel like a pretty lucky girl tonight. Even luckier, since my class didn’t pick me, I don’t have to touch the microphone or give any kind of “thank you” speech. Since I’m going to be dancing, I give the girl the flowers back and she tells me to make sure I come get them before we leave the dance. I assure her I will, and turn back to watch the principal finish up the crowning ceremony.
“Now, ladies and gentlemen, the king and queen will have their first dance. After that, everyone is welcome to join them on the dance floor and dance the night away! Have fun, be safe, and don’t do anything your parents wouldn’t approve of,” he tells them, shaking a finger at the assembled audience. He gets a few polite chuckles, but there are a lot of blank stares, too.
Carter takes my hand and leads me down the steps. The spotlight follows us out onto the dance floor. Carter takes me in his arms, heedless of the rule about distance between dance partners. Ben E. King starts crooning Stand by Me from the speakers and Carter pulls me closer.
“She’s my queen every day, huh?” I murmur playfully.
Carter shoots me a mischievous smile. “You liked that line, huh?”
“Your audience sure did. You tryin’ to make all the other girls wanna steal you away from me?”
“Nah, I’m not a necklace; I can’t be stolen.”
“I can’t believe I’m homecoming queen,” I tell him.
“Perks of dating the king. Better get ready, come prom you’ll sweep up that crown, too.”
“I doubt that. Senior class picks that one, not you.”
Cocking a disbelieving eyebrow, he says, “You cannot honestly doubt my ability to get shit done at this point. Come on now, Zoey. I’ll make sure you win.”
I shake my head indulgently. “I don’t want you to fix it.”
“You want me to dance this close with some other girl, then?”
I pause to consider, then tell him, “Fine, you can fix it.” It’s not like he’ll need to break any rules, just wield his considerable influence and tell people what he wants them to do. I’m sure his minions will help him out. “What are you gonna do when high school ends and you have to start over at Columbia? You won’t have any minions to do your bidding.”
“Not right away, but it won’t take long to break some new ones in,” he says, confident in his leadership skills. “Besides, New York is home. I have plenty of friends there.”
“Any I’ll like?”
His lips curve up faintly. “One you might like a little too much. I’ll have to keep you away from him so he doesn’t try to snatch you up.”
“Impossible,” I declare. “I am also not a necklace.”
“Can’t be stolen, huh?”
I shake my head. “I’m all yours.”
“I’m gonna hold you to that,” he tells me.
“Well, until we live too far apart to be together, at least,” I amend, knowing he will hold me to that. “Will we see your friends on the visit?”
Carter shakes his head. “Doubt it. Only staying the weekend doesn’t give us much time and I want to show you the city.”
Smiling at the mental image of us walking the sidewalks in a crowded Time Square, I tell him, “I can’t wait. I think we’ll have fun.”
“You know when I think we’ll have fun? When this stupid dance is over,” he murmurs, bending his head to kiss my bare shoulder. “When I can haul you out of here and get you the hell out of this dress.”
“I love this dress,” I tell him.
“I love it, too. I’ll love it more when it’s on the floor and you’re naked in bed with me.”
“What kind of animal would p
ut this gorgeous dress on the floor?” I demand, wide-eyed. “Surely there’s at least a chair we can lay it out across.”
“You’re focusing on the wrong part of this story,” he states.
“I’m aghast at your rough handling of my beautiful gown. You’re allowed to handle my body that way, but my dress? Over the line.”
Carter rolls his eyes. “Fine, we’ll throw the dress on a chair. As long as you’re naked, I don’t care where your discarded clothes are.”
With a perfunctory nod, I say, “Much better.” Barely missing a beat, I ask, “Now, where is your mouth in this scenario?”
The beautiful mouth in question curves up in a smile. “Oh, my mouth is doing good work. You’re tummy down on the soft bed, I’m kissing my way down the small of your back, palming that beautiful, bare ass.”
“Mm, that does sound nice. I wonder where your mouth is heading…”
“Well, see, you have a wet pussy just begging for its attention.”
I bite down on my bottom lip, leaning in to murmur, “Keep talking like that and I’ll drag you out of here before the dance even gets going.”
“Don’t threaten me with a good time,” he returns.
I grin and lean up on my tip toes to give him a kiss. “We’re not going to be here for very long, are we?”
“Not a chance,” he verifies.
Chapter 52
I’m antsy as we stand in the hallway outside the locked door, waiting to go inside. Carter’s head is bent in concentration as he taps numbers into an app on his phone, supposedly to disarm the alarm before we’ve even stepped foot inside.
“That should do it,” he murmurs, sliding his phone back into his pocket and pushing a key into the lock.
He pushes the door open and peeks inside. When there is no shrieking sound coming from the alarm, I assume the app worked.
Carter turns back to flash me a victorious smile, then grabs my suitcase and wheels it inside. I follow him more tentatively, watching his confident stride as he makes his way inside his new apartment.
It’s crazy to think he’s going to live here. Not only will he be living all by himself, but in the city. Well, I guess it’s not as big a deal to him seeing as he’s from here, but… God, what a life he leads.
Carter parks both our suitcases behind a charcoal gray couch in the living room. I’m overwhelmed by how nice this place is. It’s nothing like you would envision someone starting out in during college. The whole place has already been decorated by an expert, judging by the look of it.
To the right is a full kitchen with a compact island and three chairs on one side of it. There’s a dining table with bold red chairs in front of a huge window with a city view, and just past that is the study area. There’s a bookshelf with only a few books and some accent pieces to fill the empty space—clearly placeholders, until Carter makes the place his own. A desk is set up there, somewhere for him to do his homework after a long day of classes.
The living room is just beautiful. A big area rug covers the stunning hardwood floor, there’s a massive, gray, industrial-looking coffee table in front of the couch and a huge television mounted to the wall in front of it. There are end tables with stylish lamps that I love, but that a bachelor would never pick out for his home.
His home. This is going to be Carter’s home.
“Want to see the bedrooms?” Carter asks, once I’ve finished taking it all in.
I nod and follow him. When I was assigning the study area downstairs, I completely forgot he has an extra bedroom that has been turned into an actual study. Even more bookcases line one wall and there’s a gleaming mahogany desk set up in front of them.
“You can study in here,” he tells me, nodding toward the corner on his left hand side. “We can put your fish over here in a big aquarium so you’ll have your reading buddy close.”
I know he’s joking, but the sight of this place, the excitement and energy of this city in the couple hours we’ve been here… it’s just mean to make me imagine a version of life where I could live here with him. Where this could be my study, these shelves could be full of my books… this could be our life.
Trying to keep things light, I tell him, “I hope the wife you meet at Columbia enjoys it as much as I would.”
“Want me to fuck you on her desk?” he offers.
“Maybe later,” I murmur, backing out of that room and heading down the hall to the next white door. It’s just a bathroom, but for all I’ve heard about New York being incredibly cramped, it’s a nice sized bathroom. It has two sinks, two closets, and a bathtub where Chloe can take baths when she comes to visit.
Speaking of Chloe, the next room is hers. The pink walls are the first hint, but the interior decorator has already put some things in here, too. A nice white dresser with a huge mirror behind it and a ballerina lamp on top is at the front of the room. A full-sized bed is already made, complete with decorative pillows and pale pink bedding. There’s a white end table that matches the dresser and a princess lamp on top of that one. In the corner is a white bookshelf in the same style. A few kids’ books are already placed on the shelves along with a stuffed bear and a white unicorn, but like the living room shelves, it’s mostly placeholder stuff until Chloe makes it her own.
“This place is gorgeous, Carter. Truly.”
Taking my hand, he leads me to the next door. “Let’s check out our room.”
“Your future wife is going to be miffed when she finds out you had sex with someone else on all her things,” I inform him.
“Get in here,” he says, unconcerned about our impossible future as only Carter can be. He’s so accustomed to things working out the way he wants them to, maybe it really hasn’t hit him yet that we have a few more months, but when he comes to this city, he’ll have to come without me.
There have been moments where I thought about suggesting we extend things a little longer. After graduation, technically I could move to New York with him just for the summer, just until I have to start school in PA. The problem is, I think that will make it a million times harder. Even now I can tell these couple of days we’re visiting will haunt me, give me ideas of what could have been that I could have lived without, if only I hadn’t come on this trip.
I had to, though. If someone is going to take me to New York for the first time, it should be Carter.
Living here for the summer would be different, though. It wouldn’t feel like a weekend trip, it would feel like the start to a life I can’t keep living. It would make leaving much too hard, and undoubtedly cast a pall over what should be an exciting milestone in my life when I move to PA to start college.
The master bedroom door swings open and Carter steps inside. I follow him, a bit awed. This is the biggest room, and I have no doubt there are studio apartments in this city with less space. A king-sized bed is already made up in Longhorn colors—a coincidence, I hope, but I don’t know who gave these decorating orders. On the opposite side of the room is a couch, a coffee table, an end table with a lamp, and a television mounted to the wall in front of it. It’s basically a second living room in the bedroom.
That’s not even all there is. Once we’re in the door, I see the wall to my right has a dresser set up with an enormous mirror over it and a silver serving tray with a trio of candles as a centerpiece. There’s art on the walls in this room, and past the dresser is another door. I think it’s going to be the master bathroom, but when I step inside, I see it’s a walk-in closet.
“This place is bonkers,” I say, feeling Carter walking in behind me.
He passes me and keeps walking, running his hand across the smooth surface of the counter in the middle of the room. “I like it. When you’re taking too long getting ready for a date, I’ll come in, bend you over right here, and give you a good, hard fuck.”
“That’ll sure hurry me up,” I offer dryly. “Good thinking.”
He keeps walking, gesturing to the left side. “Your clothes can go over here.” At the end of the c
loset is a built-in with doors that close as well as some pull-out drawers. He checks out a few of them, then walks around the counter and glances at the racks on that side. “My stuff can go on this side.”
Mean, mean, mean.
Ignoring him, I turn on my heel and quit the closet. I check out the master bath next, trying not to let his commentary pollute my mind, but it’s hard. When he shows me where he’s going to fuck me in the large tiled shower, I’m tempted to take all my clothes off and hop in so we can try it out. When he runs his hands along the ‘his and hers’ sinks where I’ll get ready to go out with him on weekend nights, my mood sinks, because I can see that, too.
After the tour is finished, I return to the bedroom and climb up on the Longhorn blue bedspread. It’s so soft, I just want to lie down and get comfy. We need to unpack my clothes before they wrinkle, but for a moment, I lie back and stare up at the ceiling Carter will look at every night before he falls asleep. Every night when he’s living his life without me.
Carter lies back on the bed with me. Looking over at me and folding his hands over his abdomen, he asks, “What do you think?”
“I think it’s amazing,” I tell him, honestly. “You’re going to love living here. I’m so happy for you.”
“You could move here with me, you know.”
This is not the first time he has mentioned me moving here with him. It’s not the first time he has made the joke that my mom’s right, what do I need college for when I have him to foot the bill? I know he’s only joking and I know he probably really does wish I could move here with him, but after many hours online trying to imagine a new college into existence, I finally accepted that everything in this city is so far outside of my budget, I can’t even afford to think about it.
I know if I asked, Carter would try to find a way to help me pay for it, but that’s over the line. I’ll let him buy me a homecoming dress or even a plane ticket to New York, but he has offered those things, I have never asked. It’s too presumptuous to assume we will end up married, that the debt for enormous school loans would inevitably be ours, not just mine.
