Page 23 of Venus

It’s been two weeks since I’ve seen Carter. Two weeks of pretending our distance was mutual, that it was chosen by the two of us and isn’t something I’m trying to hide behind.

We ended things clean, at least from my view. No dramatics, no screaming, no tears. We simply acknowledged it wasn’t working for us, even though it was for entirely different reasons.

What we had was supposed to be fun, and it was never meant to be more than that.

I can’t necessarily blame him for catching feelings.

If I’m being honest with myself, we really did get along and spending time together was thrilling and memorable.

I suppose this was inevitable, but we still agreed not to take it too far.

I didn’t want to steal his dignity by having that kind of conversation in public, and I didn’t want him to get up and chase me. So I didn’t leave the door open for him to follow. I simply ended things.

Two weeks later, I still tell myself it was the right call. I pat myself on the back for walking away when I did. I still respect him for being honest with me even though it didn’t work out for us in the end.

I fill the days with work, picking up extra shifts when I can to keep my mind occupied. We didn’t technically break up, but it sort of feels that way when I catch myself scrolling through our old messages just to reread his bad jokes that made me laugh.

On a random Wednesday, I check my phone after missing a call from my dentist to see that he texted me hours ago and I didn’t notice.

Carter. Just his name showing up on my screen makes my stomach flip.

Carter: Hey. We’re going to be at Schooner’s tonight. I thought I’d ask if you and some of your friends wanted to come.

Carter: I miss hanging out with you. We were good at that part.

I stare at my screen and I can practically feel him staring back, waiting for my little chat bubble to signal that I’m typing a reply. I hesitate for a long time before responding.

Me: Maybe. I’ll ask them. We’ve had a busy week.

Carter: No pressure. Just let me know.

I consider for a while just waiting for an hour or two and then giving the overused excuse of being tired, and I even type it out on my keyboard, each letter chipping away at my heart.

I delete it as soon as I finish .

Me: Okay. We’ll come. See you soon.

Schooner’s is the same as it’s always been. Same people. Same sticky floors. Same Christmas lights that haven’t been taken down since 2004. Nothing’s changed. The pool balls are still cracking against each other. The bar seats are peeling up vinyl. It smells like stale beer and cheap cologne.

It makes my heart squeeze, because this was ours once.

Carter and I met here. Whatever we have—or had—it all started in this very bar.

Before the tension and the silence and the awkwardness, this was ground zero.

It was neutral territory before I started rebuilding walls I don’t actually want to live behind, but too afraid to leave.

Callie is with me. She’s the only one who was game for it. I don’t think she came for the fun and the drinks though. I think she came for me. To watch over me. To look out for me. To stop me from making any more mistakes.

I find myself searching for him, feeling an ache in my ribs where he used to kiss me there.

I see him, in a corner all by himself. Hoodie, jeans, and boots as if he’s trying to hide himself. He looks wrecked. Not like the Carter I knew before… us .

And this is exactly what Jackson was talking about when he said I broke him, but Carter doesn’t have the strength to leave me behind .

The moment he sees me, he gives me that goddamn smile, doing a really good job at pretending he’s okay. Like seeing me fixed his world instead of ruined it. I give him an Oscar-worthy smile back and slide into the booth across from him.

“Hey,” he says, eyes crinkling in the corners.

“Hey,” I say back. Too casual. Too calm. Too normal.

“I’m uh, honestly surprised you came tonight.” He chuckles like he feels ridiculous. “Thought for sure you’d back out.”

“I thought about it,” I admit.

“What made you change your mind?”

I take a deep breath. “Maybe I just missed this part too,” I say quietly, giving a nod to his earlier text. He gives me a smile, a real one, and just like that, the weirdness begins to crack and fade away.

There it is, the click. The shift. The gravity pulling us back into orbit around each other, like two planets fighting for their celestial love despite never getting close enough to touch.

I looked up the mythology around Venus and Vulcan. Right when Carter gave me the nickname and told me that they were close, I researched the ancient love story.

I found out that in Roman mythology, Venus is the villain in their love story, shredding away all the affection with Vulcan in their marriage until she took to finding other lovers. She’s most famous for her infidelity, not her love .

It’s a terrible story, really. I’m not sure Carter understood how fatal their attraction was when he gave me the nickname to match his.

From the corner of my eye, I see Callie and Jackson talking it up at the bar, both of them with their eyes set on me in anticipated disappointment. It’s fair, but it’s also not. I didn’t come here with the intention of making things worse.

I think Carter feels it too. The way our small talk ends in awkward smiles. The way our laughter doesn’t seem to come from a genuine place. How our sips are placed in between each topic like a lifeline. We’re being careful, but it’s just making it more painful.

Eventually, with a bad joke about Carter’s terrible taste in beer, something between us shifts and the weirdness begins to crack. Little by little, we open up again until the smiles are real and the laughter comes from our chests.

Little by little, I forget to keep my guard up and he forgets about the distance he was trying to keep. Somewhere between the music and the fourth round of drinks, Carter ends up on my side of the booth.

Jackson, Trevor, and Callie shove themselves into the opposite booth, and I see a hopeful glimmer in Callie’s eyes when she looks at Jackson. Like there’s a spark there, and honestly, I hope there is.

Just because Carter and I didn’t work out that way, doesn’t mean something else can’t come out of our new friend group .

As I finish that thought, Carter leans over. “You look good,” he says, his voice low and a little bit slurred. The hum of the jukebox in the background playing a country ballad makes this moment feel more charged than it should be.

“So do you,” I whisper back, my breath fanning across his ear.

His breath quivers on his next inhale, and I lean away, taking a long swig of my drink.

The ballad continues playing and I make up some sorry excuse about how I hate the song even though I really don’t.

I slide out of the booth and Carter follows me to the jukebox.

We stand shoulder-to-shoulder, flipping through all the familiar song titles without really caring what we choose.

It’s just an excuse to be close, and we both know it.

He turns to me, a little buzzed and a little unsteady. But his eyes tell me everything he wants to say before it falls out of his uncoordinated lips.

“Let’s get out of here,” he says.

I nod. “Yeah. Okay.”

We’re a little too tipsy to drive, so we take a short cab ride to my place. It’s quiet, the only noise in the car is the soft tunes the driver is playing. Carter’s hand brushes my knee, and that’s where it stays, his pinky rubbing back and forth on the fabric of my leggings .

When we get to my apartment, he changes, suddenly stiff and acting as though he’s never been there, too afraid to even ask to sit down.

I set my bag on the counter and turn to him, and suddenly the both of us are very sober and wondering if it was a mistake all over again.

“You still know how this ends,” I say, firmly. I don’t want him to think of this as anything other than what it is—two friends hooking up.

He looks at me and his eyes are glossing over with a hundred things he wants to tell me. He lets out a big sigh, and finally says: “I know.”

I don’t answer. Instead, I close the distance between us and kiss him. Slow. Familiar. Safe. The kind of kiss that tells him that this isn’t meaningless, even if it should be.

Our clothes disappear, one after the other until we’re both naked in each other’s arms and wrapped up together in my thin sheets.

He slides into me without any resistance, grinding his hips in a slow and steady pace. I wrap my legs tight around his hips, anchoring us together. His mouth doesn’t leave mine, swallowing my soft moans as I tug on his hair and roll my hips to meet his.

The wet heat between our bodies begins to drip onto the sheets, but we don’t stop. We’re not even chasing release, we’re just…connected.

Somehow that makes it all more devastating.

His hands find mine tangled in the sheets and he laces our fingers together above my head, trapping me in the intensity of the moment. I can’t move, and I don’t want to.

I just want him. That’s it.

And I’ll tell him in the morning.

But for now? I let him make love to me.

When we both grow tired and he finishes deep inside me, I lie with my head on his chest as he traces patterns up and down my back.

This silence doesn’t scare me. Not tonight.