Finally Ours (Harborview #2)

12. Carter

12

CARTER

Angela might have insomnia, but she looks like an angel in her sleep. It’s just past 10:00 p.m. now, but because we started drinking in the middle of the day she’s already passed out on the futon, her hair spread around her head on the pillow, her mouth slightly open.

I can’t help myself—I just stand there in the dim light of the cabin and stare at her.

Her top lip has the most perfect, delicate cupid’s bow, and her bottom lip is full in contrast, making her mouth look like a rose bud about to open up. A smattering of freckle graces her nose and cheeks, one slightly darker than the others, positioned right above her mouth. Her long, brown lashes are fanned against her skin.

I’ve been haunted by her face for years, and I memorized her beauty years ago.

I’m a man obsessed.

I wasn’t lying to her when I said that I’d been cataloging her. But it’s more than that. I’ve been cataloging her in desperation. In my obsession, I’ve had a tendency to latch on to the smallest new thing about her and turn it over in my mind until I have it memorized.

She wore a white shirt to O’Malley’s months ago, and I happened to be there at the same time. For weeks after my brain replayed her walking to the bar to pay on a constant repetitive loop. The swing of her hips. Her heeled boots clacking on the floor. Her hair swept back into a bun.

Was she coming from work? Did she tie her hair back because she had to or because she liked it that way? What would it feel like if I ran my hands through it? Would it be as soft as I remembered? Would she slap my hands away like she used to, telling me not to mess up her curls?

I haven’t been on a date in a year. I went on my last one the week before she moved back to Harborview.

I haven’t been with a woman in a while longer than that.

There’s no point—no one compares to her. And I know it wouldn’t be fair to any other woman, to subject them to my obsession over someone else.

Angela in a white shirt ordering takeout was enough to fuel my fantasies for weeks. Being in this cabin with her for the past two days has been the sweetest torture . I feel like a man stranded in the desert finding a rainstorm. She makes me want to tip my head back and drink her all in.

And when she licked my neck earlier?

I almost didn’t survive it.

I stare at her for a moment longer, and then I get settled down on the floor in my makeshift bed. As I lay there, my mind replays her touching me earlier. The cool feel of the drop of whiskey sliding down my neck. Her hands pressing into my thighs—gripping them. Her tongue, pink and wet, darting out and caressing my skin.

I had to ball my hands up into fists just to keep from touching her, from pulling her in even closer. But I know Angela—she’ll only get scared if I go too fast.

Which is fine. More than fine. Anything Angela wants, I’ll do. Whatever it takes.

But I still should have jerked off in the woods earlier when I had the chance. Because the images flashing through my head—her tongue, her white teeth, her hands, her hair, her hips, her eyes—have my cock thickening and hardening in my pants.

My brain continues to torture me with visions of her, until I finally drift off to sleep, hours later.

I wake up cranky and tired, with a dry mouth from all the whiskey we had yesterday. We drank almost the entire bottle, and definitely forgot to drink any water. By the time we went to bed we were both pretty plastered.

I pull myself into a seated position, and see that Angela is already awake, stretching her arms above her head and yawning.

“Did you sleep okay?” I ask, worried that her insomnia kept her up.

“Not really. I woke up a lot,” she says. “And I had really weird, drunk dreams.”

“Me too,” I say. “Took me a while to pass out after you.”

“Well at least we’re both feeling fresh and rested for our hike back to town today,” she quips.

I laugh, and then stand up and head over to the kitchenette. I make her a black coffee, and myself a tea. I also heat up some of the microwavable rice, so we have something to soak up any remaining liquor in our stomachs.

“We should get an early start,” she says. “I need to go to work tomorrow. We should make sure there’s a boat ready to take us to Mount Desert Island.”

My heart sinks like a stone to the bottom of my stomach.

Right. She wants to get back for work—totally understandable. I’m also supposed to be back on campus on Tuesday for a meeting with my supervisor. But I’ve barely even thought about my PhD over the last few days. I’ve been entirely focused on Angela. And if she wants to get back to Harborview in time for work tomorrow, it means I have roughly twelve hours to convince her to forgive me.

I need to take things up a notch.

“As soon as we’re out of here and I pick up some service, I’ll call around,” I say easily, holding the coffee out to her. “I’m sorry there’s no milk or sugar,” I say.

“How do you know how I take my coffee? I could like it black,” she says suspiciously, and tries to take the mug from me.

But I don’t release my hold on it, instead letting her hands linger on top of mine.

“Because I know you. And I have a long memory—we made coffee together at mine one time. We’d been up all night and you really needed it.” I stroke my thumb along hers, just once, and then I finally release her.

“Oh,” she says. “Well thank you for making it. And for remembering. I’m less picky now that I’ve gotten used to drinking whatever I can find at work. At the end of the night I’m lucky if there’s anything left but black tar at the bottom of the pot.”

“How long are you normally at the hospital?” I want to know more about her day-to-day. It’s the type of thing I’ve rarely, if ever, had the chance to ask her about over the last few years.

“I usually work a ten-hour day.” She shrugs like that’s nothing. “But only four days a week. More if we’re having staffing issues.”

“How often does that happen?”

“A few times a month. But it means I get overtime pay, which is really useful because living in Harborview isn’t as cheap as it used to be. I could save money living with my moms, but…” She wrinkles her nose at this. “I love them, but I’m twenty-seven, you know? I need to have my own space.”

I hate that she’s worried about money. That she’s working overtime frequently, that no one else she works with seems to be dependable. And I could help her—I have the money. I make next to nothing as a PhD student, but my parents are generous, and I basically have the Harborview house all to myself.

“Are you happy being back in Harborview, though?” I ask.

She stayed away for a long time, only coming home on holidays and for a week in the summer. I’m not actually sure why she returned.

“I am. I think, anyways. I don’t know. Sometimes it feels a bit lonely. Especially now that Cat and Jamie are, you know.” She waves her hand to emphasize the point—that they are happily ensconced and intertwined together, now more than ever before.

“They’re sickening, aren’t they?”

She laughs at this, the sound clear and bright, and I realize how long it’s been since I was the cause of that. I want to do it again and again—to make her happy, to make up for the time when I didn’t, when I caused her pain.

“I love them both, but oh my god are they just too adorable. And I don’t think I’ve ever felt that—the way they feel for one another. That deep, unending connection of souls,” she says, voice turning serious.

“I haven’t either,” I say, the lie rolling easily off of my lips.

Because I feel that way for her. But unlike Cat and Jamie, Angela and I have always struggled to be on the same page, and by the time I was ready to face that feeling, it was too late. I’d already fucked it up.

“I’m not even sure I want it,” she says. Her eyes have a far away look in them, like she’s gone somewhere in her head I can’t ever know.

“What do you mean?”

“I think…I think I’d feel like that type of connection demanded too much from me. Like it would ask something from me that I don’t have to give.”

“Whatever it is, I’m sure you have it, Angel.”

She makes a humming noise in response, clearly not willing to elaborate much more. And maybe I’ve overstepped. She’s the only person who gets to determine what she wants.

“Do you want it? What Cat and Jamie have?” she asks, her eyes returning to meet mine again.

“I do, but not like what they have. I want something that’s my own—mine and the other person’s that is. Whoever she ends up being.”

Her gaze shutters at my words, her mind once more lost in that far off place, unwilling to play with me any further. Some people wouldn’t notice Angela’s mask, but I’ve watched one slip over her features every time she’s talked to me for the last seven years. I’m an expert at detecting it.

“We should get going,” she says, still not meeting my eyes.

“Of course,” I say. “But we should eat a bit first. And drink water.”

“And then I should check your leg and change the dressing.”

“Whatever you want, Angel,” I say.