AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I was thinking we should probably iron out the details on our arrangement,” Carter says at last, a crooked smile playing over his mouth. I have to think through that sentence several times to even begin to understand what he’s talking about.
Our arrangement? What the hell is he talking about? The only arrangement we have is the one where he eventually needs to ask for advice about Rudy, because I probably forgot to tell him about a few other peculiarities. Like how Rudy needs the blanket to be just so for him to snuggle up next to you on the couch.
“What are you talking about?” I question. “And how did you even find me?”
Carter shrugs. “I just asked around about where I could find a girl yay high, dark wavy hair, like a tiny pixie with glasses.” And then, after a moment, he adds, “Plus, it wasn’t too hard to guess that you might be a librarian. You know, considering… all of this.”
He gestures at my outfit, immediately fueling me with rage. Because sure, my friends say that same thing all the time. But they’re allowed to. Carter is not.
I glare at him. “You literally don’t remember my name.”
“Sprite, relax. Let’s focus on the discussion at hand.”
“There is no discussion at hand!”
I say this a bit too loudly, which makes one of the patrons give me a dirty look. I need to shut this shit down before I get shushed again in my own library.
So I make a beeline for a different section, taking my picture books with me. I try to make myself look very busy and important by pausing to adjust books or read labels, but I realize that what I’m really doing is swinging my hips and biting my lip a lot. It’s like I told my body “look busy and important,” but my body heard “look like one of his desperate Shepphoes as you lure him to an empty part of the library.”
I resist the urge to groan. I need to switch tactics. I detour again, dropping the picture books off at my desk and grabbing the go-backs instead. This, at least, gives me a purpose. Maybe it will even convince Carter to abandon his bizarre mission about this “arrangement,” whatever the hell it is.
Unfortunately, he seems undeterred. He even has the nerve to pause long enough to investigate a book, which is weird because I find it doubtful that he’d be interested in reading a YA fantasy novel. It’s one of my personal favorites, it even has good ratings on Goodreads, so maybe he’s heard of it.
No, scratch that. No way Carter has ever heard of Goodreads.
“Fine,” I say, aggressively sliding a go-back into place. “If you’ve got a point to make, then make it.”
“The point is, sprite, that you seem like you’d be good at wifing.”
“Still not sure why you’d need one of those.”
“For my image, obviously,” he replies, tucking the YA book under his arm. I hate that it draws my attention to his biceps. Clearly, he’s using it as some kind of prop.
“Then find a groupie,” I suggest, I believe quite logically, “because I’m not interested in wifing.”
Carter snorts. “Groupies tend to do shit like post your naked ass on TikTok.”
Suddenly, the bits of conversation from yesterday click into place, along with some of the Googling I did after I left Rudy with Carter. Apparently, one of his most recent paramours posted Carter’s bare ass as he strode across what appeared to be a hotel room. It wasn’t really clear enough to see much of anything—not that I was really looking—but I figured it went plenty well with the player image he’s been cultivating. But, from the sounds of it, it’s more of a problem than I thought.
“A potential sponsorship with Nike’s on the line,” Carter says, reading my mind. “They want me to do some image rehab and stat.”
“Sounds smart,” I agree. “So, as I said, get a groupie.”
Carter shakes his head. “You’re not listening. What I need is someone discreet and wholesome. Someone like you.”
Did he… did he just call me wholesome?
Oh, no. Oh, hell no. I have been called wholesome all of my life. Maybe not that word exactly, but others like it. “Cute.” “Adorable.” “A goody-goody.”
And they’re all wrong. All of them.
But especially Carter freaking Sheppard.
“I am not wholesome,” I say, pushing my glasses back up my nose as I stop to face him. “I am a… very bad girl.”
I realize too late that I’m way too close to him. He’s got at least a foot on me, and he’s back to looming over me, giving him all the advantage. And something about the way his eyes travel down and up again makes me think that, even with the crewneck, Carter’s seeing way too much of me.
“Even better,” Carter murmurs, voice low and gravelly in a way that immediately makes me blush.
