Lost in Thought (24 page)

Melinda distracted me from having to think about
that
by emerging from the back and taking over whatever task Carter had been doing.

Almost as if he sensed I was watching them, he looked over and caught my eye immediately. I nearly blushed for being caught, if not for the enticing smile that spread across his face. He raised his eyebrow at me in a question and then looked pointedly upstairs. I gave a fleeting thought to the homework open on my lap before stuffing it in my bag and rising from the couch. I looked over at Amy to give some excuse, but she was already grinning at me.

“I get it,” she said. “Later. I won’t wait for you at dinner either.”

Even Caleb winked at me as I headed toward the counter.

I exchanged greetings with Melinda (who responded fondly) and Jill (who barely responded at all) before Carter said, “Lainey and I are going to go make dinner, Aunt Mel,” and tugged me through the door

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and up the back stairs. I just had time to see Melinda smile at us as we went.

“So what’s for dinner?” I asked once we got up the two flights into their apartment, but I barely got the words out before Carter was kissing me.

“Pizza,” he said finally. “I’ll call for delivery when it’s closing time downstairs.”

I’d been in Carter’s bedroom before, but never when we were alone in the apartment. In fact, this was the first time I was ever really alone with a guy and a bed. It scared and excited me in equal measure.

I discovered that I liked my hands on Carter’s skin—it was warm against my touch and soft over the taut muscle underneath—and then surprised myself by urging his t-shirt over his head. It landed with a faint thud on the floor below us.

After some time, I realized with a bit of shock that my jeans were unbuttoned and Carter’s hands were around my back, below my waistband. It’s not that I minded—honestly, I kind of liked it—but all of a sudden I was nervous. Getting carried away was almost too easy.

With my nervousness, Alexis’s ugly words crept back into my head, and that’s when I needed to stop. Self-doubt had to be my own tragic flaw, which you’d think if I recognized I could stop, but that’s easier said than done.

I disentangled us and righted all of my clothing, though I let Carter’s t-shirt stay on the floor. I looked up at his handsome face, and it was difficult to say the next words when he was shirtless and looking at me the way he was. We were both breathing a little heavily, which I hadn’t noticed before, but I guess once you get nervous, you become hyper-aware of everything. I took a deepish breath and made myself go on with my resolution. “I need to…” I said, but Carter brushed his hand over my lips before I finished.

“It’s fine, Lainey,” he said. “You’re in control here.”

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I gave him a little smile and let out that breath before laying my head down on his bare chest. That was another new experience, an innocent one, but turned out to be highly enjoyable. His arm was around my back and he began to run his fingers through my hair the way I loved. I thought I’d worn it down every day since I’d started dating him just for this opportunity.

I wasn’t sorry for stopping us, not at all. I
wanted
more, wanted Carter, but the wanting was easy. Every time he touched me, I wanted him to touch me more. But my body and my heart and my brain were not all ready for the same things. The last one was going to take a lot longer to be ready for everything than the first two, and in this situation, I needed to rely on it.

I looked around Carter’s room while we lounged. It housed a queen-sized bed, large dresser, one comfortable chair, and a smal closet. His bathroom was across the hall. The room had most of the things I expected a typical nineteen-year-old boy’s to have, namely a TV, stereo, and video game systems, but it was also full of books— stacked
everywhere
—and lacking in posters of women or sports. It was also, except for the books, surprisingly neat. I hadn’t asked him if he cleaned it for me, because I didn’t think so. It seemed natural for him.

I didn’t think Carter could relax if things were messy.

As we lay there together, I mused over how I’d always thought alone time would be easier to come by at a boarding school, without parents around to monitor us, but that was turning out not to be true.

At all. Between Carter’s jobs and the long list of demands on my time, being alone was something we had the benefit of only rarely. In fact, this was the first time we’d been entirely alone together since Dr.

Stewart had freaked me out with her comments. I seized on that advantage.

“Now would finally be a good time to tell me what’s going on with Jill,” I said.

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He stiffened and sat up to look at me, confusion clear on his face.

“What?
Nothing’s
going on with Jill. Why would you think that?”

“Not between the two of you, silly. I
know
nothing’s going on there. But something is up with her. Maybe it’s just the fact that she’s in love with you.”

He frowned and tried out my seemingly foreign words for himself.

“In love with…Lainey, what are you talking about?” He honestly looked like he didn’t understand, and Carter was pretty much always honest. Acting clueless was not in his nature.

“Oh, come on!” I said, and I sat up too. “You’re the most self-aware guy I’ve ever met. How can you not realize how she feels about you?”

He thought about it for a minute but said, “That’s just not possible.”

I snorted. “It’s
totally
possible. It’s a fact. It’s such a fact that she’s been willingly putting herself in my company—something she avoided completely before, by the way—to keep us from being alone together.”

I didn’t know if I’d realized that was what she was doing before I said it, but it seemed obvious now. Whenever I was around Carter, she was suddenly nearby, the complete opposite of her previous behavior.

Ever since the day she’d overheard me trying to talk about Dr. Stewart’s proclamation.

Carter was not convinced. “That’s not it, Lainey.” I shook my head, but he went on. “No, I mean it. It’s not what you think. She’s my cousin.”

“You might think of her that way, but it’s obvious she doesn’t feel the same.”

“No, she really is. Sort of.” He ran his hands through his hair in his typical show of frustration. I knew he did it without thinking, and usually when he was uncomfortable, but I secretly liked it. It tousled his

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caramel-brown waves in a way that some guys spent hours at a mirror trying to do intentionally. Even so, I reached up and pulled his hands down, smoothing out his hair. I might have liked it, but I knew he didn’t. Neatness really did come naturally to him. He relaxed a little and went on, pulling me back down to the bed with him. “She’s…I think she’s been hanging around because she heard you talking about her father.”

It was my turn to be confused. “Huh?”

“She never asks about him, but I know she likes to hear about him—
tries
to hear about him—even if she won’t say so.”

“You’ve lost me. Who’s her father, and when was I talking about him?”

“Who is he? He’s a lot of things, but mostly I think of him as my uncle’s brother.”

Okay. “Doesn’t that make him your uncle?”

“Well, no, not really. I’m a Penrose, not a Revell. Aunt Melinda is my father’s sister.” This conversation was rapidly giving me a headache totally unrelated to my usual ones. “Besides, he’s not a Revell either.

He’s Uncle Jeff’s half-brother. But he’s still Uncle Dan to me, even if he’s technically not. Kind of like your Aunt Tessa. Anyway, Uncle Dan is an Astor. He’s also Jillian’s father.”

“Wow. That’s a fancy family name,” I said. I’d definitely heard of the Astors before. I also noted that Jill’s name was
not
Astor. “I think my aunt might have done a commission for an Astor.”

“It wouldn’t surprise me. They tend to appreciate fine art.”

“I’d tell her you said that, but she doesn’t need to like you any more than she does already. I mean, I think she likes you more than I do.” I smirked at him, but he leaned over and gave me a swift kiss to wipe the smirk off my face.

“I doubt that,” he said with zero trace of sarcasm. And he was right. I hated him. He leaned in again, but I resolutely kept us on track.

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“So is he? One of the fancy Astors?” I asked. “You don’t talk about him much.”

“That’s true, we don’t. But he’s definitely one of the fancy Astors.

In fact, he’s not just Uncle Dan; he’s
Senator
Daniel Astor.”

Wow. A senator. “For real? As in senator in the U.S. Congress, right?”

“The very one. He’s the senior senator from the fine state of Mon-tana.”

“So why does Jill have to listen in on conversations about her own father? She’s obviously not an Astor, but still…and what does this have to do with anything I said?” Though suddenly I knew. “Wait.

Your uncle
is president of the Perceptum. And Jill’s father.” And a senator, too. Jesus Christ.

He smiled. “Exactly. Which is why you don’t have to worry about him asking about you. But Jill…well, you’re right. She’s not an Astor.

At least not by name. Her mother and my uncle never married. Actually, I think her mother
refused
to marry him and refused to let him be an active part of her life. Jill doesn’t talk about it and she hasn’t had any contact with him since she was young, except for being his Legacy here. I asked Uncle Jeff once, but he didn’t talk about it either.
Nobody
talks about it.”

Carter shifted on the bed and pulled me close to his side. I snuggled contentedly—really, I could get used to simply lying next to him—then said, “So she really doesn’t talk to him? I…well, I can’t imagine having a father and not talking to him.” After all, neither Carter nor I could talk to our fathers if we wanted to.

“No, she doesn’t. At least she tells me she doesn’t. The way she listens for our conversations about him, I believe her. I think she’s starved for the idea of him, and maybe his attention, but she hates him a little too. And respects her mother too much to contact him. When she graduates…I don’t know. I think she’ll talk to him.”

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“Why don’t
you
guys talk to him?”

He shifted again, fidgeted really, absently wrapping a strand of my hair around his finger. “I never said I didn’t talk to him. Just not
about
him…”

Which meant maybe Uncle Dan wasn’t entirely popular with the rest of his family. “I take it he and his brother don’t get along?” I guessed.

“You’re right,” he said, smoothing my hair. “Uncle Dan…is a good man. I think so. But they’re very different, my uncles. Both take after their own fathers. I know Uncle Dan didn’t understand when Uncle Jeff joined the military instead of going to college. He thought he was wasting his brains and…putting his gifts to the wrong use, I guess.

Plus there’s Jill. My aunt and Uncle Jeff, they don’t say this, but I think they’re angry with him over her. They couldn’t have kids, and have had to settle for, well, me. And Uncle Dan
has
a daughter but he’s not part of her life. It’s not completely fair, because I think Uncle Dan wants to have more contact with Jill, but anyway…When Uncle Dan became president of the Perceptum, it brought them back together a little, gave them some common ground. He usually visits once a year now.”

I could tell by the light in his eyes that Carter looked forward to those visits more than he let on, but all I said was, “So your uncle, the Senator, is also your uncle, the President, in a way. That’s amazing.

He’s a pretty important guy.”

“True. He followed his father’s footsteps in both his positions, by the way. He’s also kind of my uncle, my boss.”

I laughed a little, but then fell serious. “So why is he asking about me?”

“Relax, Lane,” he said and somehow, miraculously, pulled me closer to him. His hand slipped back around my waist. “He’s just interested in you, because of all the reasons I said the other day, and because
I’m
interested in you.”

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“So you’ve talked about me? To him?” For some reason, that made me more nervous than Dr. Stewart talking to him about me.

“Of course. I talk about you to
everyone,”
he said, giving my side a light squeeze. “So yeah, I’ve told my Uncle Dan about you too, and he’s asked how you’re doing.”

“But why is he asking Dr. Stewart too?”

Carter sighed. “He probably didn’t. She’s always trying to impress him, so now she’s probably trying to impress him with
you,
the Mystery Legacy. I’ve told you, she’s a political animal as far as the Perceptum is concerned. I think she’d like to serve on the Council, and Uncle Dan’s nomination would mean almost an automatic seat. Plus, he’s a highly eligible bachelor and maybe the second best thing to my Uncle Jeff, in her eyes anyway.”

I knew he was being serious, but I couldn’t help but laugh. The idea of Dr. Stewart playing political
and
romantic games was too much for me. “Well, whatever she’s doing, I don’t think it will work.
Any
of it. I might not know your uncle, but for one, she’s a total shrew, and for another, I’m not that impressive.”

“You’ve impressed me plenty,” he said, and I liked the husky tone in his voice.

I shoved him playfully, but he dragged me back. “And Jill is
not
your cousin,” I said. “Not really. You’re not related at all.”