Page 69 of Love at First Sighting
“She had it coming. But I…left.”
“Where are you now?”
“Somewhere in Beverly Hills. I’m going to find a hotel and stay there for the night, then start looking for apartments tomorrow, I guess.” I try to wipe my tears with the bottoms of my sleeves.
“Oh…” he gasps. “Oh, you, like,leftleft. You moved out.”
“Yeah.”
“Well, you’re not going to a hotel, that’s for sure.”
“What?”
“Come here. I mean, my apartment.”
I go silent. Staying with Carter isn’t a bad idea, but there’s nothing in it for him. I mean, probably sex, but that only goes so far. I could pay part of his rent or utilities or something. But he offers it like it’s the simplest solution in the world.
“If…if you want to. Of course, you don’t have to. I know it’s small and not that nice.Definitelynot what you’re used to,” he rambles.
“No,” I sigh. “I just can’t ask that of you.”
“You didn’t ask. You can stay as long as you need.”
I snivel away a last batch of tears. “Okay.”
“I’m on my way home. Should be there in a half hour. That good with you?”
“Yeah, I’ll see you then.”
I begin my drive over the hill to Carter’s apartment, listening to a self-help podcast en route. I ignore the texts flowing in from my mom, asking if my new blowup will hinder her plans for putting an addition on the house. Finally, I pull into a parking spot and unload my main bags. Carter opens the door on the first knock. His tie’s undone and his top buttons open. This is the Carter I imagine he is within minutes of getting home from work. Discarding his uniform bit by bit, scrounging for dinner, calling me to check in at the end of the day. That’s been our routine. Now I might meld into the picture.
Cooking together. Deciding our evening entertainment. Brushing our teeth side by side. It’s the small things that felt like logistics before, but when I imagine doing them with Carter, it feels like peace.
“Hey,” he says with a warmth that settles me for the first time in hours. “Come here.”
Carter takes a handful of my jacket and pulls me into his arms. He’s got one hand in my hair, the other at the small of my back. It’s tight, warm, and feels like home.
“Are you okay?” he asks.
I nod. “I’ll be fine.”
Carter kisses the crown of my hair and pulls away. There’s so much sympathy hanging heavy in his eyes. “Come on in. We’ll get you settled.”
He reaches for the wheeled suitcase behind me, only to discover a smaller one behind it.
“That one’s for beauty products,” I explain.
“They get their own suitcase?” He laughs as we roll them through the living room and disappear into his room. “Make yourself at home. As they say,mi casa es su casa.”
Under any normal circumstances, that’d be grounds for a breakup, but the cheeky grin on Carter’s face is too pure to disparage. We spend the next hour or so figuring out where I’ll fit into his small, square bedroom. He pulled out a notepad and sketched a few layouts at one point.
Carter makes space in his closet for some of my clothes, room in his drawers for my things. I imagine pulling a T-shirt out of the drawer and it smelling as much like his clothing as it does mine.
When we’re done, Carter flops back on his bed and I join him. He’s still in his half-discarded suit, but the buttons on his shirt are almost entirely undone and his hair’s fallen out of its gelled order.
“You have a lot of things.”
“People give me a lot of free shit.” I laugh, tracing my fingertips down his chest.
