I’d first met Carter when he was nineteen. I’d been a twenty-five-year-old searching for some kind of connection when we’d met. It was love at first sight, at least I’d always thought it was. I’d watched the man of my dreams go through college and earn his degree. I’d been in the crowd, right beside an eleven-year-old Shane when Carter walked up those steps and shook the hand of the dean. Everything had been perfect.
I’d found my family too. I don’t know why I never proposed to Carter—I could have been married to him by the time he passed—but marriage had never been in our talks about the future. Carter always believed that we didn’t need a document to solidify our love, and I used to agree with him. But now I wondered what it would have been like to marry him, to watch him walk down that aisle.
“West?” Shane’s uncertain voice brought me back to reality. I’d lost my focus, which meant my car had ended up crashing into one of the barriers. Instead of backing it up, I’d kept my foot on the accelerator.
The little girl beside us cheered, and it took me a moment to realize she’d won. “Thank you,” she said in a small voice before wandering off, probably to find another game to play.
Shane’s concerned frown made my chest ache. “Are you okay?”
We hadn’t talked about Carter since we began this thing. Was that a poor choice? Instead of confronting the issue, I’d let Shane avoid it. Me too. Instead of bringing my sad thoughts into the open, I smiled. “Let’s go play another game.”
Shane frowned and gnawed on the inside of his cheek, but he slid out of the seat anyway. We played games for a few hours, using our limit of fifty bucks each. By the time we were done, Shane was yawning and leaning against me.
“That was fun.”
“It was.” I curled my arm around his waist and dragged him in closer, kissing his temple. “We should do it the first Saturday of every month again, like we did before Carter got sick.”
His brother’s name made Shane wince against me. “Sure.”
I stopped him and turned him toward me. Lying my hands on his shoulders, I took a deep breath. “We need to talk.”
“No, we don’t.” He grinned but his façade flickered, and I saw the vulnerability there, behind that hard stare in his big brown eyes. “This is good. We’re good. I’ve got a job and I’ve been doing what the courts have ordered… mostly. It’s fine.”
In that moment, I should have told him everything—about his mother’s visit, and how she felt bad for what happened, about the guilt I felt whenever I thought about Carter. Everything. But I said nothing.
I cupped his face and kissed him gently. “How about we go on a day trip tomorrow? We could go to the lake, have a picnic?”
His smile made even the brightest stars in the sky look dull. “I’d like that.”
“Then it’s done. We can go for a swim.”
“Skinny-dipping?” He wiggled his eyebrows.
I laughed. “No, Boy.”
Chapter 13
Shane
First thing I did when I opened my eyes was checked to see if West was awake yet. The sun wasn’t really up, so I wasn’t shocked to see his chest rising and falling in a slow, steady rhythm. His nipples were more tan than mine, and I loved the way they looked, dark and enticing, in the low light. The sprinkle of hair on his chest made me want to run my fingers through it, but I had a plan, and it didn’t involve waking him up so early that he’d be a bear. I had a few things I wanted to do before we went to the lake.
My first real paycheck was burning a hole in my pocket. I knew I should save it, but I wanted to do something nice for us since West almost always paid. Last night, as I was falling asleep, I’d decided that I would go grab stuff to make food to take with us today. The game plan was to sneak out and go to the store and be back and packing the cooler before West even cracked open an eye. He took care of me a lot, and I wanted to show him that I could do things for him too. Unable to keep my hands to myself, I brushed a thumb over the prickle of stubble on his jaw, stopping to tickle his chin. He was so handsome when he slept, less stern, but still entirely masculine. Everything about him made me want to curl up in bed at his side and stay there for the rest of my life.
Sighing, I crept out from under the blankets and pulled on a pair of board shorts, threw on a T-shirt that matched the red hibiscus flowers on the shorts, and then found my flip-flops and wallet where they were lying half under the bed. On my way through the kitchen I snatched up West’s car keys from their usual spot on the counter, and then eased out of the front door. I tossed the keys in the air and whistled to myself as cold dew from the grass coated my toes, and the metal tinkled as I kept up my game of catch. The sun was just peeking over the horizon and the sky was a pinky gold to the east, with a spray of a few last twinkling stars still visible to the west.
I approached the car cautiously. It had been a while since I’d driven anywhere, but I finally had my license reinstated. I took a deep breath and got behind the wheel. West always told me to take my time because sometimes I got nervous, so I did, adjusting mirrors and the seat, looking behind me for nearly a minute before I cautiously backed the car out onto the road. I was feeling pretty proud of myself as I navigated our small residential street, past the early morning joggers and dogwalkers. I turned onto Franklin Avenue and spotted the automatic car wash that sat a few blocks before the grocery store. On a whim, I slowed down. It would be nice if I washed West’s car for him, right? That might make Daddy happy.
I squirmed and my stomach felt ticklish on the inside, both from allowing myself to think of West that way when he wasn’t here, and from the idea of doing something he might like. I pulled around the tall brick building into the lane to wait to go inside. No one else was there this early, one of the advantages of actually having gotten my ass out of bed, I guess, so I inserted my debit card into the machine, and spent the time to read the descriptions next to the different selections before I gave up and chose the most expensive one. That had to be the best wash, right?
The light went on, and I put up my window and pulled forward into the wash bay, all the while being careful not to ding the wheels on the ridges that guided the car. I hummed to myself and turned off the engine when the light over the closed exit door flashed that I should. I sat there drumming the wheel as the machine around me powered up and water began to spray onto the hood.
The silver bars passed beside me, and I grinned as excitement had me bouncing in place. I’d always loved car washes when I was younger, but it never occurred to me that I could take a car anytime I wanted to now. It was a weird thing to be happy about, but I liked it. The sprayers passed to the rear of the car and a strange noise had me jerking around, and then water spritzed me in the face. The rear window on the passenger side was cracked about a quarter of an inch. Groaning, I hit the button to put the window up, but nothing happened. I turned the car back on fast and tried the window again, but nothing happened.
Shit, was there something wrong with the window? Vaguely, I remembered there might be, but I hadn’t thought about it before I pulled in. I thumped my forehead on the steering wheel and panicked, not sure what to do. The wash-bay door in front of me was down, and I couldn’t just pull out.