Sculpting Grace: A Light Romance Novel (Art of Grace Book 2) (23 page)

"That bad, huh?" he asked, leaning in a little and craning his head, perhaps trying to read some of the texts displayed on the screen despite them appearing to him as upside down.

I didn't say anything back, my eyes locked onto the long list of messages that I'd sent the man over the course of the previous night. Had I really texted him this many times? The messages ran the gamut from short fragments all the way to long and rambling sentences, with a horrible mishmash of spelling and grammar mistakes, as well as more than a few auto-correct errors. I even saw a few voicemail messages, and although I didn't want to listen to them right now with Carter standing in front of me, I didn't doubt that they were just as embarrassing as anything I'd written in text form - maybe even worse.

I opened the phone and quickly hit the button to delete all messages. "Are you sure?" asked a little pop-up, and my finger started towards the YES button - but then paused.

I looked up at Carter. "You really want to talk about us right now?" I asked him.

He shrugged, but a little smile flickered about his face, momentarily breaking up the serious look. "Seems like as good a time as any," he answered.

My gaze dropped back down to the phone. The idea that had popped into my head seemed crazy, almost certain to end in disaster. But at the same time, there was something very tempting about it, and I couldn't shake the strange feeling that, even though it all but promised to end in tears and more drinking, it was the right move to make.

"You realize that I'm crazy, right?" I asked him. Out of nowhere, I felt tears threatening to break out, and I sniffed a little as I reached up with one sleeve to dab at my eyes. "Like, really crazy?"

"Aren't we all?" he replied immediately, his smile growing a little bit wider. "We're just all looking for someone whose craziness happens to mesh well with our own."

Try as I might, I couldn't see Carter as crazy, unless maybe he insisted on occasionally wearing socks to bed or something. But that didn't hold a candle to the craziness that filled all the text messages on his phone, still in my hand. The "delete all" confirmation prompt was still open, just beneath my finger. It would only take a single tap to sweep it all away...

But I didn't delete all of the crazy drunken messages that I'd sent to Carter.

Instead, I took one last, deep breath, trying to convince myself that this step into the unknown was the right thing to do.

And then I hit CANCEL on the delete all prompt - and turned the phone around, holding it out to Carter for him to take from me...

Chapter Twenty-Seven

*

For a second, Carter didn't move. His eyes moved back and forth, from his phone in my hand as I held it out to her, up to my strained face. "What's this?" he asked.

I kept holding the phone out to him. "I'm giving it to you."

His eyes flicked again down to the phone's screen. "But you didn't delete any of your messages that you sent me."

"No. I didn't."

Carter finally accepted the phone from me, and I lowered my arm, but he didn't look down at the screen yet. "I don't understand," he said, his eyes still on me.

"I'm not sure that I really do, either," I admitted with a sigh. "But look, you want to talk about us? Well, embarrassing as they are, I think that my drunken, rambling messages from last night pretty well sum up how I feel towards you." I tried to put on a smile. "And at least you know that they're honest, that I'm not lying to you."

He still didn't look down. "So you really want me to read these?"

"Just try not to judge me too harshly, okay?" I asked of him, still making a half-hearted attempt to keep my voice light. The tears were back in my eyes, but I blinked furiously a few times, trying to keep them from running down my face.

Carter's features softened. "Becca, I'm not going to judge you for anything, no matter what you texted me. Come on, you know that."

I nodded, but I felt a lump growing in my throat that prevented me from speaking. Carter looked at me for another moment, and then carefully set his phone back down on the counter once again.

"Come here," he offered, stepping forward and opening his arms to me.

I stepped forward, into the comfort of his embrace, letting his hug tighten around me. I couldn't hold back the tears any longer, and they came dripping out of my eyes, a few of them soaking into the man's spotless white shirt and probably leaving stains. Carter just held onto me, even as my body started to shake a little from crying.

"It's okay, I promise," he murmured to me, his hand rubbing gently against my back.

Finally, after a couple of minutes, I managed to draw a deep, albeit still somewhat shaky, breath. I stepped back, reluctantly liberating myself from his hug - although part of me wanted to keep his warm arms around me.

"Now read them, before I start crying again," I commanded Carter, nodding towards the phone still sitting on the counter.

He smiled at me one last time, and then reached over and picked up his cell. "I suppose I should start at the beginning, shouldn't I? So that I'm not reading them in reverse order?" he asked.

"Sure." I shrugged. "You'll just get to see me grow increasingly drunk and incoherent as they go on."

He glanced up at me. "How drunk are we talking?"

"I had a full bottle of wine in my fridge at the start of last night, and an empty one sitting on my counter this morning," I answered. "And I feel like the wine was a lot stronger than is typical. Or maybe I was just a lot more emotional than usual."

"So pretty drunk, at least by the last few messages." Carter gave me one last smile, maybe in an attempt to reassure me, and then looked down at the phone as he started reading. I moved over to plop my butt down in the chair behind the counter as I waited for him to read through them all.

As he read through the texts, his thumb slowly moving to scroll down, I saw Carter's expression change, first to incredulity, and then through a whole range of other emotions that I couldn't quite place. At one point, if I didn't know better, I would have thought that he was doing his best to hold back laughter! I sat there, watching and waiting, feeling anxious and on the spot but with no way to distract myself from the agony of waiting. Whatever he thought of me after reading through all of these, well, it was out of my hands now.

Finally, however, I couldn't bear to stay silent any longer. I licked my lips, cleared my throat, and then, even though Carter was still reading, started talking.

"Look, I really do like you," I stammered out. "I know that my messages were just sort of babble, and that I've been putting you off before because I wasn't sure if I was ready to move on from how my last relationship failed, but I just wanted to tell you that-" I stopped myself, well aware that I was babbling, but not knowing the right words to say.

Carter looked up at me, lowering the phone, and gave me one of his heart-melting smiles. "Don't be scared, Becca. Just tell me."

He moved around the counter, over to my side, as I took a deep breath and tried to stabilize my scattered thoughts. Dropping down to one knee, he lowered himself down to my sitting height so that he could gaze into my eyes without having to look down. His hands reached out and caught mine, gently holding them without squeezing too tightly.

"Just say it," he urged me, his brown eyes warm and trusting.

I opened my mouth. "I really like you!" The words burst out of me in a rush, but it was like pulling the plug on a dam - once I started, I couldn't seem to stop. "You're amazing, and sexy, and totally out of my league, and I hate that I have any sort of doubts about you at all! I know that you're not Barry, but I'm scared. But at the same time, when I talked with de St. James and Richard, they kind of missed their chance because they didn't talk, so now I'm scared that I've waited too long and missed my chance, scared of talking to you and of not talking to you, and I don't know-"

Babble, babble, babble. Why couldn't I seem to just stop? My eyes begged Carter to do something, even as my mouth kept on running. "And I probably just spilled everything last night, which is way more than you want to hear, but now I'm afraid that I might be scaring you away, when you just wanted something light-"

Finally, Carter tightened his hold on my hands, drawing me off of the chair as he stood back up. He pulled me up to my feet as well, drawing me into his arms. "Shh," he whispered to me as he hugged me.

Thankfully, the hug helped me finally stop my babbling mouth, although I felt my whole body shaking. Adrenaline coursed through my veins and my legs wobbled as I stood, as if I'd just finished running a long race. If it wasn't for Carter's arms around me, helping to hold me up, I probably would have slid bonelessly down to the floor.

"Shh," he murmured again to me. "Becca, just take a deep breath. Can you do that for me?"

He loosened his grip slightly so that he could look down at me, and I forced myself to stop shaking long enough to draw air into my lungs.

"There. Good job. Now, listen closely." One of his hands slid under my chin and guided it up so that I was gazing up into his face.

"Becca, I like you," Carter said simply, smiling down as his face shone. I felt the big breath that I'd just pulled in catch in my throat, but he kept on talking, holding me up so that I wouldn't fall. "Everyone's a little crazy, but I happen to like yours. I didn't want you to be teasing me along, not moving forward - but I'm ready to take the next step together if you are."

His hand caught at mine, interlacing with my fingers as he gave my palm a squeeze. "Together."

I felt a little lightheaded, but I ignored the feeling, hoping that it would pass. I knew that I was smiling, surely, but my lips felt almost numb. "What's the next step?" I asked him.

His smile widened. "How about this: Becca Grace, will you officially, exclusively, go out with me?"

"Officially? Exclusively? What, are we back in middle school?" I joked, even as my heart soared inside my chest.

"I mean, if I had to guess from some of these text messages..." Carter mercifully let this comment trail off, although I still balled up my free hand into a fist and whacked at him. "Hey, I'm just joking!"

"Not funny," I told him, even as I kept on smiling so widely that I felt like the top of my head was about to fall off.

He shrugged. "Agree to disagree. In any case, you still haven't answered my question."

I nodded. "Yes, you dummy. Of course I'll go out with you!"

"Exclusively and officially?"

"Don't make me punch you again," I warned him.

He laughed. "I better just go for a kiss before I botch things by saying something crazy, huh?"

"If you don't, I will," I said, reaching up and looping my arms around his neck.

With a smile still on his face, Carter leaned in and kissed me. This definitely wasn't a chaste little kiss, either - he pulled me up against him, and my lips eagerly parted as his met mine. His tongue flicked out, brushing lightly against me, and I met it with my own, tasting him, wanting to devour him and keep on licking over every inch of his body...

When we broke apart, both of us were out of breath, Carter's chest rising and falling heavily against my own. "I'd better go update my Facebook status to reflect that we're in a relationship together, before you change your mind," he commented.

"I really wasn't kidding about that punching thing," I fired back, despite my silly, sappy, almost stoned looking grin. He really wanted me! We were dating, an item! I really did feel like I was back in high school, like the football quarterback had just asked me out to prom. "Are you always going to be making this many jokes?"

"Probably more," he confessed. "So, it sounds like de St. James agreed to let you sell his art?"

I nodded, wondering why Carter was suddenly turning the topic of conversation back to the gallery. "Yep! He and his partner Richard were just in here signing the papers when you came in."

"And I suppose that you still need to give the good news to your uncle?"

Another nod. "Why are you asking about this, though?" I wondered. "I mean, this isn't why you're dating me, is it? You just want access to some of de St. James' statues for your buildings?"

"Yes, that's totally it," he said, rolling his eyes comically at me. "No, I'm just wondering what else you have to do today before you close the shop down early."

"Close the shop down early?" I repeated, confused. "Why would I want to do that?"

Carter's smile at me grew so sultry and hot that my undergarments practically burned themselves to ashes as my skin flushed. "Because, as soon as you've finished that call to your uncle, I'm taking you back to my house."

Oh my god. "But the gallery is supposed to stay open until five-" I began, even as my mind filled with wonderful images of Carter taking me into his bedroom, kissing me, atop me with his big muscles exposed as we moved together...

"I guess it will just have to close early today." He winked at me. "Either that, or I'm going to have to start listening to some of these voicemail messages on my phone..."

I lunged for my cell phone, frantically scrolling to my uncle Preston's number. "Hi, Uncle," I stammered out as soon as he picked up, not even giving him a chance to exchange pleasantries with me. "Listen, I just wanted to pass on the good news - de St. James just agreed to partner with our gallery! More details to follow. Look, I've got to go, but I'll talk to you later! Bye!"