Where Happiness Begins (Evermore #3)

22. Chapter 22

Chapter 22

“ Y ou done with those fries?”

I don’t give Carter the time to answer before I steal one and chump on it.

“You’re not even done with yours.”

“Yours taste better.”

He rolls his eyes but doesn’t say anything more, allowing me to continue stealing from him.

After we left the recording studio at noon, Carter told me he knew this great spot not far from there and led me to eat the best bean burger I’ve ever had in my life. I don’t know why he knew about this vegetarian place, but I sure am not complaining.

“I like what you did with the strings arrangement today. It was…” My words die out as I notice the expression on Carter’s face, so different from what it was mere seconds ago. It looks as if he’s seen a ghost.

I’ve seen him in a lot of bad moods since we met—from his casual “don’t talk to me” air to answering in grunts or not answering at all. Now that I know him, I mostly notice this level of grumpiness when he’s talking to other people. Even so, I don’t think I’ve ever seen him quite like this. Not even angry or annoyed, but distraught.

“What’s up with you?”

“Nothing.” He shakes his head. “Let’s just go.”

I frown. “I’m not done eating.”

His hand reaches for mine, but I avoid it, not wanting a touch that could trigger memories. “I’ll get you another burger somewhere else,” he says. “Let’s go.”

“Why?”

“No time to explain.” He tries to get me to stand up again.

“Andrew Carter, will you just sit down and tell me what the hell’s going on?”

His jaw flexes, then he quickly looks over his shoulder as if ensuring no one’s listening before he says in a hushed voice, “I forgot something at the studio.”

“Has anyone ever told you you’re a horrible liar?”

He sighs, then runs a hand through his hair. “I think my brother just sat down back there.”

My brows climb to my hairline. “Brother?”

I don’t know why I’m surprised. It’s not like we’ve talked much about our families or our lives outside of the little bubble we seem to have built for ourselves at home. Still, I would’ve thought he’d have brought up the fact that he has a brother—or maybe even siblings—at some point during all the months we’ve spent together.

“Yes. Is that enough for you to agree to leave now? ”

“Why don’t you want him to see you?” I ask, ignoring him. Then I realize my error. Maybe he doesn’t want to hide from him. Maybe he wants to hide me .

“Because Brandon is—”

“Andrew?”

If Carter’s face was tight before, it just turned into a glacier.

I feel helpless as I see the walls erecting right back up around Carter, all those bricks I carefully took out one by one.

“It really is you,” the guy—Brandon, I assume—says as he reaches us. He doesn’t look anything like Carter, with almost black eyes, straw-colored hair, and a narrow jaw. I can see he’s handsome, in this pretty Ken doll way, but he’s got nothing on his brother. “What are the odds? Seeing my brother during a work trip.”

“Hey,” Carter says, the word seeming to physically pain him.

“How are you doing?” Brandon opens his arms wide, and when Carter doesn’t throw himself in them like they’re in some theatrical family reunion, he wraps Carter in a quick embrace, clapping his back twice with a strength that makes me wince.

“Fine,” Carter says, not even bothering to pretend like he cares how his brother is doing.

“You live here now?”

“Yeah.”

Again, I’m hit by how little I know of him. I didn’t even know he wasn’t a Boston native until this moment.

Brandon’s eyes narrow, and I want to disappear as the two men fall silent, the tension nearly unbearable .

Finally, Brandon breaks the stare down, but only to fall on me. “Where are my manners? I’m Brandon. Andrew’s older brother.” I don’t miss the way he emphasizes older as if that makes him superior. “And you are?”

“Lilianne,” I say, shaking the hand he’s extended my way.

I don’t know what else to say, until Carter’s arm wraps around my waist and he adds, “My wife.”

A wave of heat rushes over me, one I’ve been trying my hardest to avoid since the kiss. We moved on since that day in my bedroom, never once bringing it up again, acting as if it never happened, like promised. So long as we keep our distances, I can pretend. My body doesn’t become attuned to his the moment he steps into a room. I don’t have the urge to turn toward his voice like a flower rotates to face the sun. I can forget about it all.

And yet the second he squeezes me against his hard body, claiming me in front of his brother like I’m something he can be proud of, all those efforts go to waste.

Brandon’s head jerks back as if he’s been hit. “Wife?”

Carter doesn’t answer, only squeezing me tighter. And for some reason, it doesn’t feel possessive or defensive, but more like he needs me as a buoy.

I’ll gladly save him from rough waters anytime.

I put my hand over the tense grip he has on my hip. “It was sudden,” I say, smiling like a lovesick fool who had no choice but to marry the guy she fell hopelessly for. “We couldn’t wait to get married and decided to do something small, just the two of us.” Not a lie per se .

I don’t need to hear Carter’s words to feel his relief that I took over the conversation.

“Huh,” Brandon says, looking us up and down. The over-the-top cheeriness is gone, replaced by a coldness that makes me glad for Carter being so close to me. He hisses through his teeth, then asks Carter, “That the reason you left?”

Carter tenses. “Don’t.”

“Don’t what? Keep you accountable for fucking it all up?”

“That’s it, we’re going.” Carter leans over to pick up my purse and strings it over his arm.

“Same fucking Andrew, heh? Running like a coward the second shit gets hard.”

I don’t know what he’s talking about, and frankly, I don’t give a rat’s ass about it. I take a step closer, ignoring Carter’s hand tugging on mine. “I don’t care who the hell you think you are. You don’t talk to him like that. Ever.” I might be half his weight and a head smaller, but he could be a giant for all I care.

Air puffs my chest as I get ready to hand his ass over to him, but once again, Carter pulls me away. “Let’s go. It’s not worth it.”

“Got your girl fighting your battles for you now? New low, even for you.”

“He doesn’t need me to do shit for him,” I hiss in that asshole’s face. “The difference is he actually has someone there for him.” I make a show of looking around. “Where’s your person?”

His nostrils flare. Bingo.

“You’re right,” I tell Carter over my shoulder. “Let’s leave.” But not before I accidentally step right onto Brandon’s toes .

We don’t look back at where his brother curses before we walk out of the restaurant hand in hand.

“I don’t know how you kept your calm,” I say as we sit down on a quiet patch of grass in Boston Common. We walked in silence from the burger joint to here as if we both needed some time to process the chaotic moment that had just happened. The park is full on this beautiful June day, groups of young people playing Spikeball to our left while women push strollers down the path to our right. The weather is perfect, with a cool breeze coming from the water making the heat bearable, the beginning of a promising summer. “I’d have blown a fuse if I were you.”

“I saw that.”

I push his foot with mine, then try to fight the scowl that’s threatening to overtake my face as I think back to how that prick acted. “I didn’t like the way he talked to you.”

The left side of Carter’s lips ticks, the way it does when he’s refraining himself from smiling too big. “I saw that too.”

I groan.

“I underestimated you, Fireball. Or maybe I got it right with that name.”

“I don’t like people attacking the ones I care about,” I say. And that’s the simplest truth. I care about Carter. Even if our marriage is a business arrangement for him, it’s more than that to me. I care for him the way I care for Finn or Lexie, the way I care for Nan. It doesn’t even matter if it’s only one-sided. I can’t lie about it.

“Brandon’s been a dick for a while now,” Carter says. “I don’t mind whatever he says, but I appreciate the sentiment.”

I bring my knees closer to my chest. “What happened between you two?”

The heaviest sigh leaves Carter’s lips. “It’s complicated.”

“I’m sure it is. But I have time.”

I expect him to brush me off. To say he doesn’t want to talk about it and would rather move on from the whole ordeal. And I’d understand, too. I would never hold it against someone not wanting to share whatever haunts their nightmares.

What I don’t expect is for him to start talking. And talking. And talking.

I’d read more about the band online after learning of its existence, even finding some Reddit threads on theories about the band’s breakup, but as I listen to Carter, I realize I had barely scratched the surface.

It’s as if a dam has burst open as he tells me about the band he had with his brother and two of their friends. He doesn’t talk about Fickle like the band that made waves during its years of existence, earning awards and major recognitions, but as the garage project he had with his friends and brother. He tells me how Brandon had this idea for an album and Carter agreed to join, not believing in it at first. How they rose to fame almost overnight, something that shouldn’t have happened and that didn’t allow any of them to adapt to it. How they suddenly had shows and fans and parties with all kinds of excesses. How when he decided to walk away, his brother decided to hate him, and their parents with him.

“They can’t hate you,” I say once he’s done. He might have been difficult to figure out at first, but no one who knows him— actually knows him—could hate him. No one could be indifferent toward his quiet humor or his subtle attentions that add up to so much. He may hide it well, but this man cares. So much so, in fact, that he might not show it more for fear of it not being returned.

“You don’t know my parents,” he says.

“Haven’t had the pleasure, no.”

He turns to me. “You’re not missing anything, trust me. They’re two people who should have never had kids.”

“So that’s why you didn’t tell them about us?” Or the us we’re showing to the world. “Because you’re not on good terms anymore?”

“‘Not on good terms’ is putting it mildly. We don’t talk at all.”

I pull at blades of grass under me, then begin braiding them. “When Brandon showed up, I thought you’d kept me hidden.”

“No,” he says, shaking his head. “Or rather, yes, but not because I wanted to hide you from them. I wanted to spare you from them. You’re so much better than them.” His gaze is lost in the direction of the pond where swan boats are floating all around. “You deserved better than being thrown into that pack of wolves.”

I try not to smile at that. I try very, very hard.

But I lose spectacularly.

The rest of the afternoon slips by as we people-watch and lie on our backs under the setting sun, talking about his childhood and mine, about what he liked about growing up in San Francisco, about what kind of students we were. It’s so easy all of a sudden as if he needed a kick start before being able to tell me simpler things.

Next to us, a girl starts strumming her acoustic guitar with a group of friends sitting beside her, shading their faces as they watch her play.

“Would you ever go back?” I ask Carter.

His head turns to me, cheek brushing against the grass. “To what?”

“Playing. Touring.” With or without his brother.

He shakes his head.

“Not even with Crash & Burn?” I haven’t forgotten that we’re supposed to leave for the “away” part of the tour in less than two weeks. Carter said he wouldn’t come, but I’m still holding out hope he’ll change his mind.

“Touring’s not for me anymore,” he says, not offering more of an explanation.

“Hope you won’t miss me too much when I’m gone, then.”

He hums, then looks back up at the sky. After a pause, he says, “You don’t have to go, you know. The exposure you’ve given the band is already huge.”

“It’s part of our contract.”

“And I’m saying it doesn’t have to be anymore.”

I twist my lips as I study him. “This leg is too big for them not to promote.”

Carter doesn’t say anything .

“No, I’m still going,” I decide. I made an engagement, and I’m not stepping back. Plus, I actually want to experience this. I bump him with my hip. “But thanks anyway for offering. Glad to know you thought the deal was worth it.”

He hums once more, but as we pack up and walk back to the car, I have a feeling I didn’t give him the answer he wanted.