Chapter 13
13
Carter and I survive that first night in his bed with me lining up pillows between us like a tall, squishy wall of fortification. No matter what Carter says, I know he doesn't like to get close to me. Whether that's out of fear, disgust, or straight-up hatred, or some combination of the three, that's beyond me. Just, at this point, the last thing my self-esteem needs is my husband, fake or not, dry-heaving after I accidentally touch his calf with my foot.
In the morning, he gives me a Publix gift card and asks if I'd please have dinner ready when he gets home. My immediate first reaction is to laugh in his face. What am I, his fifties housewife now? Should I curl my hair and put on pearls and high heels, too? But then I realize that really, now that we're married, he's kind of got all the power here. This is his house. This whole thing is his agreement. And until I get a job, I'm kind of beholden to all that crap. So I hmm in agreement, and he makes a face at me like he doesn't believe I'll do what he asks—I mean, come on, it's dinner, not a request to build him a life-sized, functional sandcastle—which just makes me want to not only cook his dinner but put my whole-ass foot in it, too.
After I grab ingredients, I spend my day halfheartedly looking for jobs. It's not that I don't want a job. It's that the whole process of filling out applications, writing cover letters, and sending résumés, in the hopes that some asshole will pluck it out of an enormous digital pile of other people's paperwork and offer me an interview—the whole thing makes me kind of want to smash my head out the nearest window and scream.
I unpack my things, which doesn't take all that long, and after that, I'm having a facedown with a crumpled piece of paper I'd placed in front of me at the kitchen table.
New Year's Resolutions for Teal Flores
Stop being selfish.
Make it up to Sage.
Make it up to Sky.
Become best friends with Carter again.
I haven't made a whole lotta progress on this. I did help Sky shop, and that was fun. But also, a few outfits on her grandmother's dime doesn't exactly absolve, you know, me deleting eight years of her life by being a dumbass. I'm still not sure number four is even possible, so I'm not focusing on that right now.
But Make it up to Sage —I already have a plan for that. Sort of.
Opening up my laptop, I begin my search to figure out where I'm going to source all the pretty, pretty dahlias for her September wedding.
Carter walks in at six on the dot.
If things were like before, when we were still BFFs, I know how he'd be. He'd walk in with a huge smile, the one that makes even my toes feel warm and tingly and weird. He'd say some corny-ass shit like " Honey , I'm home ." He'd greet me with a hug and a peck on the cheek, 'cause that's what Latines do, whether we're dating or not or want each other or not or even know each other or not.
He doesn't do any of that. He pauses as he takes off his shoes in the hallway, and through the reflection of one of the living room mirrors, I see his silhouette. He stands and squares his shoulders and takes a deep breath, like even the idea of looking at me makes him feel like he's being shipped off to war. He turns and walks in, his eyes meeting mine immediately.
Lord, he looks handsome. His face a little brown from the sun, his button-down flannel rumpled from a day of good, manual labor. His jeans snug, his feet bare. Being slightly turned on by a man's hairy feet—that's where I am, I guess. When those feet belong to Carter, at least.
"Uh. Hi." Then his gaze darts everywhere else but me. "You cooked?"
His obvious discomfort pisses me off. But thing is, I've already run too damn much this week. My right knee feels like it's going to crack, it hurts so bad. So all I can do now is suck it up. No outbursts, no lightning storm rampages. Just take a deep breath, in and out, counting, and then I nod. "Uh-huh," I say as brightly as I can. "Why don't you sit and I'll bring you a plate."
"You don't have to—"
Aaaand my patience runs out. "Jesus Christ, Carter, have a fucking seat, will you?"
He closes his mouth and sits, his eyes on me, even more wary now.
And you know what my brain goes to in that moment?
I think about ordering Carter around in a very different circumstance. In bedroom-related circumstances. And I'm not going to lie. It's a turn-on. So much so, that momentarily my anger dampens, and then I realize what my effed-up brain is up to, and I get even angrier .
What is wrong with me?
I finish topping our dinner—blackened salmon over cacio e pepe, and a side of crispy Brussels sprouts—with a little flourish of chopped flat-leaf parsley and then take our plates to the table.
Thunder rumbles nearby, close enough to make the silverware I've already set on the table ever-so-slightly rattle.
"Looks great," Carter says, and then he digs in. "Holy shit. Teal. This is… mmm …so good ." The sounds he makes. My God. Has he always eaten food the same way most people have orgasms? Or am I just, like, in major need of getting laid?
My brain flashes images to me that are basically X-rated. Images of Carter. Tied to the bed. While I endlessly tease him with my tongue.
"You going to eat?"
I blink and look down at my plate. "Uh. Yeah."
After a few minutes of the both of us eating quietly—me sort of picking at the food, Carter wolfing his down as fast as possible, Carter asks, "You going to tell me what's the matter?"
I stare at him for a moment, my mind blank, because I don't know how to put it into words. Um, you see, Carter. I just realized I have a new kink featuring you, specifically, on your knees, while I order you to do things like eat me for dinner. I clear my throat and break eye contact. That image…didn't help.
I need to remember why all of this is so dumb. And it all comes down to the fact that Carter doesn't want to touch me. Not like that. And not like anything, it feels. So. Time for a subject change.
"I told Sage I would buy her flowers for her wedding, but it's way too fucking expensive."
"How expensive?"
When I tell him the amount, he winces. "For flowers?"
"Apparently, they are very special flowers. Difficult to import, so they have to be local and shit. And of course she's going to want them to be organically grown."
"How would she know the difference?" I give him a look and he smiles sheepishly. "Right. She could just ask the plants and they would tell her."
"Right."
"Well, once we get Gene's money, you could get them, no problem. I can cover you in the meantime."
I shake my head. "Hell no. No way am I spending that amount on flowers. I'm working on a better and cheaper solution. Besides, I want to use the money for a PI, anyway."
Carter's basically licking his plate clean at this point, so I grab it to serve him more. "So your mom's not in town, then?" he asks.
I snort. "Amá threatened me when I asked her about it. So my guess is something is up. Maybe Mama's here, or maybe she was here recently but isn't anymore…who knows. But we're not getting answers from my family." I'd tried to bring up the subject to Nadia, but before I could even get the question out, she raised one mahogany pencil–filled eyebrow at me and said, I know , Teal, that you're about to ask something that's none of your business, so I suggest you don't .
Damn, Latine elders with magical powers are unnecessarily difficult.
"Speaking of family…" Carter begins, and with that tone, I already know I'm not going to like whatever he's about to say. I set his plate down in front of him and return to my seat, my arms folded over my stomach. "Mine heard about our getting married."
And I'm right. I don't like this one bit. "What do you mean, heard ?"
He bites his lip and it's so damn hot, I want to smack him. Spank him. Kiss him.
I take a breath and command my brain to stop getting pervy.
It doesn't listen.
Luckily, Carter's keen on distracting me enough. "I kind of didn't tell them about…you know. Our marriage."
I blink slowly. "And why is that?"
He blinks slowly. "To avoid drama, like I said before."
I stand and point. "You said they weren't invited to the wedding to avoid drama. Not that you'd keep the whole damn marriage a secret from them!"
He frowns and waves a fork around. "Same thing, no?"
"No, it's not the same thing. Which is ridiculous because the whole point of our holy matrimony was so that they would know about it." I huff. "They're going to think that you're hiding me. Like you're ashamed of me."
I know this marriage isn't real. That my accusation doesn't exactly ring true when I'm talking about something fake. How can Carter be ashamed of me when I'm not really his?
And yet I can't stop the emotions—dark, slithering, overwhelming—from rising up inside and outside me. Thunder rumbles even closer, so close the windows rattle in their frames. Something horrible inside me whispers one of my greatest fears, straight from the memory of my abusive ex's lips. No one else would ever want you.
Not even Carter, in his epically fake way, can pretend that he really wants me.
He frowns at me even deeper, both his jawline and shoulders rigid. "What the hell are you talking about? How could I be ashamed of you?"
I was never good about holding my emotions in. If it didn't come out of my mouth, or through my fists, the sky made sure damn well everyone knew what was happening inside me. Right now, I feel a mix of all three manifestations. My hands are tightened. There's a storm happening outside, because of course there is. Running until I felt like my bones were being ripped inside out earlier today can't help this. Nothing can help this. So I take a deep breath and begin to count. "One. You act like you can't stand the sight of me. Or the touch of me. When I kissed you during our first dance as esposo y esposa, you ran away from me like I stuck a syringe in your neck."
Now he's standing, the anger vibrating off him so visibly, it's like those heat glimmers you see above the road in the summer, like steam is coming off him or something. "What is it with you and syringes?" he nearly shouts.
"Two, you disappeared at Nate's wedding when you were supposed to be my date! Three, you acted like I tried to stab your eyes when I asked you to that wedding in the first place!"
He runs a hand over his head. "Let me guess, stab my eyes with syringes."
I swear I almost let a fist fly over that one. "This isn't funny, Carter! Look, I know I'm a fuckup, okay? I know that. I know no one in their right mind would ever want me. But can't you just, I don't know, pretend? Is it so hard to stay in the damn room when I am supposed to be a wife kissing her husband on their freaking wedding day?"
Carter stomps over to me so fast, I nearly choke on my next inhale of breath. His breath is too fast. His eyes too wild. His lips too pink. "I left Nate's wedding because I was trying to keep my distance with you. I was trying to not get my hopes up that you'd marry me. The problem with being near you, and touching you, Teal, it's not that I don't want to. It's the opposite." He laughs, but it's not jovial, it's the laugh you make when you can't believe how dumb you're being. He takes a step closer, and now I can feel his breath on my chest. Inexplicably, stupidly, my nipples tighten, like they know what he's gonna say next. "I left you during our first dance because when you kissed my neck, I got so hard, it fucking hurt . And I didn't want everyone to see."
What the hell could I say to that?
Nothing.
I guess that's why instead of saying anything at all, I throw my arms around his shoulders and kiss Carter Velasquez.