Darker Water (12 page)

“For my birthday, Lane. One more for my
birthday. Just a kiss. Maybe some tongue. No, definitely some
tongue. Please.”

“Hillary?” I called out, unable to take my
eyes off him. “Do you want wine or Kahlua and ice cream?”

A mumbled, teary “ice cream” came from the
living room.

“I’ll be right there!” Then I lowered my
voice. “Only because it’s your birthday.” And because I couldn’t
help myself.

I wrapped my arms around his neck, pressing
the full length of my body against his. He pulled me higher to
catch my lips with his, sliding one of his hands down to lift me up
on the counter. I squirmed, lifting my dress up and widening my
legs, so he could be between them. I lost track of whose hands were
where, but if I said, “everywhere,” I would’ve been
almost
right. There were a few places on each of our bodies we hadn’t
gotten to yet.

No! A few places we
wouldn’t
get
to…tonight.

I gripped the waistband of his pants to keep
myself from going farther down. He still had one hand in my hair,
but his other was on my thigh, fingers denting my bare skin. He was
having just as hard a time not touching me as I was not touching
him.

Maybe I was wrong, but I thought somehow we
both understood how fragile the line we were pushing was. We merged
for another few minutes, until it was either stop or find ourselves
in territory we didn’t have the time for and I wasn’t ready to deal
with yet.

“More,” he groaned.

“I just gave you more.”

“Not enough.”

“Rain check.” I grabbed his hand to keep it
from creeping higher on my thigh. “Wait.”

“Laney,” Hillary wailed.

“Carson, we can’t.”

“Shit.” He backed up and adjusted his pants,
his clenched jaw expressing everything he was feeling. “Expect me
to be inside you about four seconds after you say yes. And don’t
make any plans for the rest of that week.” There was a seriousness
in his tone that I hadn’t expected. Lustful, yes. His normal
joie de vivre
, nothing-really-matters attitude, yeah. But
there was a fire in him I’d never felt before.

He tossed back the rest of his wine without
taking his eyes off me and then refilled both our glasses. “You
should probably start resting up now because once it’s on, you’re
not getting any sleep for a very long time.”

“Okay,” I said weakly, not having anything to
add because air wasn’t something I had enough of and, honestly, it
sounded perfect. While I tried to focus on ice cream and
Kahlua—heavy on the Kahlua—Carson just watched me, his arms crossed
over his chest. Simmering.

When Hillary whined my name again, he laughed
sadly. “Better go help your friend.”

“Carso—”

“Go help your friend.”

I may have grumbled something before picking
up the ice cream and my wine and heading for the living room.

“Hey,” he called, grabbing my arm to stop
me.

“Jesus, Carson!” I almost lost hold of
everything and covered his fancy suit with ice cream, Kahlua, and
Pinot Noir. “What? You tell me to go and now I’m supposed to stay.
Can you please just make up your mind?’’ The words were snapped,
not because I was mad but because I was frustrated. Nothing was
wrong, but nothing was right, either.

“I made up my mind the first time I kissed
you. It’s only gotten clearer since then. The part I don’t get is
why you can’t.”

Because of the look on his face. A hurt and
confused look that made me want him to be mine. That made me want
to do whatever I could to take it away and turn it back into a
smile. Even if I knew I’d lose in the end.

“I have issues,” I said quietly.

“Ya think?” The corner of his mouth rose.

I rolled my eyes. “As if I’m the only one in
this room with issues.”

He looked around himself and then back at me.
“The only one
I
see.” He sighed. “One of these days you’re
going to be in my bed, Lane. I’m not giving up until it
happens.”

“Why not?” It seemed kind of a stupid
question to only be thinking of now. But why
was
he being so
patient? “I’m sure you’ve been with prettier women with better
bodies and less issues. Or maybe the same amount of issues but ones
that weren’t in your face all the time and didn’t keep them from
having sex with you. Shit, even the woman weeping on the couch
right now got over her issues long enough to sleep with you.”

He took a while to answer. “I’m gonna skip
the whole ‘women with better bodies’ thing because it’ll come off
like a compliment and that will negate what I’m about to say.” His
volume dropped momentarily. “I find you highly,
highly
attractive and want to fuck you more than I’ve wanted to fuck
anyone in my entire life, by the way. So I don’t ever want to hear
you compare yourself to another woman again. Got it?”

He sighed. “And now for the good news—I can
be a real dick. Almost all the time, actually. Sometimes it’s a
good thing, but most of the time, for me, it’s a really bad thing.
I’ve done a lot of stupid shit, hurt a lot of people, and never
made it up to anyone. The foundation is the way I pretend I’m not
as much of a prick as I am.
You
are a way I can pretend
being selfish isn’t a bad thing. Because in your case, it isn’t.
You need to be more selfish, and I want to teach you how to not let
dicks like me and your exes treat you less than the way you
deserve.”

“They’re frogs.”

“Right,” he said smiling. “Frogs.”

“But you’re not a frog.”

“Well, I sure as hell am not a prince.” We
stared at each other for a few more seconds and then he said, “Go
help your friend.” He followed slowly.

Hillary took the bowl from me before I sat
down, but she just chopped the ice cream up and mixed it into the
large pool of Kahlua.

“Did you tell Eric about…how you know
Carson?” I tried to be as delicate as I could be, not wanting her
to start fighting with Carson on top of everything else.

She swallowed, setting down the bowl. “Eric
and I... We’ve been together forever and have been talking about
moving in with each other for a long time. But we’re
so
boring. You were right, Laney. Do you know what we did today?
Nothing. Do you know what we did last night? Nothing. We spend two
nights out of seven together and he was too tired to have sex. A
man too tired to have sex. I didn’t even think that was
possible.”

I didn’t either. “Maybe he had a bad week or
wasn’t feeling well.”

“He’s a man. It doesn’t matter how bad he’s
feeling.”

“I’m sure he had a good reason. Like…”

Over Hillary’s shoulder, Carson shook his
head. He stopped when Hillary sat up and looked at him.

“You wouldn’t have, would you, Carson?” she
asked. “If a woman wanted to.”

“Uh...” He glanced at me for help but I was
too busy holding in my laughter at his expression and the guilt I
felt for finding anything funny when my friend was obviously
hurting. “I’m different, Hillary. You shouldn’t use me as a marker
for all men. Eric loves you, right? So...yeah, he probably wasn’t
feeling well.”

“If he wasn’t feeling well, he could’ve told
me that instead of falling asleep without a word.”

“True. You know what’s also true? I’m the
worst possible person in the world to get relationship advice from.
So I’m going to... I should probably go.”

He took his empty wine glass into the
kitchen. Coward. He couldn’t escape through there. He had to come
back through the living room to leave. Obviously Hillary hadn’t
given him a thorough tour of the apartment when she had him
over.

“What exactly did you say to Eric?” I
asked.

“That we were turning into old people and I
was tired of doing old people stuff and having old people sex
and—”

“You said that?” Carson yelled from the
kitchen. He came in, bringing the wine but no glass. “Damn…um…yeah,
that’s not gonna go over well with a guy. Even an old guy. Old
people sex. I’m not even sure what that is. I’m not even sure I
want
to know what that is.” His brows furrowed. “Seriously,
though, is that an actual thing?”

Neither of us answered him. Hillary went back
to crying and I went back to telling her it would all be okay.

“You and Eric are great together,” I said.
“This is just a bump in the road.” Eric treated her really well and
was with her for all the right reasons. She hadn’t changed who she
was to be with him, like I always had when I was with someone. “You
guys have the healthiest relationship I’ve ever seen.”

“You don’t believe in relationships, Laney.
Or love. So what do you know?”

“Not much. But he makes you happy and you
guys love each other just the way you are.” If there was such a
thing as love, that’s what it would be like. Two people wanting to
be with each other, knowing they each came into the relationship
with their own full set of issues and working together to make sure
those issues don’t overwhelm one or both of them. “No two people
are going to always have the same needs, but the kind of trust you
guys have is so much more than I ever had with any of the frogs,
even before I turned them into frogs.”

“Do you think he’s cheating?” She hadn’t
asked me. She’d asked Carson.

“Well, Eric and I aren’t fucking each other,
if that’s what you’re asking. If you want to know if he’s sleeping
with anyone
other
than me, you’re gonna have to ask
him.”

Hillary pulled away from me and leaned
towards him. “You’re a guy and I need to know what Eric’s thinking,
so be totally honest.” She was going to regret saying that.

“You’re really upset right now, right?”
Carson asked. “This isn’t just a cry for attention.” My mouth
dropped open, but Hillary didn’t seem offended at all.

“Okay.” He sighed, set the bottle on the
coffee table, and slid into an armchair. “Me and love aren’t that
well acquainted, but I’ve known a lot of guys who say they are. So
does Lane, so she can back me up. The bottom line is that most of
them are pretty good at forgetting all about love when there’s a
chance of getting laid.”

“Carson!”

He shrugged. “She told me to be honest, so
I’m being honest. But let me finish. I don’t think Eric is like
most of us. First off, when I made a joke about sleeping with his
woman, before I actually knew I
had
slept with his woman, he
laughed. If he was cheating, he wouldn’t have laughed—he would’ve
assumed you were cheating, too.”

That actually made a lot of sense. I motioned
for him to continue as I reached for my wine, only then realizing
that I had to put down Hillary’s empty bowl of alcoholic ice cream
before I picked up my drink. Oops. Thankfully, she didn’t seem to
have noticed either.

“Second,” Carson said, “from what I’ve seen,
most guys can forget about their women, but not all of them can.
And not all those who forget will actually go for a quick lay. Do
you know what the largest deciding factor is?”

Both of us shook our heads.

“The woman he’s in love with. If she teaches
him that’s how he can treat her, he’ll do it. Why not, right? She
told him it was okay.” He paused. “Lastly, sitting here whining
isn’t doing fuck-all for any of us. If Eric’s not cheating, you’re
condemning an innocent man. If he
is
cheating, he’s at home
thinking he got away with it and will get away with it again. So if
it were me, I’d get him on the phone and ask him instead of
spraying my tears all over everybody else.”

When neither of us said anything, he pulled
his phone out of his pocket. “What’s his number?”

“What are you going to do?”

He stood, growling. “What you should’ve done
while I took the woman I’m not dating or fucking out to a party
that might’ve made her happy and excited enough to let me get her
naked.”

Hillary looked at what I was wearing. “You
guys were supposed to go out?”

Before I could say anything, Carson did. “In
a non-dating manner, yes.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” I said. “I already gave him his
birthday present while we were in the kitchen, so he’ll live. And
complain a lot.”

“Damn straight I will. And now that the mood
is completely lost, it’s my turn to cry. Right after I yell at Eric
for ruining my night.”

After a quick glance to me, Hillary gave him
Eric’s number.

Carson put the phone up to his ear and
slumped onto the sofa, right next to me. “Hey, Eric? It’s Carson.
Yeah, listen, be straight with me. Are you fucking around on
Hillary or what?” He jerked his head away from the phone when Eric
yelled. “Whoa! There’s nothing kinky going on, if for no other
reason than Lane’s here with us. And the way things are going, that
woman is never going to let me take her panties off. Plus, your
girl is all sobby about you.” He paused. “Yeah, well…you guys need
to sort that shit out.

He paused again, listening. “Uh huh… Not if I
can help it.”

“What’s he saying?” Hillary whispered,
reaching across me to pull on Carson’s arm.

He shook her off, still talking to Eric but
staring at me. Then he turned away. “If I knew that, I’d be a much
happier man right now… It’s not like that. Anyway, you and your
girl need to be the ones talking. I’m the one who needs to be
leaving. Yeah. Good luck.”

Hillary took the phone from him and put it to
her ear. In the next thirty seconds, Eric must have said exactly
the right thing because whatever it was made her make a
half-giggle, half-sob sound and run into her room.

“That’s my phone!” Carson yelled.

Hillary opened her door just long enough to
toss him the phone and say a quick, “Thanks, Carson,” before
slamming it again.

“Well, that was exhausting,” Carson
mumbled.

“It was really nice of you.”

“I didn’t do anything. Those two have a good
thing going. They belong together.” He leaned back on the couch and
pulled me into his side. The position felt uncomfortably good, like
something I’d want to spend a lot of time doing.