“Hey, what are you doin’ here?” I call out as I approach.
Carter turns to watch me approach. “Came to see your basket.”
Now I notice James is also holding a basket I haven’t seen before—which shouldn’t be possible, since I’m one of the volunteers who put the baskets together. This one is wrapped in cellophane and tied with Longhorn blue ribbon. Inside, with a Longhorns shirt nestled around it, I see a football with marks all over it. Signatures?
An autographed football.
I put it together at the same time James offers a mild smile and says, “Carter here brought another basket for the auction.”
“Sure did,” Carter says, sounding pretty satisfied with himself.
I don’t even know what to say. I did tell him all about the baskets and what each basket would contain, so I guess he had the information, but he certainly didn’t say he would contribute anything. “That was generous of you, Carter. Thank you,” I tell him.
“It’s well put together, too,” James offers, nodding as he looks over the contents of the basket. “Seems you have a knack for arts and crafts, Carter.”
Carter chuckles to himself and shakes his head. “I can’t take credit for the assembly. I bought the stuff, my rally girl put it together. She has a knack for arts and crafts.”
“Oh, okay,” James returns, nodding. “Well, that’s real nice of your girlfriend to help you out.”
Okay, that’s enough of that. Nodding my head toward the tables before Carter can rise to the bait and kiss my face off right here in front of the assembled members of my congregation, I say, “I’ve gotta walk these tomatoes over here. You wanna follow me?”
Carter allows me to rein him in, thankfully, and he follows me over to the folding table set up with all the fixings. “Are more people supposed to show up?”
I sigh, looking around the empty church lawn. We’ve all done our parts to spread the word about the cookout and basket auction, but so far, the turnout hasn’t been great. As sad as it is, at this point, we would have been better off just giving the woman we’re raising funds for the money we spent doing all this.
“Hopefully more people will show up in the afternoon.”
“How long is this thing going?” he asks.
“We close everything up at four.”
Carter nods, pulling out his phone and checking the display. “Still got some time, then. I’ve gotta run over and pick up Chloe from ballet in a few minutes, but I’ll bring her over and buy her a burger after.”
I flash him a grateful smile. “Thanks. Every little bit helps. It was nice of you to do the basket, too. You didn’t even tell me you were doin’ that.”
“It’s nothing,” he says dismissively. “How does this basket auction thing work?”
“You buy tickets, fill them out with your name and phone number, and then put as many as you want into the canister by each basket you’d like to win. If you win and you’re not here for the drawing, we call you and you can come pick up your prize.”
“Great.” He flashes me a smile. “I wanna buy like $20 worth of tickets for the Longhorn basket.”
“For… the basket you donated yourself?”
“Yep.”
“Why?”
“Because the ball is signed by all of this year’s Longhorns. I wanna buy the tickets for Jake, not myself.”
“Why do you want to buy tickets for Jake?” I ask, not following.
“Because he’s the only one who didn’t get to sign the ball; being excluded will piss him off.”
Amusement bubbles up inside me, but I tamp it down and try to bite back a smile. “That’s mean,” I inform him.
“I’m still gonna do it,” he states. “Where do I buy tickets?”
I shake my head, indicating the other end of the table where the pastor’s wife is seated. “Right over there. Don’t tell her about your extremely unchristian ulterior motives.”
“I’ll pretend to be a good person,” he promises.
After Carter leaves to pick up Chloe, business picks up a little bit. Her ballet school must not be far, because he comes back pretty fast. Chloe comes bounding up to my table, full of energy despite the dance class she just finished. As if she’s not cute enough, today her dark hair is pulled back in a pony tail and she’s wearing a pink leotard with a sheer skirt that bounces and sways with every step she takes. She’s clutching Carter’s hand as she walks this way, and it sends my thoughts to the unprotected sex I’ve had twice with her brother.
Obviously, I hope I’m not pregnant, but I’m aware of the risk. I don’t really want to have kids for probably ten more years, but I don’t know what to do about Carter’s unwillingness to be reasonable. If he were a normal guy, I would refuse to have sex with him until a month has passed and I can get some birth control in my system, or he decides to put a condom on his dick before we have sex. Given he’s Carter, that won’t work. I don’t want to break up with him, I like dating him so far, but I don’t like all the shots he’s taking at my womb.