Unraveled (Holding On Book 3) (12 page)

His expression remained serious. “Yeah, well, neither am I. I think you’re a better person than you used to be. And I hope I am too. It’s called growing up. I’m hoping together we’ll both be better.”

“I’m sorry I was so childish.”

“I’m sorry I was such a bastard.”

She let out a small laugh. “So now what?”

“Well,” he said carefully, “I guess what I need to know is whether or not you even want to start anything with me. I’ve never known how you felt about me. And maybe I’m just laying out my heart for nothing. But if there’s any chance at all that you might want what I want, I need to know.”

“I think…I think I might,” she said with a small nod.

“
Then let’s do things right this time. Let me take you out on dates. I’m not talking pepperoni pizza and a pitcher of beer with the game on in the background. I want to date you. Good and proper. If you’ll let me. Will you let me?”

She was too choked up to speak. She simply nodded instead.

“Then I’m setting one ground rule.”

She raised her eyebrows.
“A ground rule?”

“No sex. We’ve done this backwards our whole lives and look where it’s gotten us. Let’s do this right. For once and for all, let’s do this right.”

“No sex,” Carly repeated.

“No sex,” he confirmed.

“Ever?”

He laughed
at the perplexed expression on her face. “Hell no, I didn’t mean that. I just meant, I don’t know what, exactly. I just want to see where we go. We’ll have sex again when we’re ready.”

Carly cocked an eyebrow at him. She managed to keep her mouth shut. She was tempted to tell Jesse that when she was with him, she was
always
ready.

“We know how we are with that aspect,” he continued. “I want to find out how we are without it.”

She hesitated, her heart hammering. “What if we’re no good?” Their relationship had always been so physical. She was worried where they would be without that.

“Then we’ll build it until we are,” he said firmly. “I’ve got a lot of years to make up for.”

10

“Carly! Whoa, hey, okay…” Quinn said as Carly stomped past her
a few days later. The house shook as she forcefully swung the entry door closed.

She ignored Quinn as she march
ed up the steps of their parents’ house. She could hear Quinn’s footsteps right behind her as she flew into the bathroom she and Quinn had shared growing up. Her hand dove into the pocket of her jacket as she slammed the door behind her. She wasn’t surprised that Quinn threw it right back open again.

“What are doing?!”
Quinn demanded.

Without looking at her, Carly held her engagement ring up for one brief second before dropping it into the toilet.

“Carly! What are you doing?!”

Carly was fuming when she turned to face her sister. “
It’s cubic-freaking-zirconia!” she grated out as she reached over to flush the toilet. She spun back around, just in time to see the cheap ring disappear forever. “I thought it belonged in the sewer. Just like the relationship it represents!”

“It’s what?” Quinn asked in disbelief.

Carly turned back to her. Her chest was heaving. She was on the verge of losing it. Jemma’s idea had seemed like a perfect solution to her mess. She’d just come from the pawn shop.

“I was going to pawn it. But when I brought it in, the guy laughed at me. Laughed at me
, Quinn! It was so mortifying. It’s cubic-zirconia and the band—I thought it was white gold, shows what an idiot I am—is just plated in cheap nickel or something. The ring isn’t worth a damn thing!” She dragged her hands through her hair as she burst into tears.

Her tears had nothing to do with the cost of the ring. They had everything to do with feeling that Nolan had betrayed her in yet another way.

“Oh sweetie,” Quinn said as she pulled her sister into a hug. “I’m so sorry.”

“What kind of person does that?” Carly asked around a sob.
“I can’t believe I meant so little to him. I mean everything in our relationship? It was just fake!”

Quinn didn’t say anything. Carly knew that meant she agreed but didn’t want to point it out. That only made her tears fall faster.

“Come on,” Quinn said after a few moments. She latched onto Carly’s elbow and pulled her down the stairs.

It was
a Thursday afternoon. Their parents would be at work for a few more hours. Quinn led Carly to the couch, not letting go of her once, as they both collapsed into the cushions. Quinn plucked a box of tissues off the end table and handed it to her sister.

“Carly,” she said sympathetically. “I’m so sorry. Is there anything I can do?”

Carly shook her head as she buried her face in a tissue. Finally she looked up and said, “I feel like I didn’t know him at all. I lived with him and I didn’t know him
at all
!”

“Obviously there’s a side to him that he worked hard at keeping away from you,” Quinn soothed. “It’s not your fault.”

Carly wanted to tell her that it was. It was her fault for being so stupid and gullible. She knew Quinn wouldn’t have any of that so she kept the words inside.

“Please don’t tell anyone the ring was a fake.”

Quinn gave a little shake of her head. “If you don’t want anyone to know, I won’t tell.”

With that reassurance from her sister, Carly took in a deep breath. It was time to pull
herself back together again. Nolan was proving over and over to her that he was not worth her tears.

“What are you doing here?” Carly wondered. She was surprised that Quinn was here, without a baby in sight.

“I had a check-up with my doctor this afternoon. Luke and Nora are home with the kids. I thought I’d stop by since I was already in town.
I’ve been here for a while, waiting for you to come home. I was just getting ready to leave. I’m glad I stayed because I thought maybe you would need to talk about something,” Quinn offered up.

Carly cocked her head to the side, wondering what Quinn knew.

“Like, oh, say…Jesse?” Quinn asked. Her expression was completely serious.

“How do you
know
about that?” Carly demanded. “
What
do you know?”

“I heard it from Jemma. I should’ve heard it from you,” Quinn said.

Carly gave her an apologetic shrug. Of course she’d heard it from Jemma. Carly loved the girl but she was incapable of keeping a secret. “You just got out of the hospital. I know you have your hands full.”

“You could’ve told me when you were over yesterday,” Quinn said, not willing to let her sister get off that easily.

“You had your hands full, literally. And Luke was there.” It was a pathetic excuse and they both knew it. Tom, Luke’s dad, had come out of retirement for a while to help out at the family business so Luke could be home, helping his wife. However, Luke would’ve gladly looked over the babies by himself if Carly had asked for a quiet moment to talk.

“I always have time for you.
You obviously have a lot going on.”

Carly glanced at her sister. She was watching her impatiently, yet waiting for Carly to tell her in her own time.

Finally, Carly nodded. “I did go home with him the other night. But it’s not want you think.” She scrunched up her face. “Well, actually,
that
was probably what you think. But the next morning…” She hesitated, unsure of how to go on. She thought back to the day with Jesse.

He had asked her about Nolan, as she’d assumed he would. He
’d looked disappointed that Nolan had been the one to end the engagement. He’d told Carly that he’d hoped she had been the one to end it. She realized his concern; he was worried that because
she
hadn’t ended it, she was still completely in love with him.

Without going into details, she’d tried to assure Jesse
that Nolan had made it awfully easy to not feel much of anything for him. Jesse hadn’t agreed, because as he pointed out, feelings don’t die out overnight. While Carly knew he was probably right, she also felt her emotions when it came to Nolan were too mixed up at the moment to even try to decipher. 

After their talk, she’d spent the day at Jesse’s. The snow had really started to come down so they’d put in a movie. And then another.
And another one still. Along with breakfast, he’d cooked her lunch and then they’d ordered Chinese take-out for dinner. They’d talked and snuggled on the couch, buried under a blanket. There had been kissing and nothing more.

It wasn’t that she’d never spent the day with him like that before. She had.
Many times. But those times, in the back of her head, she’d always kept in mind that it would lead to one thing only: something physical. She was now slowly starting to realize it wasn’t about that at all. It was about building something emotional.

And
that
was a powerful thing.

Looking back, she thought that lazy Sunday
just might have been one of the best days of her life. She recounted all of the details to her sister. Also adding in that she’d seen him the last three evenings in a row. He’d been insistent that she come over when he got off work so that he could make her dinner. Carly had briefly wondered if that was too much, but he’d told her without apology that he wanted to see her as much as possible over her winter break.

“You should see the blissful look on your face,” Quinn said when Carly finished.

A small smile tugged at the corners of Quinn’s mouth. Carly was relieved to see it. Quinn had always had mixed feelings about the two of them together. Judging by the look on her face, she just might approve of Carly and Jesse finally being together. That alone meant the world to Carly. There was one thing left that she hadn’t confided in her sister. Not because she didn’t trust her sister with the information. It was more that she didn’t trust that the information was real. She fidgeted with the trim of a throw pillow, trying to find the courage to say the words out loud. Saying them out loud would almost make them feel real. It would be harder to convince
herself that she hadn’t only imagined that he’d said them.

She took a deep breath and spilled the very last detail to Quinn.

“Quinn, he said he loved me. He said it twice,” Carly said, sounding as stunned as she felt. “The first time, I thought maybe it just slipped out because he was trying to prove a point. Or…or I have no idea. The second time, I didn’t know what to think. Except that maybe I’d imagined it. Or he didn’t mean it the way it sounded. Or—”

“
Or
, he meant it exactly the way it sounded,” Quinn said with a little shrug. “What did you say?”

“I didn’t say anything. I mean, it wasn’t like he was making some big proclamation, waiting for me to say it back. He just kind of worked it into this little speech he gave me.”

“I can’t say I’m all that surprised. I mean, with the history you two have.”

“Do you think he
meant
it?” Carly asked in surprise.

Quinn gave her a look that said yes, she thought he meant it.

“The last few days, when I’ve left his house, I just feel so
happy
. But then when I’m here all alone, and he’s at work, and I have time to think…All I can think about is how this has the potential to turn into a huge mess. Up until last week, I was
engaged
. I don’t want Jesse to be a rebound, you know? Someone I run to because he’s familiar. I don’t want to turn to Jesse to try to get over Nolan.”

Quinn raised an eyebrow
and started in with a great deal of determination. “Do you know what I think? I’m going to tell you. I think that you have it backwards. I think Nolan was your rebound. I think you’ve spent most of your life trying to get over Jesse. And you can’t. And trying to make things work with some other guy? It’s just not going to work because where Jesse is concerned; you’re in far too deep. Heart and soul, Carly,” Quinn said.

“Do you really think that?” Carly asked. Quinn knew her better than anyone and she trusted her opinion completely.

“Yeah, I do. I mean, I think you two should take it slow. I think you have a lot of history to work through. But that’s also kind of the point. You two have a history.”

Carly nodded. “Taking it slow isn’t going to be a problem. Not with me at college and him here.
It just seems so weird. Dating him, I mean, after all this time. I’m just used to him being—”