Chapter 18 – Carolina
Saturday morning comes in nice and gently at first. I wake up so lazy and well rested, having been emotionally and physically exhausted.
I had turned off my phone and alarm so I could sleep in since I don’t have to work today. I’m thankful that despite the sun shining through my rather thin window curtains that I’d been able to sleep in on the one morning I’d allowed myself to do it. Ever since I had stopped hiding under the covers in the depression that had resulted after Jake divorced me, I usually tried to be an early riser, but I really needed some extra sleep.
As I wipe my eyes to adjust to the light, I glance over at my bedside clock, and see that it reads 11:00. Shit. I didn’t need that much extra sleep.
I jump out of bed thinking there’s no way that could be the time. My clock must have stopped. After all, I’d had it for a really long time— since high school. There’s no way I had slept in until eleven.
I grab my cell phone on my night stand to check, and there it is. The same time still blinking at me on here as it was on my not-so-broken clock. Not only is it after eleven o’clock, but there’s also a slew of texts. Garrett has been texting me all morning.
I have a first-thing-in-the-morning conversation with myself.
Okay, Carolina. No, no… this isn’t happening. I need my coffee for this.
I jump out of my bed, pull my curtains wide open, and there’s the twelve-year-old peeping Tom gawking at me in my tank and thong. I flash him and give him the finger. I’m in no mood.
After a very strong cup of java, I brace myself for the messages. The first reads:
I can’t get you out of mind. I thought once was enough, but I’m thinking of you even more than usual. Will you please text me back?
I can’t believe I can have this much power over the firm rebel. I imagine Garrett sitting alone with his phone all day, trying to get a hold of me. Erin tells me that women call him all the time, that they try the office when he ignores their cell phone messages. They want his time, they want sex, they want dinner by Saturday— and here he is texting me instead.
I’d told Erin that the few times I’ve answered Garrett’s calls in his office, there hadn’t been much of that, and she’d said it’s because he’s really falling for me. He’s cut off contact with the other women. But can it be true?
Text two read:
Listen, we need to talk. Are you ignoring me on purpose?
There were more like it, that had come throughout the morning. I turn my phone off, choosing to escape to a good movie at the theatre instead. I had known in my gut that the intensity of what was happening between us wasn’t going to be solved with one momentary sexual encounter.
My instincts had told me that, and I’m sure he knew it too, but we were so physically compatible that neither of us could listen to instinct. It would prove disastrous at some point, I was sure of it. But for now, I was going to hide in a dark theatre.
Monday would come soon enough, and it would certainly be the end of my job. Truly, the way he was reacting, I might not even have a job, but I push the thought from my mind.
I want to take things further with him, but I’m afraid of where we’ll end up. I have a tendency to be too negative and let my mind run away with worse case scenario type thinking.
I can’t stand to think of all the awful things just yet. I want just one weekend to savor what just happened, and wonder what might happen next, without worrying about what will ultimately happen. Because just as Ruby and Madilyn and Katie had warned me, these things rarely turn out well. Sure, their own situations turned out well, but I’d be naïve to think that my story could have a happy ending too.
Garrett might think he’s super into me, but once we have sex it will end right there. And I don’t want that to happen yet. I just want to enjoy what we have for the short amount of time that we have it.
Or am I just telling myself that because I’m afraid of the truth?
I’m afraid to admit that I’m falling in love with him, and that it seems he’s also falling in love with me?
Because what if I’m wrong? I just need to watch this movie and turn my brain off. Or else it might explode like my synapses did when Garrett went down on me in his office.