35
BALLS DEEP
Carter
I PLAN ON SOAKING UP every single hour I have left with Olivia before my road series. That’s why I woke her up at the crack of dawn with my head between her legs. That’s also probably why she’s passed the fuck out on my lap right now, not even stirring at the way I keep shouting at my TV.
“Did you get shot again?” Garrett screams into my headset. “How are you so bad today?”
“There’s a hot chick sleeping between my legs!” I shout back.
“She’s always between your legs!” He goes quiet for a moment, and Adam and Emmett chuckle. “Okay, that sounded bad. What I meant was you’ve had her all weekend. Focus on staying alive. You’re bringing the whole team down.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I mutter, navigating my player up a set of stairs.
“That place was loaded with guys two minutes ago, Carter,” Emmett says as Olivia stirs in my lap. “Make sure you—” He lets out a heavy sigh as my screen splatters with blood, my character collapsing after being shot point-blank in the head. “—check. Dude, what the fuck?”
Olivia smiles up at me, blinking her bleary eyes, uttering those dark lashes.
“Beckett? You there?”
Adam sighs. “Olivia must’ve woken up.”
“I gotta go.” I tear o my headset, ignoring the way Garrett shrieks about being in the middle of a mission.
Olivia starts crawling up my body, but I push her down to her back.
“Snack time.”
“Again?”
“I’m always hungry, Ollie, and there’s nothing I’d love more than eating your pussy one more time, then bending you over the couch and fucking you so hard you feel it in your throat. I’d also settle for cuddling.”
It’s highly inconvenient that my front door swings open at this exact moment, the voices of two occasionally irritating women ltering into my house.
Olivia stiens, and I collapse on top of her, groaning.
Jumping o the couch, I spread my arms wide when I spy the three people taking o their things in my front hall, the dog who’s shifting excitedly on his paws, ready to pounce.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I look at Hank. “I thought Ollie and I were going to pick you up for dinner.”
He lifts his palms in an innocent shrug. “Wasn’t me.”
Jennie rolls her eyes, releasing Dublin from his lead. He bounds over, jumping up with two paws on my belly, and I bury my ngers in his soft fur.
“That’s BS and you know it, old man.” She leads him down the hallway. “Mom and you were on the phone plotting this for nearly an hour this morning.”
Mom throws her hands in the air. “It’s not fair that he got to meet Olivia and we didn’t!”
“You can’t just walk in here unannounced!” I shout back, gesturing at the way Olivia’s frantically trying to smooth her hair and clothes. “We could’ve been naked!”
“Carter!” Olivia calls in horror, at the exact moment my mom plants two sts on her hips and growls out, “Carter Beckett!”
Jennie gags. “Ugh. Gross. Not an image I want burned into my retinas.”
“Then you should’ve knocked, because I was almost balls d—”
“Carter!” Olivia shrieks again, slapping a hand over my mouth. “For the love of God, please stop.”
I smile against her palm. “Sorry, pumpkin.”
Hank snickers, reaching toward us. I take his hands, but he frowns, slapping them away. “I don’t want you. I want Olivia.”
She shoves me out of the way with one hip and embraces Hank. “This is so much better than what we had planned.”
Mom approaches Olivia with her arms wide, wearing the most wondrous smile, like she’s discovered life on Mars. “I never thought this day would come,” she cries. “My little boy, all grown up, with a girlfriend!”
“Only took him twenty-seven years,” Jennie mutters, then high-ves Hank.
“Hi, pumpkin pie,” Mom croons, folding Olivia into her embrace.
“Mom!”
“What? That’s what you call her, isn’t it?”
Jennie snorts. Once. Twice. She keels over, slapping her knee. “Pumpkin pie?
You-you-you”—Another snort—“you call your girlfriend pumpkin pie?” Is she crying? “So much for that big, bad fuckboy rep you’ve been rocking all these years.” She’s fucking crying. “I mean, we get it. You love your girlfriend.”
I would talk if I could. Instead I scratch at my nape, my face burning. When my mom releases her from her talons, Olivia gives me a soft, warm smile that makes me feel like she’s lit me from the inside out.
Mom swats Jennie’s shoulder. “Don’t tease your brother.”
“He teases me all the time!”
“He teases you because he loves you; you know that.”
“Yeah, Jen.” Out come the grabby hands. “Just let me love you.”
“Get away from me!” Her gaze slides over Olivia, nose scrunching. “You’re too small to make a decent human shield.” She considers it for all of a split second before she says, “Ah, fuck it,” grips Olivia’s biceps, and ducks behind her.
That might work, except my arms are long as hell, so I wrap them around both of them and crush them to my chest. “Group hug,” I sing out.
They may have cockblocked me, but right now, I’ve got my all-time favorite people in one room, and nothing makes me happier than watching the way Olivia so eortlessly ts in, like she was always meant to be here. I don’t even mind when she tells everyone about the time she shaved her brother’s brows o in his sleep because he broke her hockey stick and carved it into a walking stick, eliciting an evil gleam in Jennie’s eyes as they touch mine, like she’s plotting.
Two hours later when she’s standing next to me grating cheese for homemade pizza, I’m still guarding my eyebrows.
“You fell hard and fast, little brother. Did you hit every branch on the way down too?”
“Huh?” I smile as Olivia throws her head back with a laugh at whatever Hank’s saying. Something dirty, judging by the way my mom smacks his arm. I turn to Jennie. “I’m almost ve years older than you.”
“But your mind is so, so small, fuckboy.”
I ick her ear. “Do your job.”
She does, with as much ourish as I do most things, one foot popped as she sprinkles the cheese over the sauce. “Does she know you wanna marry her?”
“What?” My gaze ricochets between my annoying sister and Olivia.
“I said does she know you’re in love with her.”
I slap a hand over her mouth, wrapping her in a headlock. “Shut up or she’ll hear you.”
She bites the esh of my palm until I release her, cradling my hand against my chest, and when Olivia joins us, I can barely breathe.
“What are you two ghting about?”
“Nothing!” I kinda-sorta shriek. The look I pin Jennie with says she’ll be the one with no eyebrows if she says anything.
“Well, it was supposed to be a surprise, but Carter was telling me he’s nalized the details on horse-riding lessons for us this spring. He thought you’d like to come with me.”
Olivia’s eyes light up. “Horseback riding lessons?”
I can’t believe she’s buying this shit. I give it exactly one month until Jennie tells her the entire thing was a ploy to: A) get what she wanted, which at this moment, are the lessons she’s been dropping hints about since her birthday passed; and B) distract from the fact that I’m in love with Olivia and don’t want her to know yet. Only one month, because I’m impulsive and bad at keeping secrets, so I can’t imagine holding out much longer than that.
Case in point, forty-ve minutes later when we’re at the dinner table, I’ve got her foot tucked between my legs, because apparently I can’t not be touching her.
“We went skating on Capilano Lake last weekend and I beat Carter in a race,”
she proudly tells my family.
“You cheated in a race.”
She hums thoughtfully, chewing her pizza. “That doesn’t seem like something I’d do.”
“It’s something I’d do just to knock him down a few pegs,” Jennie says.
“Carter said you coach your niece’s hockey team and teach high school tness.
That’s so cool! Did you ever dance?”
“Only when I’ve been drinking. I’m not overly rhythmic. I did gure skate for a few years though.”
“She coaches the girls’ volleyball team at school,” I add.
“Did you play too?” Jennie asks, amused.
Olivia nods. “From sixth grade to my nal year in university.”
Jennie folds her lips into her mouth. Her shoulders start quivering, and a tiny snort leaves her nose. I hide my smile behind my palm, staring down at my plate as I try not to laugh.
Olivia’s gaze bounces between us. “What?”
“It’s just…” Jennie jerks forward as a small laugh escapes. “I mean”—snicker —“can you even”—she covers her mouth—“reach the net?” She bursts out laughing at the exact moment I do, both of us folding over the table.
Olivia’s eyes narrow as she pins her arms across her chest. “Oh, I see. You two Beckett children are one and the same.”
“Assholes?” Mom guesses. “Yeah, blame their father, not me.”
“Be nice to your girlfriend, Carter,” Hank calls from across the table as he slips a piece of pepperoni to Dublin. “Or she won’t let you try any of the fun stu from the book we’re reading.”
It takes me a solid ve seconds to fully register the weight of his words, and by then, Olivia’s already choking on her food.
“Hank!” I scream, rubbing Olivia’s back.
“Uh-oh,” he murmurs. “Dublin, I’ve fucked up again.”
I’VE LOST MY MIND. THAT’S the only logical explanation as to why I’m currently listening to Olivia’s principal go on about how much he loves when Cara visits.
I saw Olivia three hours ago when she kissed me good-bye from her bed, where we slept last night so she could get up early for work. I promptly passed
out for another hour and a half, woke up, devoured most of her kitchen, then ordered groceries because I felt bad.
I’m still not ready to say good-bye to her for the next ve nights.
“I was young once,” Ray’s busy telling me. He told me to call him Ray. “You two seem quite close based on the pictures over the last two weekends.” He wags his brows, which is kinda weird; he’s Olivia’s boss. Also, I’m slightly concerned about that last comment.
“Is that a problem? The pictures of us? Kissing?” Fuck, I never thought of that.
He waves me o as we stop outside the gym doors. I can see Olivia in there, surrounded by a bunch of boys that tower over her, even on a day she’s chosen to wear heels.
“Olivia’s personal life is her own. She’s perfectly entitled to have intimate relationships; it just so happens that hers is photographed. She won’t be punished for that, so long as everything stays legal and respectful.”
“Legal and respectful; got it.” Sounds easy enough, but I’m maybe a wee bit feral when it comes to loving on Olivia. I’ll have to make a conscious eort to keep it PG when we’re out and about.
“The kids around here love her, and it’s no secret she hasn’t exactly had it easy, being relatively close in age to them. Many of them see her as a friend, someone they can conde in. I’d say she’s gotten a bit more ack since you two took your relationship public, but Miss Parker knows how to handle those kids.”
I stie a laugh. Handle them she does; see the kid she threatened to put in the ground for calling her a puck bunny.
“Thank you for walking me down here. Olivia always talks about how much she loves working for you.” Those words have never once left her mouth, but Ray’s face lights, so I know I’ve done my due diligence as a boyfriend.
I slip through the door, leaning against it before it can close as I watch her work. Sometimes I learn the most interesting things about her when she doesn’t know I’m watching.
The volleyball net is up, and Olivia’s got a ball on her hip, clipboard in her free hand, while a few of the boys fuck around with balls.
“All I’m saying is if you’re embarrassed, say so, Miss Parker.” A blond kid bounces a volleyball three times before tossing it toward the basketball net, where it bounces o the rim. “If you’ve been talking yourself up all this time—”
“I have not been talking myself up,” Olivia replies with disinterest, setting her ball down and making some notes on her clipboard. “I don’t want to embarrass you. Wouldn’t want to fracture that male ego of yours. I know how sensitive
they can be in the teenage years.”
“I’m eighteen. I’m a man.”
“Right. How could I forget?”
“You always say you can play, but you never show us,” another boy starts. “It kinda sounds like you’re making it up.”
“You are not goading me into playing with you.”
Mmm, Olivia is 1,000 percent easily provoked, so… “Look, if it’s because you’re short—”
She smacks her pen down on the clipboard and xes the boy who’s still talking with a look so dark I’m scared from all the way back here. “Seriously?
The short comments? Again?”
Uh-oh.
She tears the ball from his grasp and starts stalking toward me, head down while she mutters to herself. “Stupid freaking short jokes. So freaking tired of them. I get it, my legs are tiny. Ha-ha.”
I bite back my laugh, slinking farther into the shadow of the doorway, watching my girl kick o her heels and sink three inches closer to the ground.
She spins toward the net and bounces the ball while she speaks. “I’m only doing this once, so make sure you’re watching.”
I don’t think that’ll be a problem. These boys are riveted, as am I.
She spins the ball in her hands before bouncing it. On the third bounce, she catches it, tosses it ridiculously high, takes three massive steps forward, leaps into the air, and… Smashes that damn ball straight across the gym, sending it slamming o the opposite wall and rolling right back to her, while the boys lose their fucking minds.
“Hope you got that on camera to remind you why you don’t mess with me.”
I have to remind myself I’m in a high school, so blatantly adjusting my junk is maybe not the best idea.
“Holy shit. That was unreal.” I walk toward them, gesturing at Olivia, registering the look of shock on her face. “That’s my fucking girlfriend, gentlemen!”
“Carter!” Olivia drops the ball, running over on her bare feet. “What are you doing here? You saw that?” She wraps her arms around me, stung her face into my chest. “Now you can tell everyone to stop with the short jokes.”
Given the high she’s riding right now, I feel bad telling her that’s unlikely, so instead I tell her, “I’m so proud of you, pip-squeak.” I drop my lips to hers. “I had to see you one more time. I hope that’s okay.”
A devious grin ignites across her face as she looks toward her students, every one of them frozen in place, jaws dropped. “You just earned yourself a teaching spot in third period senior boys’ tness.”
“That’s cool. I’m good at telling people what to do, and I get to spend a little more time with you before we’re separated for a hundred and twenty-seven hours. Not that I’m counting or anything.” I press my lips to her ear as she slips back into her heels. “You’re so sexy in this teacher outt.”
“You saw me this morning in this exact outt.”
“Yeah, but I was half-asleep, and you just rocked this entire gym. Now I wanna peel it o you but make you keep on the shoes.” Before I can make good on that threat, I clap my hands together. “All right, gentlemen, welcome to gym time with Mr. Beckett.”
Nabbing Olivia’s clipboard o the ground, I ip through the notes, clicking my tongue against the roof of my mouth.
“Ah, here we are. First order of business… which one of you called Miss Parker a puck bunny last Monday?”
“I’M BORED. WANNA GO BACK to the room and play Xbox?” I’ve eaten two pounds of wings and a plate of nachos and crushed a pitcher with Adam. I’ve been propositioned exactly zero times, because as soon as a woman takes a single
step in my direction, I hit her with a scowl so erce she dashes away. I’m ready to go.
“Come on.” Standing, I take out my wallet and throw down a couple bills.
Adam and Emmett start to do the same, but Garrett, who’s got a petite blonde at his side wearing his jersey and whispering in his ear, looks absolutely horried.
“You can stay, of course, Gare-Bear.”
“But I… you… ugh.” His head falls backward with a groan, and he whispers what I assume is an apology in the girl’s ear before disentangling himself from her limbs.
The bar is a two-minute walk from the hotel, and by the time we reach the elevator, Garrett’s adjusting himself for the third time. “You being in a relationship is killing my sex life, you fucking turkey.”
“You have bigger problems if your sex life relies on me.”
“It doesn’t rely on you, I just… it… Fuck you.” He checks me into the wall when we step into the hallway. “You’re obsessed with your girlfriend.”
“Yes.”
“All you wanna do is go back to the room and talk to her on the phone and tell her how much you miss her and how you can’t wait to kiss her and fuck her and cuddle her.”
“Also yes.” In that order. And then on repeat.
Emmett chuckles as he kicks his shoes o inside the room. He tears open a bag of Rues All Dressed chips and ings himself across the couch, shaking his head.
“What are you laughing at, dickhole?” I shove my hand in the bag and steal a handful of chips. We had to bring these from Vancouver. They’re hard to nd in the States and trust me when I tell you if you nd them, you’ll be sorely disappointed. They’re not the same; it’s a fucking travesty.
“Do you remember the night before you met Liv?”
“No.” I’ve blocked out my life before her.
“You kicked some girl out of our room in near tears because she wanted to stay the night, and said you’d never settle down.”
“She didn’t just want to stay the night. She wanted to move to Vancouver and make my home her home.” Fucking Lauren. Or was it Lisa? I don’t know, but
the night’s coming back to me, that’s for sure. “And I didn’t say I’d never settle down.”
“Right. You said the day somebody walked into your life and ipped your world upside down would be the day you’d settle down.”
“Mmm.” Delicious chips.
“Look at you now.” It’s Adam this time, gesturing at the phone I’m checking for the third time. “Can’t tear your eyes o your phone when you’re forced to
spend some time away from your girl.”
“It’s almost six full days,” I mumble.
He chuckles. “It’s ne.”
“It’s lame,” Garrett corrects.
“We’re just saying… the day has obviously arrived.”
Yeah, no shit. The day arrived in mid-December when I rst laid eyes on her, when she rolled her eyes and did that cute snicker-snort thing, then basically told me to go fuck myself.
Regardless, I’m saved from the conversation when my phone vibrates, Olivia’s face lighting up my screen. Before I can answer it, Garrett swipes it and throws himself on the bed.
“Hey, Livvie.” He kicks his legs, chin in his palm. “What’s up, girl?”
I scream, throwing myself on top of him, because what if she’s naked? She was last night, but then again, she knew I was alone. Still, I don’t want anyone to see her. Ever. Never ever. Mine.
Emmett plucks the phone from the middle of our ght and settles back on the couch. “Hey, Ollie.”
“Oooh,” she marvels. “Are those All Dressed? I haven’t had those in years!”
Shoving Garrett o me, I crouch behind Emmett and smile at Olivia. She’s not naked, thank fuck. She is, however, wearing my T-shirt, wet hair leaving drips and drops down her neck and on the gray material, and that does things to me, things that make me grab between my legs.
“I used to lick all the seasoning o before I ate them,” she goes on.
My gaze hoods. “I’ll buy some for Saturday night.”
“Ah, for fuck’s fake!” Garrett throws his hands in the air. “How do you manage to ruin chips for me?”
I yank my phone away and op down on the bed. “I miss you, Ollie girl.”
She’s sitting up in bed, blankets pooled around her waist, and I think she’s on her laptop, based on how much of her I can see. Those cheeks tint pink and I wonder if she’ll always blush. I hope so. “I miss you, too, Carter.”
“Ah-ah,” I tsk.
Rolling her eyes, she hus a sigh. “I miss you, too, sexiest man alive.”
“That’s better,” I say proudly while everyone else groans.
“Care and I had everyone over for dinner and the game,” she tells me.
“Everyone?”
“Your mom, sister, and Hank.” She snickers. “He was bragging about being the only male invited to girls’ night. And Dublin wouldn’t get o my lap all night. I accidentally let him lick my ice cream bowl during the third period, so now I’m his favorite.”
The hold Olivia has on my family squeezes my heart. “Thank you for inviting them.”
“You don’t have to thank me. I like spending time with them.” She grins, staring down at her phone before she holds it up to me. Carter, what’s this?”
“What’s—oh. That.” I grin, extra proud. “Just me making sure nobody can spin a web of lies. If my hands are in the air, there’s no fake gossip about who I might be touching.” The title of the article she’s scrolling through basically says as much: “Carter Beckett wants the world to know: he is OFF-LIMITS, ladies!”
I maybe, potentially, have been making a conscious eort to throw my hands above my head and smile at whatever camera ashes my way whenever girls have tried to talk to me this week.
Olivia shakes her head, laughing. “Could your grin be any prouder in this picture?”
“What can I say? Letting the world know I’m yours makes me happy.”
Garrett chucks a pillow at my head. “Get a fucking room! Nobody cares how balls deep in love you two are.”
Adam reaches for my Oreos on the table, but frowns and crosses his arms when I shoot him a look. “Seriously, how long are you two gonna dance around the words we all know you’re dying to say?”
“Give them a break.” Emmett ops down beside me, smiling at Olivia, and
I’m grateful for the distraction.
Until he keeps speaking.
“Carter’s still coming to terms with the fact that he loves someone more than himself and Oreos. Ollie’s struggling to admit to herself that she’s in love with the world’s most arrogant, controlling, annoying man. It would be impossible for anybody to wrap their head around such a mind-blowing scenario.”
