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‘What happened to you?’I ask and sign, making sure my lips move as deliberately as possible.
Carson gives me a crooked grin and also points at his black eye. “It’s nothing, Mia,” he says, then moves away from the door, gesturing for me to follow him inside.
I reach up to tap his shoulder as we walk into the sitting area of the large suite. He turns sideways to look at me.
‘That is NOT nothing. That is something,’I carefully sign and mouth voicelessly.
He sighs, picks up his phone from on top of the coffee table, and starts typing, then shows me the screen.
I lean forward to read his note:
“Don’t worry, baby. I’m okay. I got distracted and walked into a door.”
I delete and start to write.
“BS, Carson! You totally suck at lying. I would know you were fibbing even if my brother hadn’t come to see me about ‘visiting you’.”
Carson’s slanted, aqua-colored eyes grow large. He reaches for his phone and types his reply super-fast.
“Jared told you he came here to see me?”
I snort.
“Something along those lines, yes. He told me you guys talked, and you went a bit insane, and you broke your favorite bass over it! Which, by the way, Carson: what the fuck?! You don’t need to prove anything to my brother. He is not my keeper… and anyway, he conveniently left out that he punched you in the face! I’m so pissed off! I’m going to kick his ass right after I’m done with you.”
Carson reads my message and chuckles, then starts to write.
“You are one fiery little thing, aren't you? Cool your jets, okay? First of all, your brother is an ass, yes, but he didn't hit me… not on purpose. He was pulling me back from doing further damage to my bass and accidentally struck me with his elbow. And second, I know he's not your keeper, and you're an adult. I didn't say the things I said, and I didn’t do what I did to prove my feelings for you to him out of some misguided sense of duty or anything like that crap… I did it because I know he’s important to you. I just know that if he would have kept getting in the way, you would have been forced to choose, and sure as fuck I was never going to let you choose him since you’re mine. And that way, you would have ended up being hurt… you and your little niece, too. I don’t want to be the one responsible for hurting you ever. Or a little girl, for that matter. I needed to turn him to my way of thinking fast and… I guess I got carried away.”
I read through his writing, taking his words in carefully. Wow.
I blink a few times, trying to clear my mind.
So much to unpack. I just can’t even start to process it all.
Choosing sides?
I’mhis?
He has feelings for me?
Never wants to hurt me?
Cares about me so much that he doesn't want to screw up my family?
My head is blowing up.
I feel Carson guide me to the sofa and help me take a seat, his callused fingers stroking the back of one of my hands.
“Mia, you okay?” he asks, and he does so in words and fingerspelling.
It’s enough to really push me too far, and the floodgates open before I can get myself under control.
In the space of a breath, he’s first sitting at my side, then holding me tight to his chest, my body in his lap. I throw my arms around his neck and just sob into his chest because this is just too much.
Too…everything.
I feel one of his large hands move across my back in a slow, circular pattern, and it just makes me cry harder.
