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Jada places her hand over mine, palm up, and I place the metal keychain in her palm.
“Something for you to remember your very nice and amazing time.”
Jada pulls her hand from mine and looks at the metal keychain, and her face bursts into a grin. She rubs a thumb over the image of two otters holding hands with a heart above them.
“As if I could forget that easily,” she jokingly says, but the sure grip she has on the keychain tells me all I need to know.
28
JADA
Ipack the last of my things into boxes as Carter seals them up with packing tape. It’s weird to see my place totally empty and even weirder when I think of why. At the same time though, moving in with Carter excites me.
“Ready?” he asks and I feel my heart skip a beat as he looks over at me with a smile.
I always knew I’d be moving in with him. We are supposed to be a married couple after all. But after our honeymoon – more specifically, our honeymoon sex – I have to admit things are starting to get a little bit murky.
“Yup,” I reply, grabbing a box and trying my best not to bely how nervous I’m suddenly feeling.
I didn’t feel this way before, but before this was just a friendly arrangement meant to benefit both of us. Two friends getting married to avoid social pressures. It was all very straightforward.
But now? Now I don’t really know what this is.
I stay quiet, wrapped in my own thoughts as we carry boxes downstairs and into the moving van Carter has hired. Luckily, amidst the shifting of boxes, Carter doesn’t notice how distracted I am. It gives me a little time to think.
Was the sex just a vacation fling?I wonder, stealing a glance at Carter. He’s in the midst of peeling off his sweatshirt, and I have to try incredibly hard not to stare at his muscles rippling under his white tee.
But then I find myself wondering why I’m trying not to stare. Iamattracted to him after all, and the lines between friendship and relationship have become well and truly blurred. He’s clearly attracted to me too, judging by how hot the sex was. And since then he’s been acting almost like this is a real relationship.
So, are we a couple now?I wonder, tearing my eyes away from Carter and heading back inside for more boxes.Will we keep sleeping together now that I’m moving in?
We haven’t talked about any of this stuff which means, right now, we’re still operating under the same agreement we made when we met – that neither of us wants this to be anything more than a get-out-of-jail-free card.
But it seems pretty clear there’s something else happening that’s outside the bounds of that arrangement. I just don’t really know what to name it.
Is this a relationship? Are we dating? Are we just fucking? Are we defaulting back to friends now that the honeymoon is over?
These questions follow me all the way back to Carter’s place and only amplify as he talks me through the move.
“So like I said, you’re welcome to share my bedroom or take the guest bedroom, whichever you prefer,” he tells me as we start unloading boxes at his house. “And don’t worry about having to keep anything in storage if you don’t want to. I have plenty of room for both our stuff. I want you to treat this like you’d treat your own house, okay?”
He flashes me a warm smile, and I feel my heart rate quicken a little. I can’t deny that I really like him. Like, a lot. But now that we’ve stepped out of the resort bubble and back into the real world, I have no idea how things are going to play out.
“Thanks, and thanks for helping me move,” I say in answer to his words as we cart the boxes inside.
I don’t exactly know what to do when it comes to the bedroom options, though. I don’t even know what it means that he offered mebothhis room and the guest room. What I do know is that I have no claim to him, and the thought that this could all end badly is starting to creep into my mind.
What if he gets bored in a week?I suddenly think as I stack a moving box on top of a pile of others.We’d have to keep living together with that tension between us. Or even worse, what if this all blows up, and we have to keep pretending to be together for Honey’s sake? Or if we break up and break his mom’s heart?
“Anything for my new wife,” Carter says, breaking my train of thought.
It pulls me out of the spiral I was just going down and even though there’s still no certainty in this, his smile eases my ragged mind a little bit.
We end up depositing my boxes into the guest bedroom, but there’s so much stuff we have to pile a lot of it onto the bed. Again, I don’t quite know what to do with that.
“You don’t have to unpack today if you don’t want to,” he tells me. “But in case you do, there’s plenty of closet space in here or in the master bedroom. And the bookshelves in the living room can be rearranged to fit your books in. I’m also happy to help with unpacking if you like, just say the word.”
I smile, grateful to know that the kindness he showed at the resort is still here in the real world, even if I still don’t know how to read it.
