Carter is still wearing jeans, but before he came to pick me up, he changed into a black button-down shirt, since he had the advantage of knowing where we were going. The sleeves are rolled up to his elbows since it’s hot outside, and the pronounced veins in his strong, lean arms… well, they do things to me.
My cheeks warm up since I’m caught, but I don’t back down when he smirks at me. Instead, I shrug. “What? You’re gorgeous. This isn’t news.”
He smiles and leans back a step, wrapping his arm around me and drawing me against him so he can give me a kiss.
“Well, well, well, look what the cat dragged in.”
I break away and turn, startled, at the sound of a woman’s voice. A stunning woman with dark hair and classic red lips stands there smiling as she looks from Carter to Chloe. Chloe climbs back down and runs the short distance to throw her arms around the woman.
“Hi, Caroline,” Chloe greets, squeezing her.
“Hey, baby,” the woman offers back, reaching a hand down and rubbing Chloe’s back.
“Carter said I can have pudding,” Chloe informs her.
“For dessert,” Carter reminds her.
“And he said we could have dessert first,” Chloe adds, optimistically.
“That’s not true,” Carter states.
Caroline grins. “She gets that from you, you know. You can’t even be mad about it.”
Given my earlier line of thoughts, I want to jump on that and pry, but before I can, Carter intervenes, telling Chloe to sit back down. Then he rests his hand on my hip and tells his sister, “Caroline, this is my lovely girlfriend, Zoey.”
“Girlfriend?” she asks with interest, looking me over before extending her hand. “Well, how about that? It’s nice to meet you, Zoey. You must have jumped through some high hoops to lock my little brother down. He’s a handful, this one,” she adds as she drops my hand, in case I didn’t already know.
“Oh, I know he is,” I assure her. “Don’t worry, I can handle him.”
“Most of Carter’s lady friends don’t get introductions, so I believe you. You two go to school together?”
I nod my head. “We’re in the same history class.”
“Are you a cheerleader?”
“God, no.” The words tumble right out before I can think better of them. I don’t know Carter’s sister, but since Carter is on the team, maybe she was a cheerleader in high school. Attempting to backtrack so as not to offend her, I add, “Not that there’s anything wrong with cheerleading. I’m just not a big fan of having more eyes on me than necessary. I’m not really the cheering on the sidelines type, I’m more the… stay home and read type.”
Caroline’s eyebrows rise like that’s the last thing she expected to hear. “Really? Not a social butterfly, huh? How did you and my brother meet again?” she half-jokes.
“It was an accident of fate,” I assure her. “I’m not his type.”
“You are now,” Carter assures me, putting slight pressure on my back to urge me toward the booth. “Anyway, I introduced her to Mom and Dad this morning and it did not go well. I thought I’d show her we’re not all assholes.”
Chloe shakes her head and passes him a pack of crayons wrapped in plastic wrap to open. “You owe me a dollar, Carter.”
Taking the pack and ripping it open, he tells her, “You already spent your dollar on cookies, rugrat.”
“You used a adult word,” she tells him, eyebrows rising. “You owe me another dollar.”
“You should really just give her a twenty and tell her it’s a down payment,” Caroline offers. “That’s what Chris does when we watch her. He knows he’s going to fail to clean up that dirty mouth, so he just forks down his penance and gets it out of the way.”
Chloe looks at me. “I make a lot of money off the boys.”
I bite back a grin as I slide into the booth across from her. “I bet you do.”
“I’m saving it up. I’m gonna buy a pony named Lucy and put a unicorn horn on her,” Chloe tells me.
“That’s not going to happen,” Carter informs her, sliding into the booth beside her.
“Yeah, it is. I’m gonna have a pet unicorn. I just have to save up a lot of dollars.”
“That wouldn’t be a unicorn, it would be a pony with a weird hat,” Carter tells her. “Why don’t you aim a little lower? Start with a pet fish.”
“I would name it Sharky,” she announces. Then she nods, already sold on the idea. “Okay, I want a pet fish. Can we go get one today?”
“You’ve gotta save up your money first,” he tells her, passing me a menu. “You’ll have to buy it a bowl and fish food.”
“Can it go places with us? We should get it a cage, like a dog. But that water will stay in, so we can bring Sharky.”