Chapter 22 – Brad
All good things came to an end. I had known this would happen, but now that it was here, I was sad. A part of me wished that I could keep Carly with me for longer. But I had a feeling that she’d had enough of my life of fame and fortune. She had told me that it was overwhelming, and I had noticed her struggle with it.
The girls had done their best to help her through it, but transitioning from not speaking at all and living in a small town to living together in the lap of luxury wasn’t easy. I had to give her a break, not push her too far. Still, I had loved having her with me. I hoped we could do it again.
We had woken up together again, gotten ready, and headed to the airport to make our flight. We hadn’t had a lot of time together. After the weekend, you would think I’d had enough, but I didn’t think I would ever have enough of Carly.
We headed back to Laramie from Denver International Airport after our flight landed. The weekend in Miami with Carly had been magical, but it was time to go home. A part of me wanted to get away from the crowds and have her alone and all to myself again, but I was sad that it had come to an end.
I had liked Carly being in my home, in my room, in my bed. I had liked pretending we were so much more. Hopefully, one day, we could be.
I glanced at Carly, who was looking out of the passenger window. The scenery slid by as we sped toward Wyoming, and it was beautiful, but I didn’t think she saw much of it. We weren’t talking, and she seemed in a daze.
Carly had been quiet since she’d woken up. We had both been a little hungover after the night with wine and friends, and I had assumed it was about that. The drive to the airport had been strained, and on the plane, Carly had put on earphones.
I knew her well enough to know that her silence meant something was wrong. When she was in a good space, she was talkative, her eyes sparkled, and her face lit up. Now, she was dulled and quiet.
I had hoped she would be on the same high as I was. Everything had gone well this weekend. There was no reason for her to be down, was there? Even the bad publicity had blown over, replaced by the success of the charity event.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
She turned her head to me, her blue eyes glistening. “I’m okay,” she said.
“That wasn’t very convincing,” I said. “Are you sure?”
She nodded, but as she looked at me, her eyes welled with tears. Carly was crying. I couldn’t remember when last, I had seen her cry. Carly was the type of person that hid her emotions when they were serious. If she was at the point where she couldn’t hold her tears back, something was clearly wrong. And here, I had been thinking that everything was fine.
“Sweetheart, what is it?”
Carly shook her head furiously and wiped at her eyes, not bothering about her makeup. “I’m fine, really,” she said.
“You’re not fine. You’re crying. Talk to me.”
When Carly wouldn’t answer me, turning her face back to the window instead, I checked my blind spot and pulled over onto the shoulder of the road. I switched on my hazards, switched off the car, and turned to her.
“Come on, princess. Talk to me. I hate it when you cry. Let’s find a way to fix this, whatever’s bothering you.”
Carly took a deep breath and let it out in a shudder. “I think I’m in love with you,” she said.
I raised my eyebrows. “Is that why you’re crying?”
“No,” Carly said. “Or rather, it is.”
I shook my head, confused. “I don’t understand.”
Carly took another deep, shuddering breath. “What I’m trying to say is that I’m in love with you, and that makes everything more complicated. If I didn’t love you, I wouldn’t be scared to lose you.”
Her confession of love made me feel warm inside, but it was overshadowed by her tears, and I couldn’t quite understand the reason she was crying.
“You know you won’t lose me,” I said. I was planning on holding onto her as tightly as I could, as tightly as she’d let me. “What makes you think you will?”
“Because you’re in Miami, and I’m all the way over here in Fort Collins. Or at least, I will be when I start studying again. If I can find the money to study again now that my dad has cut me off. I thought about staying with you out there, if that happens, but really I should do what I can and work more jobs to try to graduate— I’m so close. What if you find someone else? We don’t exactly have the best track record of staying together.”
I shook my head. “First of all, the reason why we don’t have the best track record is that I was an idiot. I didn’t fight for you when I should have, and I have six years of regrets to pay for that.”
She wanted to interrupt me, but I lifted my hand to silence her. I wasn’t done.
“Secondly, I don’t care how far apart we are, we can make this work. I’ll pay for the rest of your studies and then when you’re done you can join me. Which brings me to my third point; there is no way in hell I will ever find someone else.”
“You say that now,” Carly said. “But there are models and actresses and a million-other woman interested in you. You can have anyone that you want. Why would you choose me?”
She didn’t understand what I was trying to say to her. I wasn’t being very eloquent about it. Her tears had made me flustered. But I was shocked that she thought I would want anyone else at all.
Of course, we had spent six years apart, and one of the reasons was because I had been a coward. I hadn’t fought hard enough to get her back. It hadn’t been wrong not to stand up to her father that day— I had just been a teenager— but there had been many times since then that I could have made it right. I hadn’t done that, and I was wrong for it. I understood why she would think I wouldn’t fight for her again, but this time, everything was different. I was a different person, and I knew exactly what I wanted.
And what I wanted was Carly.
“There will never be anyone else,” I said again.
“You can’t know that,” Carly retorted.
“Yes, I can. I know there will never be anyone else because there hasn’t been. None of the women I met in the past six years came close to you. They never have. You’re the only girl I’ve dated, princess.”
Carly shook her head, and she didn’t look like she believed me. I wasn’t happy about it, but there was nothing I could do, other than try and convince her.
“That doesn’t make sense,” Carly said.
“You don’t seem to understand how amazing you are, or how much you mean to me. You’re the only woman I want. It’s always been you.”
She looked at me with a mixture of flattery and awe. Apparently it was hard to believe a man could only have one true love in his life— even if the person trying to believe it was his one true love. I was here to show her that it was entirely possible.
I pulled up my shoulders. “You are the only woman I have ever given my body, mind or heart, Carly Donovan. You can ask my closest friends, who you just met. I might have went along with some locker room talk so that I wouldn’t get teased for never being a player like other guys on the team, but in reality, I turned women down left and right. None of them compared to you, and I won’t settle for less. You are the one that I want, so it doesn’t matter how far away you are, or how long it will be until we see each other again. No one can ever take your place.”
“How does someone like you hold out for someone like me? I’m not cut out for the life you are living, and I’m just a small girl from a small town.”
“And I’m hopelessly in love with you,” I said, interrupting her. “That’s all there is to it. Nothing else matters. I don’t care where you come from. All I care about is who you are to me, and you are everything to me.”
Carly was crying again, but this time it was different. She was smiling through the tears. She was happy. Finally, I was able to communicate how I felt about her. I was scared I wouldn’t have been able to put it into words at all.
“You love me?” Carly asked. “It feels good to hear you say it after so long,” she added.
“More than anything,” I said.
I leaned forward, closing the distance between us. It had been enough talk. I pressed my lips against hers, kissing her. This was the woman I wanted to be kissing for the rest of my life. I wanted her and no one else. I wanted to do it all with her, love, marriage, children, growing old together. Carly was the girl for me.
When we finally broke the kiss, I knew exactly what I wanted to do. I put the car into gear again and pulled into the road, adding a three point turn and turning the car around.
“What are you doing?” Carly asked.
“I saw a sign for a hotel back there,” I said. “That’s where we’re going. We can tell our parents our flight was delayed.”
Carly shook her head. “I don’t understand.”
I took her hand and squeezed it. “I want to be with you. I want you. If we go to that hotel now, chances are, we won’t be found out. The media has no idea where we are—we’re traveling. We aren’t expected yet. This is a stolen moment that we have to take advantage of.”
I kept my eyes on the road. When I glanced at Carly, she was smiling. It seemed she was still fond of my spontaneous ideas. And that was part of why I loved her.