Consider Me (Playing For Keeps Book 1)

OLIVIA

TODAY IS one of those days where I truly have zero clue what I’m doing with my life. Everything feels like it’s hanging in this delicate balance, swaying back and forth with my own indecision, my desires tipping the scale on one side, and my fears on the other. Both are heavy and I don’t feel like I can get a handle on either. Instead, it feels like everything is ready to teeter and crash before inevitably going up in flames.

Except I think things might have already gone up in flames.

I can continue to blame alcohol for decisions made, but the truth is simple: I felt weak. I explored a man I’ve been slowly getting to know, peeked behind his curtain, and I consciously gave in. I gave in to the magnetic pull, the raw desire, and the genuine connection, and I let my body and my heart lead.

It’s not as if all the fears simply melted away in those moments. They didn’t; they were never far. I’d just decided that it was worth it, that he was worth it, and I closed my eyes and jumped. As I fell asleep with his body locked around mine, keeping me warm, I told myself to breathe, that we’d figure it out together in the morning.

And yet when the warm sun touched my skin and woke me, my heart hammered with apprehension at the hand splayed over my belly, the face stuffed in my neck. My chest tightened and my belly tumbled, but I closed my eyes and willed the fear away, the one that told me to run.

I’d wriggled out of his arms and played on my phone while I waited for him to wake, and the first thing that looked up at me when I opened Instagram was his smiling face as he ushered a leggy brunette through the doors of a high rise, his hand on her ass. I’d made the mistake of finding the article, where they’d lined up Carter’s top twelve fucks of the year, rating them based on things as trivial as facial attributes, physique, fashion, and jobs.

Fear whispered that I’d never be able to stack up.

Fear reminded me he had a separate home to bring his one-night stands.

Fear screamed in my face that I wouldn’t be enough to keep a man like Carter interested.

Fear told me to run, to leave before he could hurt me.

Fear is a funny, fickle thing. It’s there to protect you, to keep you from getting hurt, a glaring neon sign that warns you from getting too close, tells you to back up before it’s too late. But it keeps you stuck, weighed down in one spot, like feet stuck in mud. And more often than not? You get hurt anyway. Sometimes, like today, you hurt the person you care about in the process too.

The thing is that I’m allowed to be scared. I’m allowed to be hesitant, and I’m sure as hell allowed to say “No, this isn’t for me,” or “No, I’m not ready.” But Carter stood there, begging for me to stay, to communicate, to give him a damn chance, to prove that he could be different. And instead of sitting with my fear, talking through it, I gave it wings, tied myself to it, and watched it take flight with me attached. I let it control me, and I hate that.

But right now I don’t know how not to.

I don’t know how to put my heart on the line for a man who’s never been interested in a relationship. I don’t know how to open myself so wholly to someone who may not, in the end, be able to reciprocate, to keep my heart safe.

I just…don’t know. That’s the reality of life sometimes.

I swipe a tear from my cheek as soon as it falls, because through all the indecision, they still feel unwarranted. But every time I read the note in my hands, my eyes prickle all over again. It’s happened often, because I’ve yet to put the small piece of card stock down, the smell of cedarwood and citrus clinging to it, a scent I’m not ready to lose.

So I read the note for the seventh time.

Olivia,

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

I know this year will be the best one yet, because I met you.

Carter

The kicker? The tiny heart scribbled next to his name.

The lump in my throat dips to my chest, making everything tight and uncomfortable. I place my palm on the ache, willing it to go away, but it doesn’t.

Giving up, I admire the rose gold chain in my hand, letting it slip through my fingers like running water. It’s not a necklace, but a lanyard for my school ID badge. The delicate chain breaks every few inches with small diamond-encrusted hoops, a matching rose gold whistle hanging off a clip.

My thumb rubs methodically over the words etched into the circular pendant connecting the chain to the clip. Miss Parker it says on one side. Turning it over in my palm, I smile through my quickly blurring vision at the words on the back: World’s hottest teacher.

But my favorite part? The tiny hockey skate charm that dangles next to the whistle. This gift is thoughtful and practical, beautiful, and I walked away, leaving him to start a brand new year by himself, when all he asked me to do was stay, to trust him.

It’s not a question of trusting his intentions. I may not know all of him, but I know him well enough to understand that he doesn’t lie. If he did, he’d probably be better at talking to women, or more specifically, me. In fact, if he lied, there’s a solid chance I would’ve found myself in his bed that first night we met.

When he tells me he’ll try, I believe him. It’s that I don’t know if I can trust that he’ll be able to, that he’s really thought this out, that something has absolutely changed for him in the last twelve hours that’s made him suddenly ready for a relationship.

It’s that I don’t want to be a girl whose face gets splashed on the tabloids, sprinkled all over social media, labeled and judged when he might change his mind. Heartache is hard enough to deal with privately; I have no desire to be forced to do it so publicly.

It’s already a miracle that I’ve somehow avoided my brother Jeremy finding out that Carter and I have been spending time together. I’ve been caught tucked into his side at a fundraiser, pictured dancing in a dark bar, my face on a fucking jumbotron at a hockey game with fifteen thousand fans, and somehow the only people to have caught on are a few of my students, ones who quickly believed me when I said he was a friend of mine. Jeremy wouldn’t buy that bullshit for a second.

My phone lights up on my bed, next to my knee, and I swallow hard when Cara’s face pops up. She’ll want details, ones I’m not ready to share. That means admitting how deep I’ve already fallen, how I acted out of fear, and that I’m not sure I can make it right because I’m not sure I’m brave enough to try this.

Cara’s never scared of anything. She knows what she wants and she goes after it without a second thought. I wish I were that sure of myself.

I clear my throat and lift my phone to my ear. “Hey, you.”

“Hi, hi, hi, babe!” Way too giddy for this particular morning. “You still at Carter’s? We’re coming to see you two. Put some clothes on.” Before I can get a word out, she snickers and goes on. “And don’t try to tell me you didn’t get down and dirty with him. Your bad intentions were written all over your face while you were bouncing around in his bed, going on about how you were ‘just gonna sleep.’” I swear I can see the air quotes she puts around those last few words.

The laugh I force is cringeworthy. Despite my dad’s insistence that I’m highly dramatic and would make a good actress, I’d make a shit one. I have big feelings, which makes them difficult to swallow down.

“I’m at home, Care.”

The line goes silent for so long, I check my screen to make sure the call is still connected. It is. The muffled sound of her directing Emmett to my house instead of Carter’s comes before her vicious words.

“What did he do? His ass is fucking grass, Liv, I will kill him. I swear to all that is holy, I’ll do it. I’ll go to jail for you.”

Her fierce, protective nature is what makes her such a good friend and person to have in your corner. The problem is that I’m not sure she should be in mine right now. She’d never leave, because she’s always been my shoulder and me hers, but she won’t humor me and tell me I was right if she thinks I was wrong either.

“Carter didn’t do anything.”

“If you’re trying to protect him from my wrath—”

“I appreciate your ferocity, Cara, but I promise you, Carter did nothing wrong.”

Another beat of silence, followed by gentle words. Cara can go from feisty and terrifying to tender and loving with the flip of a switch when her big momma instincts kick in. “Then why are you sad? I can hear it in your voice, and I’m pretty sure Carter had plans to keep you all day. Em and I heard something about a turkey dinner.”

A genuine laugh bubbles in my throat, even if it’s small. I wipe a drop of wetness away with the heel of my palm. “He promised turkey. And movies and snuggles and talking.”

“But you’re not with him.”

“No.”

“It’s okay to be scared, Ollie,” she assures me quietly, reading me the way she always does. “We all feel that way sometimes. We’re gonna get through it, okay? Whatever that looks like.”

My heart swells a little in my chest. “Thanks, Care.” I clear my throat and wave a dismissive hand around. “Anyway. Enough about me and my self-inflicted problems. What’s up? Why are you coming over?”

The instantaneous way she perks up is obvious, a palpable energy that leaks through the phone. “I guess you’ll have to open your front door and find out.”

The line dies at the same time knocks sound on my door.

Okay, it’s not knocking at all. I’m pretty sure there’s an entire body being slammed into the door.

I scoot out of bed, tugging the sleeves of my hoodie over my palms and hiking up my sweatpants before I head down the hall.

The moment I open the door, a body collides with mine. Long limbs wrap around me and take me straight to the ground, and I nearly drown in Cara’s blonde locks.

She pulls back, the expression she wears nothing short of terrifying, but in a happy kind of way, the kind that lets me know she’s been shrieking and jumping up and down all damn morning.

She shoves her hand in my face, an obnoxiously huge and utterly stunning diamond pressed against the tip of my nose.

“Hi, maid of honor!”