Unraveled (Holding On Book 3) (18 page)

It wasn’t until Carly was a senior in high school, only weeks before
her
graduation, and he a junior in college that their paths collided again. Until that point, they seemed to be running parallel. They ran into each other at a frat party. She’d gone back to his dorm room with him but she was gone by morning. She hadn’t left so much as her phone number behind. Suddenly, he was the one being tossed aside. He hadn’t liked it one bit. Though he couldn’t blame her.

He’d hurt her badly
when she was younger.

Years later, she’d left him lusting after her.
So he’d done the only logical thing. He’d hunted her down.

And so, the game playing began.

Somehow, somewhere along the line, in the unlikely mix of mind-games and honest conversations they’d shared, he’d fallen in love with her.

It was no wonder that she had an issue trusting him. To be honest, he still wondered sometimes if he should really trust her. But after their time apart—which he was now deciding was much needed—he was seeing things with a new clarity.

She wasn’t the same girl that she had been. And he wasn’t that same guy. They’d both grown up. He knew he’d taken her by surprise when he’d told her he loved her. He hadn’t expected her to say it back. And she hadn’t. She also hadn’t kneed him in the balls. Overall, he thought the whole proclamation had gone better than expected.

He knew she was part
ly annoyed and partly baffled by his no-sex rule. But it was simple, really. For so many years, that had been their common thread. He wanted to prove to her that there was so much more to them than that.

He knew that there were still things that she was keeping from him. But in all fairness, he was keeping something from her too. Something he couldn’t bring himself to tell her just yet.
It was something he knew that in the past, she wouldn’t have been able to hear without having a meltdown. He hoped now, she’d hear him out. Let him explain things. He hoped she would understand
why
he’d been waiting so long to tell her.

The last several weeks with her had been amazing.

But now, the true test was coming.

Five months apart.

He was willing to take a chance on her.

He was willing to hand her his heart, and hope that
this time, she wouldn’t break it.

If only she was willing to
trust him and do the same.

~*~*~

“So this is it,” Carly said dryly as she pushed the front door open with her hip. “Home sweet home.”

She still could barely believe that Jesse had insisted on coming back to Roseville with her. He’d even taken the day off of work
. He planned to stay through Sunday evening. They’d left Lanford that morning. It was now Friday afternoon. She needed to come back because she had books to buy, rent and a tuition bill to pay before classes started up on Monday morning.

Jesse followed her into the small, cramped house.

“It’s—” he started to say.

“A damn mess!”
Carly finished for him. She dropped the suitcase she was carrying and flung her hands to her hips. She let out a huff as she looked around. The kitchen was visible from where she was standing. She made her way inside. All of the cupboard doors and drawers were open to some degree or another.

“What happened in here?” Jesse wondered.

Carly stomped to the closest cupboard and peered inside. It was empty.

“Unbelievable!” she cried as she moved down to the next one. “He took everything!
Even my favorite cereal!” With that, she turned around and stormed to the bedroom. “He even took the sheets off the bed!” she cried. Granted, she couldn’t remember which one of them they belonged to, but still!

Another quick scan of the room left her fuming. He’d left his dresser drawers hanging open. The closet door was
also open. She could see that while pulling out his things, he’d carelessly knocked several of her things off the hangers. They rested in a heap on the closet floor. She started plucking them up again before she remembered that Jesse was with her. When she turned around, he was gone.

Before she could worry about it, she heard the unmistakable sound of cupboard doors and drawers being closed. She let out a little sigh as she quickly assessed her clothing. Surprisingly, the wrinkles had been kept to a minimum so she hung everything back up again. Then she closed the dresser drawers, pulled out the spare set of sheets and quickly made her bed.

When she finished, she slumped down on the edge of it. Dragging her hands through her hair, she let out a little whimper. Would there be no end to the way Nolan could mess with her life? How could he be so damn cheap that he’d taken the groceries out of the cupboard and the sheets right off of the bed?! As if his sole purpose was to strip her of absolutely everything.

“Hey.”

She’d placed her hands over her face and hadn’t heard Jesse enter her bedroom. He took a seat on the bed next to her.

“Hey,” she said back.

“You okay?”

To her horror, she started to cry. Being back in this room brought back the feeling of humiliation in a storm of emotion.
Seeing the empty cupboards and the bare closet only added to her feelings of frustration. Nolan had left her in such a mess. She still didn’t have the deposit money to return to her parents
and
she had rent to pay. Now she had groceries to buy. So she certainly wasn’t crying because she missed him, or anything that foolish. She was simply mad.

Fuming.

O
ne thing she hated about herself was that when she was furious and frustrated, she tended to cry.

Jesse immediately pulled her into a hug. She hated that she was literally crying all over his shoulder but she couldn’t seem to make
herself stop. He didn’t seem to mind. He patted her back and ran his hands through her hair. All the while, he was murmuring softly in her ear.

As suddenly as her tears started, she managed to stop them. She pulled away and swiped at her face.

“Sorry about that,” she muttered. “I don’t even know why I’m crying. It’s just that everything is such a mess. And I’m not talking about what he did to the house.”

Jesse was eyeing her sympathetically. “Is it hard? Coming back here where you lived with him?”

She let out a surprised laugh. “No. That’s not what I meant at all.”

“What did you mean then?” he pressed. When she fidgeted and looked away, he pushed a little harder. “Come on, Carly. Either you trust me or you don’t. If you trust me, you should be able to talk to me.”

“I do trust you.” She was surprised that she meant it. She had been saying it, but this time, she realized she truly meant it.

“Then talk to me. Tell me what’s bothering you.”

She had an internal debate. While in Lanford, she’d been able to ignore her problems. The biggest being how she was going to be able to keep this house for the next five months. She was also feeling a niggling little pang of guilt because she hadn’t told her parents about the predicament she’d gotten herself into. She just couldn’t bring herself to tell her mom that the mess she’d gotten herself into was even bigger than she’d first admitted. She just couldn’t do it. But could she tell Jesse?

She decided that she could. He’d asked very little about her break-up with Nolan. Carly was sure that he was waiting for her to tell him the details when she was ready. While she wasn’t ready to tell him all of it, she decided she could start with this.
So she told Jesse about how she had fibbed to her parents about who she was living with. She admitted to him that she was now in a financial bind. Not only was her savings mostly depleted, this was a horrible time of year to try to search for a job. And worst of all, in her mind, her classes were going to be tough this semester. She didn’t want her grades to slip, which she was afraid they would do if she couldn’t devote all of her time to her studies.

Jesse looked relieved by her confession. As if he was expecting it to be something much worse. Somehow,
that made her feel better. Finally he said, “I can give you the money Carly. Just tell me how much you need.”

She shook her head.
That was not why she’d told him and she didn’t want him to think it was. “That’s not happening.”

“Why not?”

“Because it would feel wrong! I can’t take your money. That would make me feel like…like a kept woman or something.” She was trying to keep the tone light, not wanting to insult him, but still wanting to get her point across.

Jesse laughed at her.
“A
what
?”

“
A kept woman? Like a mistress. Or something. A woman you keep for your pleasure. You know, like in the olden days? When the rich man keeps a woman on the side, paying all of her expenses?”

He looped his arms around her. “Oh, I plan on keeping you for my pleasure. And it doesn’t matter if I help you with your rent or not.”

She squirmed in his arms. “Still. I’m not taking your money.”

“So let me loan it to you. You can pay me back whenever.
Or never. Whatever works for you.”

“Pay you back?” Carly asked. “Yo
u mean when I get an actual job?”

Jesse shrugged. “Yeah, whenever you can. It’s not a big deal
, Carly. I have a good job. I’ve got a pretty decent savings account. I do work at a bank you know,” he teased. “So I do pretty well with money.”

She looked at him hesitantly.

“Come on, Cricket. It’s just a loan. And I don’t mean to be an ass but really, you’re just about out of options.”

“Can I pay you interest?”

“No.”

“If you’re sure.”

“I’m sure.”

“But,” she said, “
you don’t even know how much I need.”

He pulled his checkbook out.
“How much?” She told him and he didn’t even flinch. “I told you Carly, I’d do anything for you. Whether it’s a ride. Help moving. A loan. Someone to talk to. Whatever.”

She nodded slowly. When she said, “Thank you,” it was barely audible.

He sighed as he ripped out the check and placed it on her nightstand. “Why do you have that look on our face? Like you’re surprised that I really want to help you?”

She shrugged and tears prickled behind her eyes again.
This time, for an entirely different reason.

“These past three weeks,
” Jesse began, “they’ve maybe been three of the best weeks of my life. I want you to know that. My mistake in the past was never letting you know how I felt. Now, I want you to be completely clear. I love you, Carly. I want you in my life.”

She couldn’t find the words she needed to answer him right then. She swiped at her eyes as she tried to swallow down the lump that was clogging her throat.

“Do you know what the worst thing about this is?” he quietly asked. “I don’t know what I am to you. After all of these years, I still don’t know. Most of the time in the past, I felt like I was nothing more than a conquest that you’d set out to destroy. Like I was a bad habit you just couldn’t break. Or an obsession you just couldn’t free yourself from. I don’t want to be your obsession. I want to be your passion. I don’t ever want you to be free of me.”

“When did you turn into such a romantic?” Carly demanded.

“The moment you let me think
just maybe
you’d accept me this way. You know, I don’t exactly
like
being a jackass,” he said with a small smirk. “I love you, Carly. I want you to stop holding things back from me. I want to be with you. Not just now but a year from now. Ten years from now. A hundred years from now.”

“I want to be with you too,” she said.

They weren’t exactly the words he wanted to hear. But they were close enough. He’d settle with them for now.

15

“He was going to write a letter.”

“What?” Jesse asked. His was voice groggy. They had spent the day together, of course. Carly had cashed his check, paid her rent, paid her tuition with her parents’ money and purchased her textbooks. After that, Jesse had insisted on taking her to the grocery store. He restocked the cupboards that Nolan had emptied.