Even though I’d asked myself that same question over and over for the last year, I still had no answer. “I don’t know. I’m sorry, Carter.”
After a few tense minutes, Carter spoke. “Are you hungry? Do you want to order something? Or do you want to get some sleep? You must get up early to work the shuttle.”
“I’m actually really tired.”
“Okay. So let’s get some sleep.”
I looked around the apartment, oddly unsure of what our sleeping arrangements would be, even though we’d just been intimate in the car. “I can sleep on the couch if you want. You can have the bed.”
Carter walked to me, he lifted my chin so our eyes met. “I’m confused about a lot of things that have to do with us. But wanting to share a bed with you is definitely not one of them. If you’re good with it, I’d like nothing better than to sleep next to you again.”
“I’d love that.”
His hand at my chin moved to cup my face, and he leaned down so that our noses were almost touching. “And another thing. When we wake up, I plan to fuck you on that bed we’ll be sharing. Only this time, it won’t last two minutes like it did in the parking lot.”
I swallowed. “I’d love that, too.”
“Good. Now let’s get you some sleep. Because you’re gonna need it.”
CARTER AND I WERE sitting on the rooftop deck next to an electric heater that doubled as a light post. It was a little after midnight, and I was curled into him on the wicker couch with a blanket over us. He hadn’t been kidding around when he’d said that the second time we were intimate, it was going to last more than two minutes. After an hour and a half nap, we spent three hours going at it in my bed. I was sated and content as he stroked my hair, and we both stared up at the stars.
“I met your mother.”
Well that got my attention. Surely, I never expected those words to come out of Carter’s mouth. I pulled my head back to look at him. “Did you just say you—”
“I met Annabelle.”
“Where? How?”
“I went to Dallas after I found out that the baby wasn’t mine. I needed to see you.”
“How did you get the address?”
“It’s not hard to find people on the Internet, Kendall. I mailed her a letter, and she never responded. My therapist told me I needed closure, so I decided to take a chance and went to the address that I’d sent the letter to.”
There was so much in that answer that I had more questions about. Therapist? Closure? But my curiosity about dear old mom won out. “What did she say to you?”
He shrugged. “Not much. She basically said she didn’t know where you were and insinuated you left her destitute.”
“I sort of did. My lifestyle wasn’t the only one to drastically change by the decisions I’ve made. I was selfish in making my choices.”
Carter grew angry. “Fuck that. You weren’t the selfish one. She had no right to expect you to go through with that crazy clause your grandfather put into his will. When I thought there was a chance I could be a father, at first I did a lot of thinking about what that would mean for me. Then one day I was standing at the front of the plane greeting passengers and a couple boarded with a baby. I didn’t know them, but I looked at that little screaming blue-eyed monster and realized how it affected me didn’t matter anymore. I wouldn’t have much to give my kid, but I would give him the best of me no matter what. Anyone can father a child, but a good parent puts a child’s needs before his own. A parent should be selfless, not selfish. What your mother expected you to do was selfish. She should never have pressured you.”
“Wow. It sounds like you were really prepared for that baby to be yours.”
“I don’t know about that. But I decided if that’s the way it turned out, I was going to give him my all.”
“Him. She had a boy?”
“Yeah.”
It was dark, but I saw pain in Carter’s eyes. “It hurt you when you found out he wasn’t yours, didn’t it?”
He nodded. “I didn’t expect that. But, yeah, it did. As much as I didn’t want to have a baby with her, I’d somehow started to care for the unborn child.”
I lifted to my knees to look him straight in the eyes. “You’re an amazing man, Carter Clynes. Someday you’re going to be an incredible father.”
THE NEXT MORNING came too quickly. Even though I didn’t have to be at work until the following day, Carter had an afternoon flight, and he still had to get back to New York before that. I found myself looking at the time every few minutes while he was in the shower. When he came out with his airline-issued pilot’s shirt and pants already on, rather than in the towel I expected to see him in, I was disappointed.