Page 31 of Carter

“As long as you don’t sing about drug abuse and explicit fornication, and it’s not screaming or guttural noises coming out of your lungs, then I can live with all that,” Harold returned just as firmly.

Carter leaned forward, resting his arms on the table. For a moment I admired his bulging biceps, that was until he opened his mouth and said, “When you sayexplicitfornication, am I to presume everyformof fornication, both the soft and the…hard?”

Harold said yes at the same time Marlena said no. They paused in surprise and glanced at one another. My heart nearly leaped out of my chest and my eyes bulged. I laughed weakly.“Don’t worry. He’s a lot more soulful than that. It’ll be light stuff, I promise.”

They were still staring at one another, Harold had a twitchy eye and Marlena was holding tight the pearls around her neck. The awkward meter went up by a thousand, I think.

“Excuse us for a minute,” Marlena then said with a hesitant smile. They stood up and walked to the other side of the room, talking in hushed tones that did little to make me feel like I’d convinced them of Carter. I stared at them from my chair, trying to catch some words while I studied their facial expressions.

“Maybe you should go and vouch for us,” I spoke to Rome.

“It would help if your friend here was a bit more polite,” he replied.

“I have been polite,” argued Carter.

“Oh, I hadn’t noticed between your glares and crappy attitude.”

“You’d notice the difference the second I punched your fucking face in.”

“Carter!” I pinched his arm and leaned into his side. “You do not just threaten to punch the son of parents you need help from!”

“I don’t need help from anybody,” he retorted defensively.

“What’s your problem, man?” Rome hissed with furrowed brows. “You don’t have to be such an asshole. Think of what Leah’s doing for you. She doesn’t have to try so hard for you. Wherever you go, she goes. Think on that. Would you rather a roof over her head, or would you rather her sleeping under some damn bridge ‘til you find some shit job? At least here we’re trusting, and my parents care enough to want to help. We’re good people, man. You wouldn’t need to worry about her safety.”

For once, Carter went silent. He didn’t say anything, but his face softened instead of tensing like I thought it might. Heglanced at me before running a hand through his disheveled hair and sighing heavily.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered to me. “I’m just reacting out of anger. You’ve just forced a job on me, Leah, and I’m not happy about it.”

He was right. I had. I frowned and whispered back, “I’m sorry too. But singing is what you were born to do. You’ll get used to it, Carter. People are going to love you.”

“I don’t care about people loving me. I don’t care about the attention. I don’t want that.”

“Well, as yourbest friendI don’t want you to waste your talent singing by a creek for the rest of your life. You have no idea what you have and it’s time you let the world see it, even if it’s just in a damn bar every night.”

He considered that, and Rome, who’d been watching our exchange, softened too. He leaned over the table and stared evenly at Carter.

“Dude,” he started, “I don’t even remember why I hate you so much, so how about we put our past behind us and just start over? I can play the drums, and if you’re as good as Leah has always went on that you are, I’d be more than happy to be part of a band with you. It’ll give me something to do, and I won’t be too much of an ass to you.”

“You know why we hate each other,” Carter replied, and it made me stare between them with confusion. “But you’re right. I’d rather let the past go. For Leah, anyway.”

I didn’t get the chance to ask what the hell it was I didn’t know about because Rome then turned to me and said, “It’d help if you covered your massive hickey with your hair, by the way. My dad’s a bit of a nut when it comes to shit like that. If he’s seen it, don’t get weird if he starts to have a sex talk with you. He’s fucking crazy, alright?”

My hickey? I stared wide-eyed at Carter’s face and his mouth broke into a cocky grin. “You knew?” I asked in surprise.

“It’s pretty obvious, babe.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“It’s my little trophy. You don’t hide trophies.”

I glared at him and quickly covered the side of my neck with my hair, briefly remembering how hard he’d sucked it last night. I did it just as Rome’s parents returned.

“Well then it’s settled,” Marlena said with a bright smile, staring between Carter and me. “I’ll get everything sorted. You can look around the suite first if you’d like. It’s a little outdated, but there’s plenty of room in there. I’ll get the employment forms printed out and you can have a look through it, and Rome can help Carter with the ads for band members in the meantime. There’s no rush for it, so don’t feel pressured. We might also see what kind of casual jobs you can do around the bar, Carter. Rome will be going to College in the fall, so I might need another set of hands.”

Carter glanced at my hopeful face before he nodded slowly. “Alright. That works for me.”

I took him by the hand and squeezed it. I couldn’t believe he didn’t fuck this up! This was an occasion that needed to be treasured. Not that he was a fuck-up in general or anything, but his mouth landed him in trouble more often than not. He squeezed my hand back giving me a ghost of a smile.

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