The Arrangement (5 page)

As he spoke, Reed’s eyes grew wider and wider, and Carter’s heart sank. Even considering their night of amazing sex, Reed’s inexperience showed, and what Carter proposed might be too much for him to handle. Reed might want love and that hearts-and-flowers shit. A relationship. Snorting inwardly, Carter took another drink. Relationships were nothing but another avenue for someone to disappoint him, and he’d had enough disappointments in his life.

“Yeah. I think it might be exactly what I need.”

Coughing up his drink, Carter wiped his mouth on his sleeve. It took a moment to suck in enough air before he could answer. “It is?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah? You’re sure?” The wheels were working in overdrive behind Reed’s eyes; doubt, fear, lust, and excitement flashed in their golden depths.

“I go to school full-time and work here; I don’t have time to think about relationships or lovers. They’re not worth my time or effort.”

Reed hesitated over the last part, and Carter sensed a story there, but it wasn’t his business. There wasn’t going to be any sharing of lives and cozy dinners for two.

“I think,” Reed continued, “what you suggested will work for me. But I want certain things as well.”

“Oh?” said Carter, his interest piqued. “Tell me.”

“Last time after we…” He reddened and gnawed on his lip, and Carter thought he looked adorable in his effort to be discreet. And sexy. Actually Carter wanted him right then and wondered how soon Reed could leave so they could go back to his hotel room.

“Had sex?” Carter offered helpfully. “Fucked?”

“Shh.” Reed hushed him, his eyes darting side to side. “People don’t need to hear about my personal life.” He leaned closer, and Carter enjoyed having his undivided attention. The smattering of freckles across his nose gave him a youthful appearance, and Carter noticed a ring of green around the rim of his golden eyes. Before he could stop himself Carter reached up and skimmed his fingertips over those freckles, watching the flush of desire rise in Reed’s face.

“Carter, stop.” Reed blinked and pulled away. “Last time you dismissed me like the maid when we were finished. If we’re doing this, I deserve a full night.”

“You can have the whole fucking weekend; how’s that?” Carter stood and laid a twenty on the bar. “Are you ready to go? ’Cause I’m horny as hell and I’m all for starting the weekend right now.”

Once again, Reed gave him that anxious stare, and Carter cocked his head. “Are you worried about something? You have the strangest look on your face.”

Instantly Reed’s eyes shuttered flat and a faint yet troubled smile tilted his lips for a moment. “No, I’m fine. I’m thinking about how soon I can get out of here without leaving them in a lurch.”

“And that would be…” Carter quirked a brow. “As I see it, we have from now until around three p.m. on Sunday when I go home. I intend to put that time to good use.”

“Um, sure. I’m fine with that. But I need to get a change of clothes and stuff and get my schoolwork from my apartment. Maybe I can meet you back at your room?”

“Have you changed your mind and decided to bail?” It wouldn’t surprise him, Carter realized. Reed’s brain might have finally overtaken his libido and put the brakes on his unorthodox proposal. “Do you want to forget about it?”

“No, not at all.”

The swift response brought a smile to Carter’s face. “Good. Because I have plans for you. I’m not going to reveal what they are right now,”—he leaned forward again—“but I promise they’re very dirty and involve getting naked and wet.”

That glazed expression from their first meeting a month ago crossed Reed’s face again, and Carter knew right then he had Reed hooked. He took out a pen and wrote his room number and full name on a napkin. “Here’s my info. Whenever you’re ready, come over.” Without waiting for permission, he leaned over the bar and kissed Reed, once again falling into the sweetness of his lips and tongue. Hazily, he thought he could get used to this arrangement of theirs very easily with a man like Reed warming his cold hotel bed.

When he walked out of the bar he wondered if Reed’s heart pounded as hard as his. Off-kilter, Carter decided to check on Jacks and make sure he was okay.

“Taxi.” He stuck his hand out and jumped into the cab that immediately pulled up in front of him and gave the cabbie the name of the hotel. He pulled out his phone and called home.

“Carter, what’s wrong?” The anxiety in Helen’s voice rang clear.

“I was about to ask you the same thing. I had a funny feeling all of a sudden and needed to hear Jacks’s voice. Is he around?”

“Of course.” Her voice softened. “I think he misses you too. When we were doing his therapy today he pointed to the picture of the animals in the zoo and said, “I want to see that with Carter.”

His stomach churned. Time and again, Carter kept wondering if he was being selfish in going away for even the once-a-month weekend and voiced his concerns to Helen.

“Does he seem upset that I’m not there? I don’t want him to think I’m abandoning him. The doctor wasn’t sure about his short-term memory, and if you think I should stay home—”

“Carter, stop.”

He halted, a bit surprised at her cutting him off like that. “Yes?”

“I’ve seen how you are by the end of each month. You’re so bottled up inside, you’re ready to explode. No one can ever be there one hundred percent for another person, and it doesn’t mean you don’t love or care about him because you find the time for some self-care. You give everything to Jackson, so there’s nothing left of yourself. I can only hope one day you’ll meet someone—”

“No.” Having heard this argument many times before, Carter smoothly interrupted her. “We’ve discussed this, and I’m grateful you’re telling me Jacks is okay. I’ll make sure next weekend we go to the zoo.”

“I think he’d like that. Now here he is to say hello.”

The cab sat stuck in a traffic jam only several blocks from his hotel, but Carter was grateful as it gave him quiet time with Jacks. It was only a little past nine p.m., Carter realized with a start. No wonder Reed couldn’t leave the bar yet.

“Hey, Jacks, how’s it going, buddy?”

He imagined Helen standing by Jacks’s side with her warm, encouraging smile. The thought of losing her terrified him.

Carter could hear Jacks’s breathing. “Hi. It’s good.”

He expelled the breath he was holding in a soft burst of air.

“I hear you liked the pictures of the animals in the zoo?”

When he first became responsible for Jacks’s care and noticed some obvious developmental problems, he took him to a specialist who said Jacks’s small stature, under-developed muscle tone and learning issues could be caused by any number of things: smoking during pregnancy, drinking or drugs, or a combination of all three. However, without their mother present, it would be impossible to tell. But Carter knew the diagnosis was more than likely correct, remembering his mother’s chain-smoking and penchant for beer. He’d done some research of his own on the internet after meeting with the doctor, and the stories were heartbreaking. The blinding rage toward that woman for putting her defenseless child second to her own selfish needs almost caused him to punch a hole through his computer monitor.

But he shouldn’t have been surprised. This was his mother; the same woman who’d left him at age seventeen when she deemed him capable of taking care of himself, and disappeared. If you couldn’t trust your own mother to take care of you and give you love, who could you trust? No one, he decided, and Carter lavished whatever love he had inside on Jackson. Whatever Jacks needed in terms of therapy and help, Carter made sure to get him. He alone would be the one person Jacks could always rely on and never lose trust in. The two of them didn’t need anyone but each other and would be just fine.

“Yeah. They’re pretty.”

Tears blinded him. This boy had done nothing but be born and ask for love. Carter would make damn sure he’d get it all—at least what he was capable of giving.

“How about you and me go next weekend to the zoo, and we can see them in person?”

The cab pulled up in front of the hotel, but Carter stayed seated.

“Really?”

“Yes. Really. We’ll see elephants and lions. All kinds of cool stuff.”

“Yeah. I’d like that.”

“I’ll talk to you more tomorrow when we have breakfast, okay? And be good and go to bed for Helen.” He blinked away the moisture in his eyes. “I love you, Jacks.”

“Bye.”

There was only a slight chance he’d get an “I love you” back, and Carter wished this was one of those times, but Jacks had hung up. With a pang, he ended the call and paid for the cab, then made his way swiftly through the crowded lobby to the elevator bank, holding back the tears he wasn’t sure were for himself or for Jacks. There was little he could do for either of them to make life better.

Satisfied that Jacks was healthy and as happy as he could be, Carter focused on his upcoming weekend with Reed. He barely noticed the other people sharing the elevator with him; instead he ran over all the things he’d like to do to and with Reed that weekend.

However, he thought as he swiped his card key at the hotel door lock, nothing could be accomplished until Reed got there and got naked, neither of which could come soon enough for Carter. Like the last time, the maid had done turn-down service, and there were several pieces of chocolate on the pillow. Unlike last month, Carter had requested an upgrade to a small suite, all in the hope that he’d be bringing Reed back here and would need an early morning quiet space to have his breakfast with Jacks. He took a quick glance at the clock on the nightstand by the king-sized bed, and seeing it was only 9:20, he knew most likely Reed wouldn’t be there for several hours.

Feeling grungy after all his running around, Carter peeled off his clothes, and leaving them in a pile on the floor next to the bed, walked into the bathroom. Some fifteen minutes later, refreshed and naked under the fluffy hotel robe, Carter lay down on the bed and closed his eyes for a nap, but sleep failed to come as it so often did when thoughts of his mother had taken up residence.

He tossed and turned and even pulled a pillow over his head, but it didn’t help. Nothing ever did. All he could see was himself at fourteen and her face twisted in disgust when she walked into the curtained off part of the living room that was supposed to be his bedroom and found him jerking off to a picture of a boy-band singer. Or how she constantly complained giving birth to him had ruined her life: she could’ve been a model or an actress if only she didn’t get pregnant at fifteen.

When you grew up believing you were the cause of your mother’s problems, you tried to make yourself invisible and not cause any more trouble for her. All you wanted was for her to love you, and if that meant learning to steal cigarettes for her when she ran out, or remaining home alone at night by yourself even though you were afraid, you did it and never complained. You stayed out late when her boyfriends came over so she could have privacy, sometimes sleeping on the back porch because the men slept over and she didn’t want him in the house at all.

But it built a fire in your belly that grew into a conflagration, consuming you and burning away any hope as the years went by. Because the other kids knew something you didn’t and snickered behind your back as you walked by. Or stuck notes in your locker saying,
Your mother’s a whore
.

And you knew as sure as the fact that you’d never lose your heart, that when you became an adult, you’d never let anyone talk or think about you unless it was in admiration of your accomplishments. He wanted people to fear him when he walked by. To feel his power. He closed his eyes, and sleep finally overtook him.

Awakening from a dream where Reed had him naked and spread out on the bed, Carter heard knocking at the door, and his heart thumped strongly while adrenaline buzzed through his body. With his robe hanging partially open, he peeked through the peephole, and a grin tugged his lips upward at the sight of a very nervous-looking Reed bouncing on the balls of his feet as was his habit. He’d changed from earlier and now wore a dark-green sweatshirt under his leather jacket and his golden-brown hair curled damp over his brow, as if he too had taken a shower before he came.

Not wanting to waste another moment of their limited time together, Carter pulled open the door and gave his widest grin.

“Come on in, Reed. I’ve been waiting for you.”

‡

T
he knowing smile
on Carter’s face made him look like the big bad wolf, ready to gobble Reed up and eat him for dinner. No man had ever had this effect on him, not even Mason, whom he’d thought he was in love with. It was why he initially hesitated in accepting Carter’s invitation; but Carter refused to be ignored and Reed shivered, unfamiliar emotions rippling through him.

“Uh, yeah. Sure.” Reed gulped down a breath and walked past Carter, who smelled fresh and clean, like sage and lemon. Reed too, had taken a quick shower before packing up his schoolwork and some clothes. He’d almost reached the subway before he realized he’d forgotten his pills and had to run back home, cursing under his breath all the way. The last thing he needed was to not have his medication with him when he planned on spending a weekend with a man who kept him off balance even when he took it as prescribed.