“This place is gorgeous, Carter. Truly.”
Taking my hand, he leads me to the next door. “Let’s check out our room.”
“Your future wife is going to be miffed when she finds out you had sex with someone else on all her things,” I inform him.
“Get in here,” he says, unconcerned about our impossible future as only Carter can be. He’s so accustomed to things working out the way he wants them to, maybe it really hasn’t hit him yet that we have a few more months, but when he comes to this city, he’ll have to come without me.
There have been moments where I thought about suggesting we extend things a little longer. After graduation, technically I could move to New York with him just for the summer, just until I have to start school in PA. The problem is, I think that will make it a million times harder. Even now I can tell these couple of days we’re visiting will haunt me, give me ideas of what could have been that I could have lived without, if only I hadn’t come on this trip.
I had to, though. If someone is going to take me to New York for the first time, it should be Carter.
Living here for the summer would be different, though. It wouldn’t feel like a weekend trip, it would feel like the start to a life I can’t keep living. It would make leaving much too hard, and undoubtedly cast a pall over what should be an exciting milestone in my life when I move to PA to start college.
The master bedroom door swings open and Carter steps inside. I follow him, a bit awed. This is the biggest room, and I have no doubt there are studio apartments in this city with less space. A king-sized bed is already made up in Longhorn colors—a coincidence, I hope, but I don’t know who gave these decorating orders. On the opposite side of the room is a couch, a coffee table, an end table with a lamp, and a television mounted to the wall in front of it. It’s basically a second living room in the bedroom.
That’s not even all there is. Once we’re in the door, I see the wall to my right has a dresser set up with an enormous mirror over it and a silver serving tray with a trio of candles as a centerpiece. There’s art on the walls in this room, and past the dresser is another door. I think it’s going to be the master bathroom, but when I step inside, I see it’s a walk-in closet.
“This place is bonkers,” I say, feeling Carter walking in behind me.
He passes me and keeps walking, running his hand across the smooth surface of the counter in the middle of the room. “I like it. When you’re taking too long getting ready for a date, I’ll come in, bend you over right here, and give you a good, hard fuck.”
“That’ll sure hurry me up,” I offer dryly. “Good thinking.”
He keeps walking, gesturing to the left side. “Your clothes can go over here.” At the end of the closet is a built-in with doors that close as well as some pull-out drawers. He checks out a few of them, then walks around the counter and glances at the racks on that side. “My stuff can go on this side.”
Mean, mean, mean.
Ignoring him, I turn on my heel and quit the closet. I check out the master bath next, trying not to let his commentary pollute my mind, but it’s hard. When he shows me where he’s going to fuck me in the large tiled shower, I’m tempted to take all my clothes off and hop in so we can try it out. When he runs his hands along the ‘his and hers’ sinks where I’ll get ready to go out with him on weekend nights, my mood sinks, because I can see that, too.
After the tour is finished, I return to the bedroom and climb up on the Longhorn blue bedspread. It’s so soft, I just want to lie down and get comfy. We need to unpack my clothes before they wrinkle, but for a moment, I lie back and stare up at the ceiling Carter will look at every night before he falls asleep. Every night when he’s living his life without me.
Carter lies back on the bed with me. Looking over at me and folding his hands over his abdomen, he asks, “What do you think?”
“I think it’s amazing,” I tell him, honestly. “You’re going to love living here. I’m so happy for you.”
“You could move here with me, you know.”
This is not the first time he has mentioned me moving here with him. It’s not the first time he has made the joke that my mom’s right, what do I need college for when I have him to foot the bill? I know he’s only joking and I know he probably really does wish I could move here with him, but after many hours online trying to imagine a new college into existence, I finally accepted that everything in this city is so far outside of my budget, I can’t even afford to think about it.