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“Because this absolutely cannot wait!”
There wasn’t gonna be any dissuading her. When she fixed her mind on something, it was as good as done.
So with a fair helping of reluctance, I launched into the story of how I’d fucked Carter.
Jo-Beth has the benefit of being an excellent audience — she oohs and ahhs in all the right parts, gasps consistently and has never-ending facial expressions in response to each new piece of information.
By the time I was done, she looked exhausted simply from having experienced that much emotion in a five-minute span. Jo-Beth plopped down on the toilet bowl, pants still on and fanning herself.
“Wow,” she said.
“Yeah.”
“So are you gonna…”
“Fuck again? I have no idea. None at all,” I admitted. “No point in getting too attached.”
She scoffed at this. “You’re just having a good ol’ fashioned road trip romance. There’s no, like, inherent attachment in that. I mean we’re all adults, everybody understands the rules. We’ll be gone as soon as that car part comes. Carter’s no dolt, he gets it.”
But did he? Or rather, did I? Because while I couldn’t be certain of what was going through Carter’s mind, I knew that I was feeling an outsize attachment. I thought maybe sex would get it out of my system, but it had only gotten worse. And now I knew all this stuff about him, all this deeply personal baggage, and it just felt wrong to pretend like we hadn’t gone beyond a normal hookup situation.
There was no way to tell Jo-Beth any of that, though. So I just shrugged again.
“It’ll work itself,” I declared, not wanting to discuss it anymore.
She wasn’t buying this. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“Only things that aren’t mine to tell.”
Jo-Beth sighed, but nodded, respecting that much at least. “Fair enough. Just do me a favor, okay?”
“What?”
“Don’t, like, go crazy and drop out of college and move to this Podunk Hollow town. Please.”
I laughed. “Jo-Beth, you know my parents. If I dropped out of school with only one year left to go, I’d be disowned. Besides, I don’t wanna live that far from my family. And, wait, more importantly, I’m so not living with Carter! You’re getting ahead of yourself.”
“Am I?”
This conversation had gotten too heavy, especially since I’d meant what I said. I was going back to Connecticut one way or another. No man was worth disrespecting my parents and delivering a blow to their finances, and I don’t do long distance. So however I felt about him, there was no way to make this actually work. It needed to be put far out of my mind.
“Can we go eat now?” I begged.
“All right, all right,” she agreed, unlocking the door and opening it for me. “Let’s go eat with your fuck buddy.”
“Jo-Beth!”
“Sorry,” she grinned, not apologetic in the least.
This was gonna be the longest, most uncomfortable meal of my life. Great.
CHAPTER 19
Carter
HENRY AND I were wasting time at the dinner table, flicking sugar packets between silverware set up like goal posts.
The girls had been gone for ten minutes. Miss Keller had come by with some waters, and that was tiding us over, but it was starting to get just a touch weird. Had they slipped out, skipped town?
“Why isn’t Phoebe back?” Henry whined, pinching a ketchup packet between his fingers.
“She’s going to the bathroom.”
“Why do girls go to the bathroom together?” he asked.
So young, and already so observant. “I don’t rightly—”
Oh, hold on now. I absolutely knew. Girls went to the bathroom to gossip. Crap.
Well, no helping it now. I wasn’t worried that Phoebe had said anything about my history with Meghan. She seemed to grasp the gravity of that story, and though I knew her little, I doubted she’d toss it around without my permission. But she had full rights to discuss our afternoon escapade, and there wasn’t much I could do about that.
Just as I was beginning to wonder what, exactly, she was saying in regards to my performance, Phoebe and Jo-Beth returned to the table. Phoebe looked exhausted, while Jo-Beth seemed to be bursting with a renewed energy.
“Hello, Carter,” the blonde said, sliding into the booth across from Henry.
Those two words told me everything I needed to know — Phoebe had definitely spilled the beans.
Phoebe herself sunk into the booth after Jo-Beth, seating herself across from me. Had this been an intentional, pre-devised seating chart?
If so, it was working, because I couldn’t take my eyes off her.
“I love this restaurant,” Jo-Beth said brightly, commandeering the table talk.
Phoebe laughed at that, and I made eye contact with her. She was staring at me with both attraction and… something else. Reservation? It was unclear.
“Did you move out here to make art?” Jo-Beth asked me. “I mean, your house is so pretty, and the trailer. Seems like you’ve got the eye.”
Though I resented the question, I was relieved — obviously, Phoebe hadn’t told her anything. Furthermore, before I could get some stock lie out of my mouth, Phoebe intervened.
