Page 106 of The Charade

Carter held my hand under the table as we all talked and laughed. While there was a huge part of me that would love to become a part of this amazing family someday, I was grateful that it wouldn’t be happening in the way that I'd feared just the day before.

"Want to go to the conservatory and look for that star?" Carter whispered against my ear after everyone had finished helping clean up dinner together. "I think it might be dark enough now to see it."

"I'd love to." I dried my hands on a dish towel. Carter pulled me down the long hall past the garage, past the ballroom, and then down to the room made of glass where Carter and I had not so honorably made-out like it was the last thing we'd ever get to do in our lifetime.

"I think this might be one of my favorite rooms in the house now," Carter said as he turned back to me with a wicked smile on his lips.

"You like rooms that remind you of the kind of forbidden moments that could send a person to jail if they got caught?"

He chuckled as he reached for the door. "Forbidden romance does make things more exciting, right? I mean, that contract Nash tampered with certainly forbade us from any sort of relationship and yet, here we are now. Proof that forbidding something only makes you get more creative in making it actually happen."

"That's one way to look at it," I said, my smile broadening. "I suppose I never would have come up with the idea for our little charade if I'd thought anything would actually come from it."

Carter shut the door behind us to block out the light from the hall. If not for the metal frames that held the large panes of glass in place, it almost felt like we had just stepped outside on to a patio in the dark night—a patio that was climate-controlled and filled with beautiful ornate furniture.

Carter pulled me toward the huge telescope near the far wall, and after typing the coordinates to his mom's star into an app on his phone, he moved the telescope to the far corner of the room and got to work locating it through the eyepiece.

As he fiddled with the telescope settings to get it just right, I took him in. He really was a work of art. I knew he wasn't perfect, but I couldn't think of a single thing that I didn't like about him. He was such a good-hearted person.

And even if he wasn't the most social person, never the life of the party, he was a great friend to those he cared about. I felt safe enough to be myself around him, which was something I'd never fully been able to do around anyone besides my mom and Elyse. And it felt amazing. To be liked not just despite all of my quirks and little idiosyncrasies but because of them. He liked me for me.

"I think I found it." Carter looked up from the telescope with a smile on his face and waved me over. "Come see."

I stepped closer, and when I looked through the eyepiece, I saw a beautiful star winking at me in the dark sky, glowing slightly brighter than the other stars surrounding it.

"It's so pretty," I said, taking in the beautiful creation of the universe.

I looked at it for a moment longer and then walked up to Carter who was leaning against the side table where he'd kissed me the evening before.

He held his arms open for me. I gladly went into his embrace, and we held each other for a little while as I listened to his steady heartbeat.

"Thank you again for the birthday present," Carter said in a soft voice against my hair. "I think this might be my favorite birthday yet."

"So it's your birthday now?" I lifted my head to look at him. "Have you finally decided to allow the people who love you to celebrate the day you graced the earth with your amazing presence?"

"I guess you're helping me warm up to the idea a little." He smoothed his fingers through my hair, angling my head back slightly as if positioning me for a kiss. "There's just something else that I'd like for my birthday."

"Yeah?" I arched an eyebrow, curious what else this boy who had the world at his feet could want.

He leaned his face closer, his lips hovering just over mine, and then whispered, "You, Ava. The only thing I want is you."

And since being claimed by Carter was exactly what I wanted, I smiled and whispered against his lips, "I'm already yours."

I pressed my lips to his and got lost in the moment with the amazing person whom I'd no longer call my math tutor, my fake boyfriend, or even my possible brother. No, the only thing I'd be calling him from now on wasmine.

Epilogue

Cambrielle

"Cambrielle,"Ava called my name from one of the couches in the common room after school one day. "Can you please explain to your brother why dressing up like sumo wrestlers for Halloween is a terrible idea?"

I looked over from where I'd been making my afternoon tea at the little kitchenette in our house's common room at the school. Carter and Ava were cuddled up together on a long couch, scrolling through various images of couples wearing coordinating outfits for Halloween. The school's Halloween dance was coming up in less than two weeks, and apparently, since Ava and Carter were officially boyfriend and girlfriend now, they wanted to broadcast their love to the whole school by wearing matching costumes.

It was actually nice to see my brother so happy with Ava. She was fun and they brought out the best in each other, but I really could do with slightly less PDA from the happy couple.

Not that they were in everyone's face with it. I'd actually only caught them kissing once, but I guess it was more that seeing them so happy together just reminded me of how single I was.

How single I'd always been since the closest I'd ever been to getting asked out on a date was when Mack teased my brothers that he was going to take me to the falls in his truck.

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