20
FORWARD
Carter
CAN I TOUCH HER? I don’t know if I can touch her.
I keep reaching for her hand, then letting mine hang there in midair before pulling it back, dragging it over my thigh. It’s all clammy, so she probably doesn’t even want to hold my hand anyway. But I want to hold hers.
Olivia’s being a good sport, pretending not to notice how anxious I am. She keeps her eyes trained on the movie trailers in front of us, but every time I look at her, the corner of her mouth quirks as she tries not to laugh.
“I’m so hot,” I blurt, tugging at the neck of my hoodie. I fan at my face. “Are
you hot?”
Amusement dances in her eyes. “No.”
“Oh. Just me then.” Leaning forward, I tug my hoodie over my head, and Olivia grunts as my elbow connects with some part of her body. “Oh fuck.” I shove my hoodie in her lap and stick my face in hers, running my hands over her arms, lifting them, searching for… bruises? I don’t fucking know. Christ, I’m a fucking mess. “Did I get you? Are you hurt? Are you okay? Sorry my hands are so sweaty.” I twirl one in the air, then point to the ceiling. “It’s the heat. I think they’ve got it cranked all the way up. Want me to ask them to turn it down?” I push on the armrests, climb to my feet, and thumb down the row. “I’ll ask them to turn it down.”
Olivia grabs a stful of my shirt and tugs me back down to my seat. “The temperature is ne, Carter. I know you’re nervous, but—”
“Nervous? Me? Psssh.” I wave a appy hand through the air. “Please. They call me Mr. Condent.”
She doesn’t even bother to ght her smile. “Uh-huh.”
I sink back in my seat, knee bouncing as I stare at the screen. This particular theater is relatively quiet considering how busy the place is. Perks of seeing a kid’s movie after they’ve all gone to bed, I guess. Anyway, I kinda wish it was busy. Maybe I’d have something else to focus on other than how fucking nervous I feel.
She’s here. She came, all on her own. What does that mean? Is this a date?
Does she want to, like… move forward? With me? I won’t fuck it up. I’m gonna be so fucking good, and I’m gonna show her how much she can trust me.
“Carter, I—”
“I’m gonna go get snacks,” I half yell, leaping to my feet before promptly tripping over them, catching myself against the row in front of us.
“Are you o—”
“I’m ne,” I call, scurrying down the row. “Snacks. Snacks, snacks, snacks.” I bury my face in my hands the second I burst into the hallway, leaning back against the wall. What in the fuck is wrong with me? She’s, like, half my size.
Why am I scared of her suddenly?
I pick the longest line at the concession stand, relishing in the time alone to screw my head on straight, but by the time I get to the counter I accidentally order so much food, they have to put my candy and chocolate in a popcorn bag so I can carry it all.
“Thanks.” I wrap one arm around the XL popcorn, the other around the bag of treats, and carefully pick up a drink in each hand. “And by the way, it’s hot as balls in theater four. You should maybe think about turning the heat down.”
The kid behind the counter blinks slowly. “We keep all our theaters set at sixty-ve degrees.”
My brows rise as I give him a pointed look. “Yeah. Fucking scorching.”
My heart climbs into my throat as I climb the stairs to Olivia in the back row.
Her eyes shine with laughter as she unfolds my seat for me so I can sit down with my hands full. I place the bag of candy in her lap and she snickers as she peeks inside it.
“This is a lot of food.”
“Yeah, I eat when I’m nervous. And all the time, really. And I remember the day after we met you said you like sweet over salty, so I got chocolate and candy, but we’re at the movies, so we need popcorn too. Do you like popcorn? I didn’t know what you wanted for a drink, so I got a root beer and an iced tea, and you can have whichever you want, or we can split them both if you want some of each and don’t mind sharing germs or whatever, but if you don’t want my germs, then that’s cool, and we can—”
“Carter.” Olivia lays her hand on my arm. It’s soft and warm and all I can hear is my heart. “Take a breath. I love chocolate, candy, and popcorn. I like both root beer and iced tea, so I’m okay with either, but we can share if you’d like,
because I don’t mind your germs. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“Thank you for this. And thank you for the extra-extra bacon pizza last
night.”
“Did you nd the most bacon-y slice?”
She smiles, and I think my heart stops. “I did, but it was hard, because there was so much bacon. My dream come true.”
“I asked them to use the real stu, not the crappy crumble.”
“It was incredible.”
“Okay.” I nod. “Yeah. Good.”
The lights dim, a quiet hum fading to silence that makes my skin crawl as I’m forced to go back to pretending like I don’t want to take Olivia’s face in my hands and kiss her.
I’m someone who gets completely enraptured in Disney movies. My sister and I spent entire weekends laying on makeshift pillow beds on the living room oor, watching every Disney movie in our extensive collection. At nighttime, my parents would cuddle up on the couch behind us, and if we begged enough, they’d agree to let us sleep out there, stay up and watch the movies. I can count the times we made it to midnight on one hand, and more often than not, we woke up in our own beds.
And yet right now I can’t focus on a single thing happening between Anna, Elsa, Kristo, Sven, or Olaf.
By the time we’re a half hour into the movie, Olivia sets the treats down, and I follow her lead, placing the popcorn down too.
I can’t get my knee to stop bouncing, and I’m itching to do something with my hands, namely hold one of hers. Instead, I yank my toque o and plow my ngers through my hair, tugging on the strands.
Olivia reaches out, gently pulling my hair free, bringing my hand down to my lap, where she slowly twines her ngers with mine.
“Okay?” she asks on a whisper.
I stare down at her hand in mine, so tiny, so soft, so fucking warm. Then she gives me a tender smile, and just like that, the frantic race of my heart slows to a steady gallop, the tension in my shoulders dissolving.
“Okay.”
“YOU REALLY THOUGHT OLAF WAS going to die there, huh?”
“He did die, Ollie. Elsa brought him back to life, thank fuck. I would’ve rioted.” I nearly cut o the circulation to her hand by gripping it so tight while I waited, hoping the funny snowman would reappear.
“Can you imagine if Disney movies were as cutthroat now as they were when we were growing up?”
I shudder, squeezing her hand as we step outside. “There was so much trauma back then.”
“But it shaped us. I wouldn’t be who I was if Scar didn’t toss Mufasa o that cli, you know?” She releases my hand, stung her toque over her curls and pulling her oppy-eared puppy mitts from her coat pocket. “Thank you, Carter.
I had a lot of fun.”
“Me too. I’m glad you came.” I rock back on my heels, smiling down at her as she smiles up at me. I don’t want to say good-bye.
She tilts her head down the street. “Um, I’m gonna go grab a tea at the coee shop down the road.”
“Oh. What a coincidence. I was also about to go there and get a tea. Guess we can walk together. Maybe grab a seat at the same table.”
“You drink tea?”
“Never.”
Olivia laughs, and my memory really didn’t do it justice. I wrap my gloved hand around hers as we head down the street, snowakes falling from the sky, clinging to her lashes, the tips of her hair. My own snow angel.
“I guess you’re used to this kinda winter, huh?”
“We got our asses kicked every winter in Muskoka, but they were the most gorgeous winters. Towering, snow-covered pines, and frozen lakes that looked like glass. My brother and I would walk to Willow Beach and play hockey where the lake was frozen solid.” Her nose wrinkles. “But I think I’ve grown too accustomed to these west coast winters, because whatever’s going on lately with this weather is really doing me in. I’m this close to taking Cara up on her oer to nish the season in Cabo.”
“Nah, you don’t wanna do that. You’d have to listen to her and Em have phone sex every night. Trust me, it’s not something you wanna hear. I’ve been subjected to it for way too long on our road trips.” I nudge her shoulder with mine. “Plus, that sounds like a lot of days without me, which would ultimately suck for you. Imagine how dull life would be without my antics.”
Olivia laughs, a soft sound as I open the door to the coee shop. It’s quiet in here, a few people sprinkled throughout, chatting lowly and sipping on hot drinks.
“What do you want?” Olivia asks, pulling out her wallet.
“You’re not paying.”
“I’m paying.”
“I’m paying.”
“You paid for the movies and the snacks.”
“Yeah, ’cause you kicked my ass in beer pong and I owed you a night at the movies. It’s the same night, so it counts.”
“Carter—”
I level her with a look, and it must be charming as hell, because she sighs, tucks her wallet away, and tells me she wants a London Fog Tea Latte.
“Good girl.” I press my lips to her blushing cheek. “Go sit down. I’ll bring the drinks over.”
I bring cookies and muns, too, and Olivia looks at me like I have ve heads when I set everything down on the table.
“What? If you don’t nish it you can take it home with you. Or I’ll eat it. I’m
always hungry.”
“Are you still nervous?”
I shake my head, breaking a ginger molasses cookie in half, sliding the other half over to Olivia. “I don’t think so. Not anymore.” I study her, the slight curl of her shoulders as she plays with her cookie. “But now you’re nervous.”
“A little bit,” she admits. “We need to talk, and normally I’m good at talking but… sometimes I feel kind of foggy around you.”
“Is that because you’re confused?”
“Yes.” She shakes her head quickly when my face falls, touching her ngers to the back of my hand. “Not about the way I feel about you. I just think… I think my mind is always going in two dierent places, thinking about everything that could go wrong, but everything that could go right too. It’s hard to focus, and I get lost in this space in between, where I’m just… scared and confused.”
“I get that.”
“You do?”
I nod. “I think I was thinking the same thing, but maybe in dierent ways. I didn’t know how to step forward, because I’d never gone that way before. And then when I wanted to, you wanted to leave, and it was confusing.” I look down at my hot chocolate, and when I meet Olivia’s gaze again, so much vulnerability shines in her eyes. “I might have been confused about why we were on dierent pages, but I understand your fears. I just wish you would’ve stayed and talked.
We could have tried to gure it out together.”
“We could have,” she says. “But I honestly don’t think it would’ve been eective. I couldn’t wrap my head around what was happening. I think I needed to step away to evaluate my feelings, how fast and strong they came on, and my priorities, though I wish I hadn’t hurt you in the process.” The tip of her forest green nail taps on her mug. “Could we try to gure it out now? Or is it too late?”
“It’s never too late, Ollie. But maybe… maybe we should take it slow. Or try to, at least. You know, proper dates and stu, where you can learn to trust me.”
“I would like that, Carter.”
“Kissing doesn’t qualify as slow, though, in case you were wondering.”
“Oh really? Are we talking innocent pecks or—”
“Tonsil hockey.”
Olivia snorts a laugh, my favorite kind. “That feels fast to me.”
“Well, you have little legs. It makes sense that you think everything I do is fast.
Something for you to work on, I guess.”
Brown eyes roll as she shifts back, slinging one leg over the other and tossing her curls over her shoulder. “And you can work on earning your tongue in my mouth.”
My eyes hood. “A challenge? I love a challenge.”
She hides her smile behind her mug. “And I love watching you lose.”
“Oh, I never lose, Ol.”
“Right. Just at beer pong.”
A growl rumbles low in my chest, and when Olivia snickers into her tea, I
smile.
“I really like you, Ollie.”
Tenderness swims in her eyes as her shoulders drop. “I really like you, too, Carter. Thank you for being patient with me and giving me some time.”
The truth is, I think I’d give her anything she ever needed; all she’d have to do is ask.
And when we nally amble out of the coee shop at midnight, strolling hand in hand down the street, I wonder if she’s what I’ve been needing all this time. It
feels that way.
“Save me a dance tomorrow?”
“You can have as many dances as you like.”
I tug her toque down a little lower, covering her ears. “What if I want them all? I’ve never been good at sharing.” I brush her hair over her shoulder, knuckles skimming her cheek. “You’re not gonna let me kiss you right now, are you?”
“No, I’m not.” She tugs on my coat, guiding my face to hers so she can press a kiss to one of my dimples. “You need to work on your self-control if we’re going to do this slow, Mr. Beckett.”
“Fine, but I’ve never been good with self-control.” I watch as she climbs into her car. “That rule was more of a guideline anyway. And you wanna kiss me too!”
“Of course I do.” She winks. “But I want to watch you lose more.”
