Page 25 of Blind Date with a #Doctor
I roll over, half expecting to find Carter still tangled in the sheets, warm and rumpled from sleep, reaching for me like he always does, but he’s not here.
For the past week, we haven’t spent a single night apart. I’m used to waking up to his body curled around mine, his lips on my shoulder, his rough morning voice murmuring something teasing and warm.
He should be here. He always stays. Except this time, he didn’t and I don’t buy his excuse about an early morning. We both have early mornings, but it’s Sunday.
I push up onto my elbows, rubbing my face, trying to shake off the nagging pit in my stomach. The way he kissed me goodnight, but never really looked at me, and the way he said he had to go, but it felt like he was already gone.
And that? That terrifies me.
I spend the morning waiting for him to text first. It’s stupid. I don’t do this. I don’t play games, don’t overthink, don’t tiptoe around each other.
After three hours of silence, I cave. I send something casual. Light.
Me: Hope your early morning
wasn’t too brutal.
It takes an hour for him to respond.
Carter: All good. You sleep okay?
I frown, because normally, he’d say more. Normally, he’d make a joke, tell me he missed me, ask when he’s seeing me again. But this? This feels cold.
Me: Not really, it felt weird
not having you here.
It’s the truth. I’m trying to crack the door open, waiting to see if he’ll step through. Another long pause.
Carter: Yeah, I bet.
I stare at my screen. That’s all he has to say? I exhale, fighting the tightness in my chest. I try one more time.
Me: Want to grab dinner later?
A full thirty minutes go by and when his reply comes, I already know what it’s going to say before I even read it.
Carter: Can’t tonight. Work stuff.
I swallow hard. I know what’s happening. I know this pattern, I’ve been here before. The slow withdrawal, the carefully measured words, the way someone starts pulling back before they actually say the words out loud.
God help me, I don’t know if I can do this again.
I spend the rest of the day trying to focus on anything else. Work. Errands. Anything that doesn’t involve Carter. But nothing helps. I keep replaying the night before. The way he held my hand all evening, the way he laughed with my coworkers, kissed me on the dance floor, made me feel like I was the only woman in the room.
But after Ryan showed up, Carter wasn’t the same. I groan, pressing my forehead to the kitchen counter. Is that really what this is about? Ryan?
Carter couldn’t possibly think—I stop. Suddenly, I can see it replay in my mind. The way Carter watched us talk, the way hewent quiet and distant after, the way he left the second we got home.
I think I know exactly what’s happening. Carter thinks Ryan is still important to me. He thinks I want someone else and not him.
I hate that he could ever believe that, because there is no one else. There hasn’t been since the second he walked into that restaurant for our blind date.
But if Carter doesn’t already know that then I might be losing him and I have no idea how to stop it.
Chapter Fifteen
Carter
