He shrugs. “She should have known better than to fuck with me. I warned her more than once. At a certain point, you have to act or no one believes you anymore.”
“So, you framed her. Just to scare her? What happens when the drug test comes back clean and she’s back on the squad this week? She’s gonna be pissed.”
“Who says she’s going to pass the drug test?” he asks, rhetorically.
“She’s not doing drugs. Your rewording of my question said as much.”
“She won’t be back on the cheer squad,” he says, simply. “She’s done. Suspended for the rest of the season, just like her buddy Jake.”
“I got Jake suspended because he was sexually inappropriate with me. He violated actual codes of conduct. That’s not the same thing,” I tell him.
“Erika cost me you,” he says, simply. “That’s a good enough reason for me.”
In a twisted way, that’s kind of sweet. Still, my better intentions win out and I tell him, “I don’t want this. I appreciate the gesture, I think, but I don’t want or need you to take her down to punish her for showing me the video. It was a bitchy thing to do, but—”
“It’s too late now,” he assures me. “She’s off the squad. She’s done.” His arms tighten around my waist. “I don’t want to talk about her anymore.”
“Don’t go after anyone else. Please,” I add, shooting him my best puppy dog eyes. “Stop being destructive.”
Gazing at me with a gleam of mischief in his eyes, he asks, “What’ll you give me for it?”
“Why do I have to give you anything for it? It’s not for me.”
“You want to be a defender of the people, you pay the piper.”
“Fine. I’ll go to homecoming with you,” I offer. I gave away my dress money, but I could probably find something at a thrift shop, or maybe borrow a dress from Grace. I know she doesn’t want to wear the dress she wore last year, but I kind of liked it. Maybe I could give her some money for that one, then she could use the money toward a new gown for this year.
Carter shakes his head. “A big ask demands a bigger payment than that. Homecoming, stay the night with me tonight, and promise you’ll still go to New York with me after state, no matter what happens between now and then.”
Immediately suspicious, I narrow my eyes. “You mean no matter how many other girls you sleep with. No, I won’t agree to that.”
Giving my side a light squeeze, Carter remarks, “For someone who supposedly doesn’t want to be part of it, you are very concerned with my sex life.”
“I’m prepared to do homecoming and I can probably stay the night tonight, but that’s it. New York is not on the table.”
“Then I don’t stop terrorizing your friends,” he says, simply. “New York is non-negotiable to me. It’s what I was working toward all along. If New York is a no, it’s open season. I can do whatever, because I’m not going to get what I want at the end of the day anyway.”
“Why are you so set on me going to New York with you?” I ask, shaking my head.
“I told you I’d take you there. I know you want to go. When will you go, if not with me?”
I have no answer to that. “I can’t afford to go on an impromptu trip to New York, and it’s not right to expect you to pay my way when I’m not even your girlfriend.”
“Money is not your issue,” Carter states, dismissing my smoke screen. “Sex is your issue. You immediately dumped me when you thought I might’ve been with someone else, and now you’ve decided your feelings for me dissolve if I sleep with anyone else, even though we’re not together. You don’t want me if my dick gets hard for anyone but you. This is your possessive side coming out, doesn’t have a damn thing to do with money.”
“Fine, maybe it is,” I admit. “You don’t want anyone else touching me either, do you? I’m not alone in feeling that way.”
“The difference is, I’m not asking you to be celibate; I am happy to fuck you any time you want it. The road doesn’t go both ways. You make me bargain for sex. I have to wreak havoc in order to get you into bed, and then I have to budget our encounters so I don’t use them all up at once. All you have to do is shoot me a text. That doesn’t work for me. You are the only one I want to fuck, but if you’re not on the table, you can’t expect me to turn into a monk. That’s not going to happen.”
An ugly kind of fury burns through me at the thought of another girl in my place, of him kissing, touching, burying himself inside anyone but me. I don’t know what to do about it, but I don’t want that to happen. I especially don’t want it to happen unexpectedly and then be something I find out about later.