Finally Ours (Harborview #2)

5. Angela

5

ANGELA

I send my moms a meticulously worded text in which the storm is merely some bad rain, and Carter and I are waiting it out in a cabin that is used as a vacation rental. When I’m done, I turn around and find Carter stripping off his clothes.

He peels off the layers slowly, the rain-soaked fabric clinging to his body. His biceps curl and bunch as he pulls off his long-sleeved shirt and his tanned skin is damp and gleaming in the warm, low light of the cabin. As he starts to pull his final layer up, I see the trail of hair gracing his taut lower abs and trailing into his pants.

I swear my mouth starts to water. Where the fuck did he get a body like that? Doesn’t he spend all his time doing nerd shit like watching birds through binoculars? Why does he have the abs of a Calvin Klein model?

“What are you doing?” I snap, and he stops moving. I have to force myself to look at his face, rather than at his crotch.

“I need to dry my clothes out,” he says simply. He continues tugging the last of his layers off, pulling it up over his head from behind his neck, giving me a full frontal view of his stomach and chest.

He did not have those abs or that chest hair when we were twenty.

“So? Change in the bathroom,” I say.

“That bathroom is too small to change in. And I don’t have anything to change into. I’ll be hanging out in my boxers for the next few hours regardless.” He shrugs, as if to emphasize how much of not a big deal this is.

“It’s different!” I say, because damn it, it is. Watching someone take their clothes off is intimate, especially if they are someone you yourself once undressed.

“How?” he asks.

He starts to undo his belt buckle, pulling the leather free, and for some reason, a vision of my wrists bound by that same belt fills my mind. My heart all but stops when he flicks open the top button in his pants.

“Carter,” I croak.

“How is it different, Angela?”

He pulls his pants down, pushing them just past his crotch, and I see that the “boxers” he was referring to are in fact tight, navy blue boxer briefs. I’m positive that if he turned around, I’d get a glimpse of a tight, muscular ass.

It’s been too damn long since I got laid, clearly.

As if he can hear my thoughts, he turns around, giving me a look at his glorious butt.

“You don’t have to watch, you know,” he says over his shoulder.

I whirl around, my cheeks burning red. “Sorry,” I mumble.

“It’s alright. I’m more than happy to give you a little show,” he says, emphasizing the word you, as if I’m the only person he’s interested in giving a strip tease to. Somehow, this doesn’t make the fact that he caught me blatantly staring any better.

“Sure,” I say, for lack of something else more interesting. It’s probably going to take me the rest of the evening to recover from this.

Not only has it been a long time since I got laid, but it’s been a long time since I even flirted. And Carter is objectively extremely attractive. I chalk my embarrassment up to those two facts, and nothing more.

“So you agree? You’d like a little show?”

“What?” I ask. “No!”

But it’s too late, Carter is already whipping one of his shirts around his head and thrusting his hips. He looks so ridiculous I can’t help but laugh. All of the embarrassment drains out of me as he embarrasses himself just as much, shaking his ass in time to some imaginary song.

We both dissolve into peals of laughter. Carter is laughing so hard he has to stop dancing, doubling over instead.

“When,” I try to say, still laughing. “When did you get so funny?”

“I’ve always been funny. You just stopped letting yourself see it,” he says lightly.

“Oh,” is all I say.

His words sting, but I can’t be angry. Because he’s right—I’ve spent the last seven years trying my best not to notice anything about this man. I’ve done such a good job that I missed out on all of the good qualities he has. He might be a smug, know-it-all bastard, but he’s also funny, apparently. And he has the confidence to pull off such stunts with aplomb.

After all, there are no chinks in Carter Steel’s armor. No holes where someone could worm their way in, knock him back a few steps, make him question himself. Or figure out what he’s really thinking or feeling. Even in high school, when we were friends, I was never quite sure. Mysterious doesn’t begin to cover it.

I suddenly realize that I’m still standing there in his coat, water dripping off of it and onto the floor. I take it off and hang it on a hook by the door. Carter meticulously lays out all of his clothes over the backs of the chairs, and puts his socks on the windowsill to dry.

“Your shirt is damp,” he says, raising his eyebrows at me.

“Not a chance, Steel,” I say. I’ll let it dry while it’s on my body. Besides, his coat protected me from the worst.

I sit down on the edge of the futon, and pull out my phone. But before I can start to scroll, Carter comes over and plucks it out of my hand.

“What the hell, Carter?”

“None of that,” he says. “We need to save our phone batteries until we’re out of here. Unless you’ve got a charger with you.”

I shake my head. “But it’s fine. My phone has plenty of juice left and we’ll be heading back into town later.”

“If we’re lucky,” he says. “There’s no telling how long the storm will last, but I think we’ll be here overnight.”

“Oh my god,” I say. “Dying from hunger with you is not the way I’d like to go.” I also suddenly become keenly aware of the fact that there is only one small bed, but I don’t mention that. That’s a problem for later. “Why can’t anyone from the town come get us?”

“Because this cabin is accessible from the woods only. There’s no road access. There’s no point in someone coming in to get us when they’d have to be on foot, and we’d have to go back in the rain. Neither one of us is injured.”

“Yet,” I say darkly, starting to shiver again.

“We’re going to be fine,” he says. “This is really nothing to worry about.”

“If it’s nothing, why did our friends abandon us here in their haste to get home? They really couldn’t have waited for the rain to pass?”

Carter sighs.

“Don’t patronize me,” I hiss. “I’m allowed to be annoyed at this situation. Not all of us spend half our time frolicking in the woods and cataloging birds. I have a job and a life to get back to.”

“And so do I,” he says in an annoyingly calm voice.

“Why aren’t you more upset about this situation, then?” I demand.

“Because I can’t do anything to fix it.”

His response is annoyingly mature. But it still frustrates me. Why can’t he be weak for one fucking moment? Why can’t he be like everyone else? If he wasn’t so…so… him, I wouldn’t be this annoyed.

“You could try,” I say, pushing him. Because that’s what we do when we’re together: we push and we prod and we annoy until we can get a response. “Instead all you’ve done is give me a strip tease and tell me I’m not allowed to text anyone,” I continue. I know I’m being unfair, but I want to see him crack, just a bit.

“I gave you my coat, Ange!”

Bingo.

“I found this damn cabin,” he grumbles. “I might even share some of my food with you.”

“What? Beef jerky? I’ll pass, thanks. I have standards,” I say sarcastically.

This, out of everything, seems to finally land. He deflates a bit, though I doubt anyone else would notice the change in his demeanor. But I’ve studied Carter Steel for years and I can tell when he’s hurt. I’ve done my fair share of it. It’s all in his brows. If he’s upset, his brows will arch in ever so slightly, as if he’s starting to grimace. It’s barely even a movement this time, just a flicker, but I catch it just the same.

“Carter, I’m—” I start, trying to find the words to apologize, to explain that I was only pushing him, trying to see if I could get a reaction out of him, if there was one tiny chink in his impenetrable armor. But no, that sounds insane. How could I explain that? “I’m sorry,” I say, trying again. “I’m used to being combative with you. We don’t exactly get along well, and we’re never in situations where we have to work together. I fell back into old habits.”

He sits there for a moment, absorbing my words. It’s the most honest thing I’ve said to him in years. But instead of acknowledging that, he just nods once, and says, “Okay.” Then he turns and busies himself with unpacking the rest of his bag.

I’m left feeling hollow and unsure. And wondering how I’m going to survive the next twelve to twenty-four hours with this man alone. While he’s digging around in his backpack and not looking at me, I snatch my phone off the bed, just to see what my moms texted back to me.

But there’s nothing, because I don’t have any service anymore.

I peer outside through the large window. The wind is blowing so hard that some young trees are bent over, and the rain has turned to a mix of slush and snow, falling from the sky in icy blobs. My heart sinks. There’s no chance of someone coming to get us now, so we’ll have to wait it out.

My moms must be a bit worried, especially if Harborview is getting the same storm. I hope my text puts them at ease. My mama, Donna, will be handling this calmly, and will reassure my other mom, Kate, who will inevitably start freaking out. She’ll likely call Cat a million times and ask her why she left me on the island, and that thought makes me smile. I’m still annoyed at our friends for leaving us, even if they truly had no choice.

I lay back on the bed and make a silent promise to myself that I’m going to be polite to Carter, but no more. If his barriers are staying up, then so are mine.