Page 56 of The Charade

21

Ava

"I guessI better let you go now," I said when Carter pulled up to the front of the school to drop me off after lunch. "I wouldn't want to make you late for whatever you have scheduled next in that planner of yours."

"Is this your way of saying that having a routine makes life boring and predictable?" Carter asked from the driver’s seat of his truck. "Because I don't know how we'll make it to our two-week anniversary if you're going to make fun of my beloved bullet journal."

"I would never dare make fun of such a thing," I said sarcastically as I unbuckled my seatbelt.

"Sure you wouldn't," he said. "But the jokes on you because I actually let my wild side out on the weekends and try not to schedule anything. Hence the reason why I was able to fit in this spur-of-the-moment shopping trip."

"You wild thing," I said in a joking tone. "Who knew that my math tutor was so good at living life on the edge?"

Carter chuckled, and I liked the way it sounded—deep and throaty and not anything I would have expected after that first day I met him when I thought for sure he was a hoity-toity arrogant snob who couldn't be bothered by mere mortals like myself.

But here we were, talking and laughing like we'd known each other for far longer than a week.

It was actually strange to think just how much things had changed in a matter of a few days. At the pizzeria, I'd briefly mentioned wanting to make the kind of friends that lasted a lifetime while I was at the academy. But the more time I spent with Carter, the more I was finding that he was getting higher and higher on my list of possible lifelong friends.

Sure we had that other thing going for us, where the slightest touch from him made my body feel like it’d just been touched by a livewire, and which would probably bother his future wife. But the more time I spent with him, the more time Iwantedto spend with him.

This had never happened to me before with a guy or anyone, for that matter. I'd always assumed it was because Elyse and I had our whole twin thing going, and so no one could ever rival that connection. I knew it seemed strange, but what I had with Carter felt a lot like it. Like we had some sort of intangible connection that just clicked.

I'd thought it had to be a mostly physical attraction, since let’s face it, the guy was hot. But it was like our energy fields were the perfect match for each other, and once the initial connection was made, we couldn't be satisfied with being mere acquaintances anymore. We needed more.

Or at least,Ineeded more. I guess I couldn't really speak to how he felt about me since I couldn't read his mind.

Though I couldn't help but think that we were like Bella and Edward inTwilight—just less vampiresque. Where Bella was Edward's exact blood type, Carter was my exact brand of human.

But that was weird, wasn't it?

More likely I was just drawn to the guy because he'd given me the best first kiss of my life yesterday and my mind was trying to think of an explanation for why I couldn't stop thinking about it.

"So, are you going to get out?" Carter said from beside me, and I realized I'd totally just zoned out for a moment.

"Yes, sorry." I reached for the door handle. "I guess you mentioning how you don't follow a strict schedule on the weekends just shocked me so bad that I forgot what I was doing."

He chuckled. "Sure."

He reached behind him to grab the shopping bags from the backseat, the movement causing his T-shirt to slip up at his side and give me a quick view of his tanned abs. And before I knew it, I was saying, "Actually, do you want to come in?"

"What?" He gave me a confused look. "You want me to walk you in?"

"No…" I tucked some hair behind my ear, suddenly worried I may have misread all our interactions from today. Were we not the kind of friends who hung out just for fun? But since I'd already started, I had to finish my invitation. "I, um, I just wondered—since you said you didn't have plans for the rest of the day—if you might want to come scavenge the yearbooks with me." Then just to give him a way out, I added, "But I totally understand if that's not your kind of thing. I'm sure you have better things to do at that mansion of yours."

He handed the shopping bags to me and with a shrug, he said, "I guess I could help out for a little while."

"Yeah?" My body flooded with relief and excitement at the same time.

He wanted to spend time with me.

His blue eyes studied mine for a second before he said, "I mean, it would probably help our little arrangement seem more believable if I spent most of the day with mygirlfriend,right?"

Oh. So maybe he wasn't agreeing to this because he wanted to spend time with me. Maybe it was just to help with the production we'd been putting on all week.

I tried not to feel too much disappointment with those thoughts.

He put his truck back in gear. "Let me just park this thing in the student parking lot and we can head inside."

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