Chapter Thirty-Four

‘Jesus, can you believe the food in this place?’ Carter asks as we head back up to my – our – hotel room.

‘I know, right? It’s good, isn’t it?’

His eyebrows crease up in surprise. ‘Good?’ he says. ‘That slop? Honestly, babe… have you been eating this shit all week? Have you gone native?’

He’s talking about the jambalaya the hotel had served us during the second course of brunch: a real example of New Orleans home cooking, served up in giant, seemingly infinite ladles into bowls that were soon practically licked clean. It wasn’t the first time it had been on the hotel’s menu, and even though I had been a little sceptical at first – ‘spicy crayfish stew’ didn’t sound like a good time to my unadventurous ears – Lauren had persuaded me to give it a try, and I had been hooked.

I shrug. ‘I liked it.’

‘What I wouldn’t have given for a decent slice of pizza.’

‘You barely even tried it,’ I say quietly, figuring that if he hears me being quiet he might find some way to moderate his own volume. No such luck.

‘I didn’t need to. I saw how it looked. Gross.’ He pulls a face, and all of a sudden he’s not the Carter I knew: he looks for all the world like a sulky, petulant teen. Or maybe he is the Carter I’ve always known, and I just never saw it before now. I mean, it wouldn’t be the first time he’s grumbled about not getting his own way; I was just always so good at giving in, so good at letting him have what he wanted. Whenever he complained about what restaurant we’d chosen for dinner, whenever he wanted to pick the movie or what to watch on TV… for God’s sake, I’d seen the most recent Expendables sequel three times, twice on the big screen because it was so good he just had to see it again, but when was the last time Carter and I had checked out a movie I wanted to see? When was the last time you managed to get him to see anything that doesn’t have an explosion in it?

I close my eyes for a second, trying to shake the thought away. It doesn’t matter, I tell myself. It’s just jambalaya. He’s just a picky eater, that’s all. You knew that. You always knew that. Nothing’s changed.

Well… something’s changed. But he’s gone now, and so he doesn’t matter. He’s out there in the world somewhere, no doubt thinking what a grade-A bitch I am for cheating on my fiancé with him. How any times must he have seen that before? A lonely woman on a bachelorette party, surrounded by her friends, looking to cut loose and make some mistakes? How many times has he been that mistake?

No, I think. Not Jack. Someone like Jack would never be a mistake.

Carter sweeps the keycard down the panel by the door and throws it open. ‘There,’ he says. ‘Just the two of us. Finally. I’ve been waiting all week for us to have some alone time.’

You seemed pretty intent on getting all the alone time you could ever want, I think, but somehow I manage to bite my tongue before I say it out loud. There wouldn’t be any point; even if I thought it would help the situation (which it certainly wouldn’t), even if I thought it would make feel better to get that quick, vicious little jab in (which it might), Carter isn’t paying any attention. He’s too busy looking around the room, taking in all the delights that the Hotel Belle View has to offer. ‘What is all this shit?’ he says as he looks at the walls – the swans, the view of Paris. ‘Can you believe Drew and Lauren actually picked this place? I mean, for real. Just look at it.’

‘I like it,’ I say. I’m not sure why. The words are out of my mouth before I can stop them, but I make no move to take them back. I don’t want to agree with Carter right now – not about this, not about anything. I want to tell him he’s wrong. I want to list off every mistake he’s made in the past week – Christ, every mistake he’s made in the last hour would be enough – but I’m scared that if I start then I may never stop.

He’s the future, I think. He’s your plan. Nothing’s changed. Nothing’s changed.

‘Whatever,’ he says, and I feel like I could scream. I take a moment to close my eyes; by the time I open them again he’s flopped down on the bed and opened the box of complementary chocolates in their heart-shaped box. I watch as he pops three into his mouth, one by one.

‘So,’ he says. ‘We gonna make the most of this bedroom or what?’

Jesus Christ. My mind flashes back to Jack the night before. I try to stop the image, but it’s everywhere in front of me: every touch, every sensation, playing out over and over and over again. The softness of his fingers on my skin, the subtle cadence of his voice in my ear. The give, the take. The quiet longing, the tease, and the release.

With Jack, it was a dance. With Carter, seduction is a brick to the temple.

I shake my head, hoping that some excuse will form in the meantime, but none does. Nothing sounds quite right.

‘No?’ he asks. He looks annoyed; his brow furrowed, his jaw clenched tight. ‘Why not, babe? You’re not still mad at me, are you?’

‘I…’

‘Because I think that’s really shitty of you if you are. I mean, I apologised, didn’t I? I got on the plane and flew my ass right to you. I didn’t even change my clothes, for God’s sake. Come on, be reasonable.’

‘I am being reasonable.’

‘By not having sex with me? After I flew all this way? After I proposed?’

The implication is clear: you owe me. Haven’t I been good to you? Don’t I deserve it?

Somewhere along the line, the script has been flipped. Suddenly Carter is the victim, and I’m the one spurning him. If things don’t work now, it’s because of me, not because of him. He did his part. He flew all this way. He proposed.

At least, that’s the story he’ll tell people. How ungrateful I am. How I didn’t even fuck him after he made the big romantic gesture – never mind that it was his fault a big, romantic gesture was needed.

You’d fuck someone else, though, wouldn’t you? You’d fuck Jack, right here in this bed. Right where your fiancé is lying. Oh, you’d do that sure enough.

A lump forms in my throat. ‘I… I think I need to get some air,’ I say.

‘Oh, what? Really?’ He lets out an exasperated sigh. ‘We just got back from eating. I don’t want to go out for a walk again.’

‘I meant by myself. Just for a little while. I won’t be long.’ He doesn’t look convinced. ‘Must have been something I ate. I guess you were right about that jambalaya.’

‘Told you,’ he says, unable to keep the smug I told you so tone out of his voice. ‘Don’t worry. We’ll get you back to Chicago tonight. Get you some real food.’

‘Sure. Sounds great.’ If you say so.

‘Why don’t you have a shower while I’m gone? You must be wiped out from your flight. It might help to freshen you up a bit.’

Carter nods dumbly and kisses my cheek. ‘Sure, babe,’ he says. ‘Whatever you need. Just be back soon, OK?’ He gestures to the bed where Jack and I were wrapped up in each other’s arms just hours before; if I squint, I swear I can still see the shape of our bodies there in the sheets. ‘We should probably break that thing in if we’re paying for it, right?’

I don’t answer. There’s nothing I can say.