Rebel With A Cause (17 page)

She climbed into Carter’s car and started the engine. She pulled away from the kerb. She needed to get home, back to Carter, to resume her badass life.

It was strange, how she thought of her double-life. It wasn’t really a double-life, but she put up a front around the racing crew, and it had earned her a reputation. She had to keep it up. She had to pretend like nothing fazed her.

She worked herself into
the angry mindset of the racer girl. She had to hate Carter, be casual and also aloof. That was what kept people from thinking she was vulnerable.

However, deep down, she feared her street racing front had been what caused the attack. She had to wonder if her ‘I don’t care’ attitude made it seem like she didn’t care what happened to her. If people thought that, they wouldn’t be afraid to take advantage of her.

Maybe being Carter’s girlfriend had kept all the guys away from her. Maybe their break up had revealed a crack in her armour, a crack she didn’t even realise was there.

She had to change that. She needed to share her theory with Carter, and maybe they could pretend to be together in front of everyone else. If they could act as friends at home, they could act as a couple when they went out.

She drove straight through the roundabout and carried on driving to their new house. She didn’t particularly like the neighbourhood they were in, but they had nowhere else to go. Maybe once they
fixed
up the house, they could sell it and move somewhere nicer.

Somewhere like
where her parents lived
.
Their area
was beginning to get more developed, and if
she and Carter
lived down there, she could see her family more often.

She turned into their driveway and parked the car right behind her own. Carter was obviously back. She hoped he had her clothes. She didn’t want to wear the dress much longer.

She got out and beeped the alarm. She checked that the car was actually locked, and finally satisfied, she walked inside. Carter was ripping up the carpet and staring thoughtfully at whatever was underneath.

“Hey dude,” she said casually. “What are you staring at?”

She wandered over to him and looked at the floor.

“I was just thinking,” he began, before catching sight of her dress. His face turned from contemplative to
surprised
. “Where’d you get the dress?”

She shrugged, meeting his eyes. “It’s just an old thing I left at home when I moved out.
Nothing special.”

He looked at her appreciatively a moment more, before turning his focus back to the floor.

“Like I was saying,” he said casually, “I think we should rip up the carpet and just have the floor.

She scoffed.
“As if, it’s rotten.
Look, mum said she’d help us out, so we won’t be staying here much longer. We’ll be staying in some hotel, away from this place.

He shrugged. “I guess.
How was visiting your mum?”

“Not bad. But on my way home I had an idea.”

His eyebrows rose.
“
About what?”
He straightened up and she looked him in the eye.

“I think we need to pretend to be back together. I think maybe it was you who kept the creeps away from me. I think because you dumped me, De finally had the guts to make his move. Only, I wasn’t as willing as he thought.”

Carter mused.
“Possibly.
But why would he do that just because I’m out of the picture? It doesn’t make sense.”

Kaitlyn shrugged. “It does to me. People were always telling me how much you loved
me
and that if anything happened to me, you’d be furious. I didn’t believe them of course, but I guess they did, and the
y thought you’d go ape shit if they made a move.
”

His intense gaze made her shiver. “They were right. One, I love you, and two, I would have, and still will, beat the shit out of anyone who hurts you.”

She gave him a reluctant half smile. “Thanks, that’s real sweet.”

He shrugged. “It’s nothing. You’re too kind to be taken advantage of, and I’m sorry for what I put you through.”

Kaitlyn smiled. “Relax; I can take care of myself. Hey, did you pick up my clothes?”

Carter nodded. “They’re in the master bedroom. You can go and get changed if you want.”

She turned around and walked down the hallway to the bedroom. His eyes watched her carefully as she retreated to the bedroom. He thought back to earlier today and absentmindedly lifted his shirt.
His fingers probed the tender spot on his abdomen.

Curses on De
, he thought bitterly, remembering what had happened at T-Man’s house.

T-Man had Deangelo, Marcus, and
some newbie over, watching some bad
movie.

Carter had walked in to T-Man’s house unannounced, not surprised to find the front door unlocked. People were always dropping in, so it saved time.

He was intent on just grabbing Kaitlyn’s stuff and leaving, until he caught a glimpse of De in the living room. Furious, he strode towards De and lifted him easily out of his relaxed position on the sofa. He slammed De up against the wall and held one arm across his throat, successfully cutting off his air supply.

He slammed De’s head against the wall. “HOW
DARE
YOU HURT KAITLYN!” he’d roared.
“YOU FILTHY PIECE OF SHIT!”

Deangelo, dazed, held his hands up in surrender, an evil smile playing around on his face.

“
Sh
-she wanted it,” was De’s pathetic excuse.

Carter growled wordlessly and grabbed De by the collar. He slammed his head against the wall again, but this time, De fought back.
He managed to
get in a pretty good punch to Carter’s abdomen.

Carter let out a heavy
whoosh
of breath and doubled over. De pushed him on to the ground and kicked him in the ribs. He made to kick him again, but Carter grabbed a hold of De’s leg and pulled him to the ground with a thump.

Ignoring the pain radiating from his ribs, he climbed on top of De and proceeded to punch him in the nose. He grinned as he heard a satisfactory
Crack!

“You bastard!” he hissed venomously. “Stay away from my girl.”

De looked at Carter with so much hate in his eyes. Truth be told, Carter was scared of De. Deangelo
Carboni
was a crazy psychopath and he really needed to be locked up in prison.

Marcus and the newbie hauled Carter off Deangelo, and T-Man threw De out.

“You watch your back, Hawke!” they all heard De yell. “And tell your slutty little girlfriend to watch out, too!”

Back in the present, Carter scowled. He was in pain. De had probably broken one of his ribs, and it was hurting like hell. He probably needed to go to the doctor, but he didn’t want Katie knowing he’d got into a fight with De. Knowing he was
potentially coming after her could scare her, and Carter didn’t want her to be scared. He wanted her to be happy.

“Hey, Carter?” she called from the bedroom, “are you going to a race tonight?”

He quickly lowered his shirt. It wouldn’t do for Kaitlyn to see the nasty bruise already forming. She’d fuss, and then demand to know what happened.

“Na
h
, I’m not going out tonight,” he replied truthfully. “There’s no decent money to be won.” The last part was a lie. One of the races tonight was an extreme high stakes one, and normally he would have partaken, but De had gone psycho today, and he didn’t want to chance another run in. “How about we go to a movie instead?” he suggested.

Kaitlyn walked back into the lounge in dark denim skinny jeans, a
gold
sequinned tank top and a black leather jacket. Carter looked her up and down, blatantly checking her out. He whistled admiringly.
She was smoking hot. Of course, to him, she would always be smoking hot, but tonight, she was amazing. She looked casual and relaxed, and he hadn’t seen her like this in ages.

He finally looked at her face, and saw a cute pink blush rising up from her cheeks.
She was embarrassed.

“Aaaw, you don’t have to be embarrassed, Katie,” he said jovially. He didn’t know if she detected the false happiness in his voice. He hoped she hadn’t. “You look sexy.”

She went bright red and he laughed.

“Stop it!” she whined playfully. “It’s not funny.”

He opened his arms wide for a hug but she shook her head. He let his arms drop. He saw her gnawing on her lip, a bad habit that she’d picked up from him. She did it when she was nervous or unsure of something.

“What’s wrong?” he asked her. “I mean, besides the obvious.”

She looked at him with dewy eyes. “I can’t, Carter,” she said sadly. “It’s just, too soon. I’m trying to be strong, but I have these moments…” she trailed off, but he knew what she meant. When his parents died, Carter had felt that way. In fact, he still had moments like that, where he wanted to curl up and bawl his eyes out, but he knew his parents wouldn’t have wanted that. His problem was that he felt so
guilty
. He’d hated his parents for a while after they died, and being put in foster care didn’t help.

It looked like Katie had to be tough just to get through the day. His heart went out to her for that.

“Look,” he said firmly. “I know what it’s like to feel like that, to feel like you can’t get through the day without breaking down. It sucks. But you have to get on with normal, everyday life, if you want to stay strong. Just going through the motions can help, trust me.”

She looked unblinkingly at Carter for a few minutes, before she gave him a tiny smile.

“I guess you’re right,” she said quietly. “So what movie are we going to see?”

Carter decided to splash out. He drove them to
the mall
, where they could watch a movie while sitting on beanbags, or a couch.
Personally, he preferred the couches to the beanbags. At least with a couch, you could move around and
not
spill your popcorn everywhere. He hated that.

“What movie are we going to see?” Kaitlyn asked him.

He shrugged his shoulders and grinned down at her.
“How about a cheesy rom-com?
Girls are supposed to love those kinds of movies, right? Like meeting Prince Charming, having the fairytale ending?”

She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, I love that stuff, but I’d rather
watch a kid’s movie any day. Bring on a Disney movie!”

He laughed. “I bet you were such a cute kid.”

She rolled her eyes. “I was
,
I was such a Daddy’s Girl.”

“I bet you were.”

She slapped him playfully on the chest. “Shut up, Carter. I bet
you
were a brat.”

He laughed and they moved one place up in the queue. “You could say that. My teachers always sat me by myself. I was a troublemaker. Where I
really
shined was sport. Soccer was definitely my forte.”

She looked sideways at him with a grin on her face.
“Soccer, huh?
What position did you play?”

“Striker.
I was really good at scoring.”

She rolled her eyes. They both heard the unintentional double meaning in that sentence.

They moved up another place in line.
Two more to go.

“So, what movie are we seeing again?
”

She shrugged. “How about
The
Lion King
?” Disney was re-releasing all their best animated movies, and
The Lion King
was a classic
. Of course, it had been cool when her parents were young, a fact she chose to overlook.

“Seriously?”
Carter was staring at her with an expression of disbelief clear on his face. He didn’t want to see it, something Kaitlyn could obviously see.

“Jeez, chill,” she said. “It looks good, and I need this.”

He looked at her. It was the first thing she’d said that alluded to De’s attack on her.

Carter shrugged. If it was what she wanted, and if it was going to make her happy, then he was happy. “Ok.”

They had made it to the front of the line. “Two for
the Disney movie
,” he told the cashier.

The cashier, looking bored, handed over the tickets, and Carter gave him a twenty dollar note. The cashier’s eyes almost bugged out of his head. Hardly anybody used notes or coins anymore. Everybody mostly used plastic debit cards, but since Carter’s money making ways revolved around having cash, he opted for using cash.

Taking the tickets, and ignoring the cashier’s stunned look, Carter and Kaitlyn strolled over to the lounge, to wait until they would be let into the movie theatre.