Carry You Home (Carry Your Heart #2) (17 page)

It was strange to feel nervous about something like this, when I had no doubts about whether or not I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him, but a major life event deserved at least a little thought and a little planning.

"Well," I bit down on my bottom lip. "My semester showcase is in three weeks. I think I should focus on that first, get it out of the way and then yeah, after that, let's get married."

He stalked around my chair and practically tugged me off it so he could wrap his arms around me.

"One month, babe," Caleb murmured against my neck. "The weekend after your kick-ass showcase, you're gonna be my wife."

"Yeah," I laughed. "I can't believe we set a date. I kinda thought we'd disagree a little more about it, but this is good. This is really good."

"You bet your sweet ass it is," he grinned down at me and then lowered his head to kiss me. "I feel like we're married already. We should make it official, you know?"

I nodded. "I know how you feel."

Caleb smiled that crooked, sexy grin that always landed right on its target and I slipped a hand underneath his T-shirt so my fingers could skim across the hard planes of his abdomen.

His muscles rippled a little under my feather-light touch and then he was reaching around to tug my tank top up over my head. By the time I sent his T-shirt floating to the floor, his hands closed around the backs of my thighs to set me down on top of our table. And just as my hands started working his belt buckle, the door bell tore us out of this heat-fueled haze.

"Shit," Caleb muttered against my neck. "That's probably the prospect. I gotta get to church soon."

"It's okay. We'll just finish this when you get back."

"Hell no," his eyes glinted at me hungrily with that devilish glimmer I knew well and I didn't even bother protesting as he dug his phone out of his pocket. After he flipped it open, he pounded out a quick text, snapped the phone shut, and tossed it onto the table behind me.

"Ten minutes, Iz," he whispered as his mouth descended on mine.

I just laughed and then my yoga pants slid down my legs right along with my panties. He sure didn't waste any time. And after that, I let him carry me away. The heat of his body against me, his skin melting into mine, his lips sealing over as many inches of me as he could get...there was nothing better than this.

Every touch set my body on fire until I was practically whimpering for that sweet release, that desperate free-fall with his name on my lips.

His hips were torture. They knew just what to do, how to tilt, how long to linger, how quickly to pull back. Every rock of skin against skin carried me further and further away until stars were all I could see, his breath was all I could hear, and his strong arms wrapped around me was all I could feel.

.
     
.
     
.

My paintbrush twirled around the canvas, hugging the sides and sweeping back towards the middle. I blew out a breath and leaned back, my head tilted to the side as I surveyed my work. Well, it definitely wasn't my best work, but that was probably because I was trying to recreate something long gone. Dr. Jacobs, although sympathetic to the situation, still expected the ten pieces I was required to submit for the showcase and had explicitly instructed me not to attempt recreation of any kind. So, basically what I was doing right now.

"Art is meant to be felt in the moment, Isabelle,"
she'd told me in that pleasant French accent. "
You cannot recreate a moment. You cannot recreate a feeling. You must create new moments, new feelings."

Luckily, I'd had three finished paintings for the showcase already in storage at school when the break-in happened and the one I'd since finished that I'd dropped when I found Diego Padilla in my house, but that still meant I owed Dr. Jacobs six more paintings in three weeks.

My heart ached at the thought of everything we'd had to throw away.

Hours of work. Hours of
meticulous
work. Hours of
thoughtful
work. I'd only cried after I knew they were all tossed out with the trash. At least I'd been smart enough not to watch the prospects carry them all out of my house and right to the side of the road. There was no way I would've survived seeing them all lined up like that, one after the other, just waiting for incineration.

You never plan on disaster. You focus on how things are
supposed
to unfold, what you
assume
will happen and you don't even think about the alternative because no one wants to walk around with a cloud of doom hanging over their head.

I was going to drive myself insane trying to recreate those paintings I'd lost. Whatever I'd felt in those moments, whatever force had pushed my paintbrush around the canvas, it was gone now.

Damn, they were good though. Probably some of the best work I've ever done, too.

Maybe I just needed to take a break. With that thought, I pushed off my stool and headed for the hallway. Seth, the prospect Caleb had left behind in his absence, dutifully sat on the floor in the living room watching the Braves get their asses handed to them by the Cardinals. He shifted on the floor and waved to me when he saw me.

Just as I'd gotten out the paint and laid down some plastic tarp on the carpet so I could get to work on the baby's mural, the doorbell rang. The TV in the living room went on mute almost instantly and I heard some shuffling towards the door as Seth moved to answer it. When I stuck my head out of the nursery to see what was up, I found Becca standing in my doorway with her hands stuffed into her pockets and apology written in her dark eyes.

What she was sorry for still remained to be seen.

"It's okay," I told Seth and waved Becca inside the house. "This is my friend, Becca. It's fine."

Becca stepped inside tentatively, looking around like this was the first time she'd ever been here. I wanted to believe it was more about her uneasiness over the break-in and about the oddity of seeing my living room all but empty, save for a coffee table resting awkwardly in the middle of the carpet.

Now Becca was watching Seth anxiously in a way that had me fighting the urge to narrow my eyes at her.

"Do you think we could...?" she gestured with her head towards the kitchen and then glanced back at Seth again.

"Yeah, sure," I shrugged and headed towards the kitchen, calling over my shoulder, "We're fine, Seth. You can go back to the game."

I half-expected Becca to plop herself down at the table, but instead, she propped a hip against the counter and folded her arms around herself. I hadn't seen or heard from her since the last time we'd stood right here, when she'd put me in the middle of something I still didn't understand. Now her sudden appearance at my house unannounced less than an hour after Caleb left was suspicious, to say the least.

I hated that I was looking at her like this now, watching every nervous tick, the way she kept her eyes trained on the floor, the way one hand wrapped around her body like she was shielding herself and the other hand clenched the strap of her purse in a white-knuckled grip. She was supposed to be my best friend. We were supposed to be able to tell each other anything.

There were only five feet between us right now, but it felt cavernous. Wide and reaching into a darkness I knew I wouldn't be able to save her from. If she leapt into that darkness, I wouldn't be able to jump in after her. I just couldn't.

"I tried calling you," I started quietly, taking my place on the other side of the kitchen. It was fitting that we were here, each on our own separate sides, each having made a decision the other didn't agree with. "You never called me back."

Becca sawed on her bottom lip for a few moments before finally lifting her eyes from the floor. "I'm sorry. I got your message. I wanted to call. I guess I..."

She trailed off, fiddling with her earring as her eyes fell back down to the floor. We stood there for at least a good 30 seconds, with her boring holes into my kitchen floor and me nervously twirling my engagement ring around my finger.

"You know, it's crazy," Becca laughed a little and for the first time since she showed up, a faint smile touched her lips. "The last time I saw you, you didn't look pregnant at all. Now, a frickin' week later and you've got this little curve in your stomach. It's super tiny, but it's totally there."

"So, basically you're telling me I just look like I need to workout a little more?" I threw out lightly and hoped this would be enough to shift the mood.

"Total food baby," she laughed. "But seriously, Belle, you look great. You have this
glow
. I know all pregnant women are supposed to get that, but it looks good on you. You look happy."

"I am."

Please don't do anything that could mess it up. Please don't be stupid, Becca.

"That's good," she smiled back, but the smile didn't quite reach her eyes. "So, um, what else is new?"

Was she fishing for something? Or was she just trying to make small talk to cut this awkwardness? I couldn't make heads or tails of it and all I could really do at this point was play along.

"Well, we set a date."

Becca's eyes lit up. "You did?"

She nodded quietly like she was mulling through all the details as I shared them with her and I had a bad feeling that the details she'd wanted me to share weren't ones about my upcoming wedding.

"That sounds like a good idea," Becca told me in that quiet, ghost-like whisper I was starting to loathe.

Then her hands shot up to cover her face and her shoulders shook. Her entire body seemed to convulse, completely overpowered by this guttural sobbing and before I could let myself consider the repercussions, I stepped forward until I could wrap my arms around her. She crumbled against me and just my touch alone had her body trembling with a fresh wave sobs.

"It's okay," I whispered to her. "Everything's gonna be okay, Becs. Just tell me what's going on. Please. I won't be mad."

"I'm just so sorry," she sobbed. "When I came over here last week, I was such a bitch. I didn't mean to be. I swear I didn't. I was just so scared. I'm
still
scared and I took it out on you."

I wanted to believe that was all this was about. I really did. But I also knew she'd gone to The Sundown Saloon right after she left my house to buy cocaine. Trusting anything she said right now would be a mistake. As much as it hurt, as much as I ached to help her, I couldn't believe a word she said. Our lines were drawn in the sand now and I couldn't step over that line.

"I know," I told her instead. "That was a really shitty day and neither of us were thinking clearly, you know? We were both scared. We were both emotional. It's okay, Becs. I get it."

She didn't respond and abruptly pulled herself out of my arms so she could brush away her tears with the heel of her hand. A long, harsh exhale blew out from her mouth and then she was staring up at me, trying her best to mold her lips into something that resembled a smile.

"I wish I could just hit rewind or something and do it differently," Becca murmured. "I shouldn't have said all that shit to you and I shouldn't have put you on the spot like that. It wasn't fair."

"Water under the bridge, okay?"

"Right," she laughed and wiped one last tear away from her face. "Can we just forget that ever happened?"

It would be nice if I could actually do that.

"Hey," I shifted gears and gestured with my head to where Eli's laptop still sat at the table. "You want to see this dress I like?"

And for the next half hour, it was like I'd gotten my best friend back. She ooo'd and ahhh'd over the dress and a few others we found on a different website, genuinely excited for my wedding, genuinely happy for the changes happening in my life. We didn't talk about the fact that I hadn't asked her to be my maid of honor because I wasn't sure I wanted her to have the title. We didn't talk about her drug use. We didn't talk about Caleb. We didn't talk about Eli. We didn't talk about the club.

My friendship with Becca had eventually led me to my future husband and the father of my baby. For that, I would always be grateful to her, but I just didn't trust her anymore.

So, when I left the table to take a bathroom break, I should've known better. But I wanted to believe she was still the girl I'd known since we were five-year-olds in matching backpacks and pigtails. I wanted to believe she would do the right thing because by betraying Eli, Caleb, and the rest of the club, she was betraying me too.

As it turned out, I was wrong. And stupid. And gullible.

Both of us closed doors at the exact same moment. Her eyes flew up to me, frozen like a burglar caught under a spotlight, her hand still on the doorknob to the garage. My body stilled, already on high alert, and I couldn't put one foot in front of the other because my feet were just rooted to the carpet.

"What are you doing, Becca?" I whispered.

I didn't even recognize the sound of my own voice. It was foreign even to my own ears. I think my ears might have been buzzing too much to even realize it. The TV suddenly went dead and Seth scrambled into the hallway, positioning himself directly in between me and this potential new threat.

"I'm so sorry," Becca pushed out roughly, tears already welling up in her eyes. "I didn't know what else to do."