Page 39 of Love at First Sighting

El

I don’t think Carter hears me.

I kneel in front of him, his eyes cast down and flooded with tears. He looks like he’s going to be sick—pale-skinned and empty—and his knuckles are white against his dark pants. I hold his shaking hands in mine.

I could focus on what’s just happened, the vague answers Marcus and Ian provided us with.

Marcus did have some role in Carter’s dad’s death and my close encounter.

We have what we came here for, but this answer sucks.

This answer is the worst one we could have found.

It feels like a slammed door. It’s not a victory when it’s going to shatter Carter to pieces like this.

Even if it’s not as bad as it sounds, even if Marcus wasn’t the one to kill Carter’s dad, he didn’t tell the truth, and he’s been keeping secrets—and keeping Carter under his thumb.

But I need to focus on Carter and get us out of here safely. I draw my hands to his cheeks, brushing the soft skin and sharp stubble along his jaw. God, the look on his face…shame, embarrassment, and betrayal all at once.

“Come on. We need to leave,” I urge.

Finally, he comes to and swallows his tears.

I help him push the doors open enough for us to sneak out, and I check to be sure the coast is clear.

The sky has darkened even more across the tarmac.

There’s a strip of shadow we can use to our advantage.

I grip Carter’s hand and pull him out the door.

We dart into the darkness, and I weave through obstacles with an iron grip on him.

We reach the bushes we ducked behind earlier. Ian’s and Marcus’s cars are still here. Marcus’s car is a nicer version of Carter’s— much nicer—and Ian’s is naturally the gaudiest car in the entire parking lot. I rip the cover off our car, hop in, and drive.

We barrel down the dark highway, shadowed palm trees blocking glimpses of the moon, music playing softly in the background, and headlights blinding us whenever we pass someone coming from the opposite direction.

I glance at Carter every chance I get. He hasn’t said a word, but he clutches the safety handle, his heavy, tear-filled eyes looking straight ahead like he’s only a second away from giving up the act and asking for help.

Holding this in would tear me apart, but he’s been doing it for years. Maybe he’s better at it than I’m giving him credit for. I just wish he weren’t.

I veer off the highway when I see a sign for lodging and pull up in front of a motel that boasts Free HBO!

and, more importantly, Vacancy! The Shady Palms Motel is, in fact, shady.

Its coral-blue exterior is chipping away, and the sign out front flickers with a zap as moths fly to their deaths in the neon.

“What are we doing here?” Carter struggles out.

“We’re staying the night. We don’t need to go all the way back home.”

He doesn’t respond, but I think he feels grateful for my idea. He’s slow to follow me into the front office. A boy, who is possibly fourteen, checks us in. We take a top-floor room that smells like smoke and static and has wallpaper that looks like it belongs in Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory.

Once we’re inside, Carter tosses his hat and jacket onto the coffee table. He doesn’t say a word before loosening his tie and slamming the bathroom door shut behind him. It only takes a few seconds for a single choked sob to echo from the other side of the door.

I set my things down and rest my hand on the bathroom door.

I debate knocking, but instead take the hotel stationery and scribble down a note for him. I slide it under the door.

Can I come in?

There’s been no one to take care of him for so long, and I worry maybe he doesn’t know how to ask for help or how to accept it. There’s a moment of silence and then a heavy sniffle before the door handle turns. I push open the door and step inside.

The cracked linoleum and stained grout make me glad I’m wearing shoes.

I don’t know if I can shower without getting a plantar wart of some kind, and the lemon verbena shampoo samplers will throw off my carefully curated hair routine, but none of that matters.

Instead, I see only Carter and the way he leans over the sink, one hand covering his mouth and the other gripping the counter so hard his knuckles are white.

I nudge his shoulder and slide between him and the sink.

“Hey. I’m here,” I breathe, cupping the sides of his face and wiping his eyes with my thumbs. “I’m here, and you’re not alone.”

But I can’t make up for fifteen years of care destroyed by a single conversation. I can’t be the years and years of love he desperately needed and couldn’t get. I want to make him happy in the ways he makes me happy. But I don’t know if I’m going to measure up.

When I was younger, I’d have given anything to fit in, to be enough, but now I’m realizing the one thing I want to be enough for is him.

“I don’t know what to do.”

I wrap my arms around him, and he collapses into heartbreaking sobs I don’t know how to tame, but as he squeezes me and takes what I offer, I realize just being here is more than anyone’s been able to do for him in a long time.

I let him empty every ounce of hurt and betrayal into my shoulder without saying a word, and I don’t care how long it takes. I don’t want to be anywhere else. I’m only thinking about Carter and how goddamn unfair it is that this man hardly even got to be a boy before having to grow up alone.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m so sorry.”

A few tears drip down my cheeks, too, as he clutches my shirt.

Carter shakes his head. “It’s my fault for not figuring it out sooner. It was all there and I refused to believe it. I let him toy with me for years and I was too stupid to notice it .”

I tilt his chin up off my shoulder and wipe his eyes again. He steadies his breathing. “That’s not true. You are smart and brave, and there’s nothing wrong with believing people are better than they are. I’m just sorry they aren’t. You don’t deserve that.”

He chokes on another sob, and I expect him to reject what I said and let the words of someone who was supposed to protect him take precedence, but I think he might believe it when he offers a subtle nod.

There is no overstating the bravery of living a life as painful as his and wanting to spend the rest of it making other people happy.

I cup his cheeks and press a kiss to his forehead.

“You’re going to be okay,” I promise him. There are fewer tears now, only the swollen redness rimming his eyes.

“I know it really must not feel like it right now,” I say, “but you should know you’re loved. I promise you that much.”

I don’t know how to say it any other way.

Saying it to Carter would feel like saying it for the first time, and I’m scared.

I don’t think anything can ever be the same after this.

I don’t know how I’m supposed to go back to faking pictures and sponsorships after what we’ve been through together.

I don’t know how I’m supposed to go back to a life where Carter isn’t mingled in it every single day.

But I do know he’s loved.

He bites back the new wave of tears filling his eyes.

His face is full of pain and exhaustion and embarrassment but not shock.

He’s not shocked at this revelation. He reels me in.

My face crinkles into his pressed shirt, and my makeup rubs off from my tears, leaving peach stains behind wherever I go.

“And I know we’re going to make this right,” I finish.

Carter squeezes me tightly, kissing the top of my head.

I don’t blame him for not knowing the next steps right now, or even in a few days.

It could take time to figure out how he’s supposed to go back to normal life, or how he’s supposed to face Marcus.

I’ll be there when he decides what comes next. “I’ve got you. I promise.”

Our eyes meet as he nods and says, “And I’ve got you, too.”

“Come on,” I say. “Let’s get ready for bed. You’ve had a long night.”

He nods, slow and shaky, so I lend a hand. I tug at the knot of his tie and slide the end out. I work his suspenders over his shoulders and begin to unbutton his shirt under a shroud of silence and the death-knell buzz of fluorescent lights above us.

As I tug the bottom of his shirt out from his pants, he leans over the counter, one arm planted on either side of me.

He nudges my lips up to meet his with a kiss that tastes like salty tears and spilled secrets.

I’ll never turn down a kiss from him, but when he wraps his arms around me and grips my hips, I stop him.

“Carter, if you’re in a bad place, I don’t want you to do anything you’re not comfortable with.”

He shakes his head. “Thank you, but…right now, I just want you. You make me feel safe. Steady. Like all of this might be okay. You make me believe it will be.”

His lips drag along my jaw, and I feel warm brushes of tongue along my throat as his grip on my waist tightens.

He can call the shots; I’m happy to let him get close to me and be loved however he needs it if that’s what’ll help him.

“Okay,” I whisper. I shimmy my jacket off my shoulders and toss it onto the floor below us. Our kisses become sloppy and uncoordinated, and he’s tossed out his gum, but the fresh, crisp bite of mint is still so present on his lips.

He works his hands up my body, warm fingers on my goose bump–ridden skin.

Carter grabs fistfuls of my T-shirt and tugs it over my head.

He takes a moment to breathe me in, bright blue eyes raking over each freckled patch of skin, around the swell of my chest. I finish unbuttoning his shirt, shove it off his shoulders, and pull the undershirt over his head as well.

“Come here,” he rasps into my neck. Carter hoists my legs around his waist and pulls me into his arms. We stumble back into the motel room and collapse onto the single bed. The room beside us is playing the TV on full volume, and the sound penetrates the thin walls.