Consider Me (Playing For Keeps Book 1)

OLIVIA

I’M GOING on six hours of sleep. Six hours split between three nights. It gets so much worse when I pair it with my shitty sleep Saturday night and the near all-nighter from Friday.

Because now it’s Wednesday morning and I’m sitting at a grand total of thirteen hours over the last five nights.

Let me be clear: I am not functioning properly. My brain is a foggy, dark mess that I so desperately want out of but can’t find the ladder to crawl up. I’ve been living off iced lattes and Big Macs. My stomach hurts, I feel like shit, look like hell, and don’t care.

Frankly, it’s a miracle I’m dragging myself to work. But work is the only normalcy I have left, and with only two days left now, no one’s dared say a word to me so far.

I roll over, pulling the blankets tighter around my shoulders. The soft orange glow of the rising sun peeks through the tiniest crack in the curtains, and all I want it to do is rain. I’ve spent months feeling like sunshine, even during the bleakest, snowiest winter, and the grayest spring. Now that the sun’s here, all I want it to do is go away.

My phone tells me it’s barely five. I still have two hours until I have to be up, but I know any chance of sleep has left.

There’s an irrational, fucked up part of me that frowns at the notifications on my phone, the texts and missed calls. I have tons, but none are from Carter. The logical part of my brain tries to tell me the space is good. It’s what I asked for, after all. The rest of me begs me to call him, to make sure he’s okay. Because he promised he’d be back, but he’s not. I’m here and he’s there, and with each passing minute, the distance feels farther, the hole in my heart gaping wider.

He promised me answers, and the longer he’s away, the more I worry there isn’t one.

I swipe at my screen, over and over again, pictures of us together smiling up at me, until I settle on one of my favorites. I’m laughing, looking into the camera, and Carter’s got his arms around me from behind, his chin on my shoulder with his biggest, dopiest grin. But he’s not looking at the camera; he’s looking at me.

Never in my life has somebody looked at me the way that man looks at me, like I’m the only thing he sees, like someone seeing in color for the first time. He holds so much love in his gaze, fierce appreciation, devotion, and that right there is why my heart keeps urging me that something isn’t right, that something doesn’t add up. It’s why I promised him the time he begged for right here in this room, the time to figure it out.

The door to my room creaks open and I hug my phone into my chest, swiping at my tears as Cara pops her head inside.

She smiles and starts padding toward the bed. “I knew you’d be up.” Slipping beneath the covers, she snuggles into me. “It’s like I can hear the wheels in your head turning.”

“What are you doing up?” Besides the obvious, which is checking on me.

I feel awful. Cara and Emmett are getting married this weekend and I’ve invaded their space, their life together. I’m all Cara can focus on, but she insists it’s a welcome distraction from wedding worries. I don’t know if I believe her, but she sure makes me feel like I belong here.

“Just couldn’t sleep. You wouldn’t talk to me last night and you know I don’t deal well with the word no.” She pulls me closer, her hand skimming my phone, and she gives it a tug. “What’s this?”

I hug it closer to my chest. “Nothing.”

Cara pins me to the mattress, wrestling my phone from my grasp, because like she said, she doesn’t deal well with no’s. She doesn’t say anything when she finds the picture, nor when she drops the phone on the bed, slamming her body into mine from behind in a hold that has the power to cut off my oxygen supply if she were to squeeze a touch harder.

I can tell she’s crying by the slight quiver in her body, the tiny sniffles. She thinks I don’t hear her cry to Emmett at night, but I do. My best friend loves me ferociously, and for that, I’m truly blessed.

“Where is he?” My body shakes with a sob, and Cara buries her face in my hair, shaking right along with me. “He said he’d be back. He said he’d fix it, that he’d find the answer and explain everything. He promised, Cara, but it’s been two days and he’s not here.”

“He’ll be here,” she whispers. “I know he will.” It’s a promise she sounds so certain making, no matter how heavy the words are. When I roll out of her arms and sit up, she sits up, too, wiping her cheeks.

“My heart hurts so much,” I admit, brushing at a tear that gathers in the corner of my eye. “This doesn’t feel like Carter. Not at all. He was talking about our wedding and babies. He was calling it our home long before I moved in. He wanted to share everything, his whole life. And I only wanted to be a part of it, a part of him.”

“Oh, honey.” Cara covers my hands with hers. “You’re the biggest part. You know that.”

“Why can’t he just talk to me? What’s stopping him? What doesn’t he want me to know?”

There’s a part of me that’s sure Cara knows what’s going on in some capacity, that she’s dying to tell me, and if I’d come right out and ask her to, she would. But it puts her and Emmett in a position they shouldn’t have to be in, between their best friends. I don’t want them to have to choose sides, because I don’t want there to be sides. I have to believe there’s a perfectly logical reason for all of this, even if it’s a little misguided.

“What if he never comes back? What if we can’t fix this, whatever it is, and our forever is over?”

Cara opens her mouth to reply, but I shake my head, stopping her words before they start.

“If this were reversed, if it were me trying to find my way through this, Carter wouldn’t take no for an answer. Carter would push down the door and demand that we do this together. He wouldn’t let me go through this on my own, even if I begged him to, no matter how much I’d try to push him away.”

Cara’s blue eyes hold mine. “You’re right.”

“I don’t want him to do this, to try to be strong on his own.”

“Then what do you want?”

My throat feels tight as my heart beats way down low in my stomach. Every nerve ending feels jittery, alive with the desire to make this right, to be next to my person instead of feeling so lost without him. So what do I want? I want him, I want us. Together and forever. I want the answers I deserve, and if he’s having trouble finding them, then I want to help him look.

“I want to show him what he’s been showing me all along. That we’re stronger together.”

That’s why I call him on my lunch break. Three times, actually. When I get his voice mail a fourth time after work, I wind up sitting in my car out front of the house that was supposed to be my home, the one that’s been my home all these months, simply because of the person inside it, the memories made within the walls.

His truck sits in the driveway, though it was last tucked in the garage. He barely drives this thing anymore; he says it’s my baby now, and I’m his.

So if he’s home, why isn’t he answering the door?

I knock again, over and over again, and my phone keeps buzzing, the video doorbell telling me there’s someone at the front door. I know there’s someone at the front door; the someone is me.

I’m not proud of the way my knocks go from timid and gentle to frantic and hard, my palm slapping the wood as I beg for Carter to come, to open the door, to let me in. I call his phone once, then twice, and when I finally give in, punching in the code to the front door, when it beeps three times and tells me it’s wrong, that the code’s not the one it was just days ago, the tears come.

I sink down to the steps on the front porch as the floodgates open, and with my knees pulled to my chest, I bury my face in my arms and sob. Everything leaves me, the hope I was clinging to, and now all I have is the fear I’ve been trying to ignore, the one that creeps up my stomach and tries to make a home in my chest. I don’t want to let it.

Something warm and wet touches my elbow, then my fingers. It laps at my ear, and I draw in a sniffle, peeking down through the crack in my arms at the two golden paws that rest between my feet.

“Ollie.”

My chest cracks wide open at my name, all the love it’s whispered with, the shock at finding me here. That fear that’s been trying so hard to root claws its way out, escaping as two warm hands capture my face.

Glossy emerald eyes peer down at me, watching me, and when I cry out his name, Carter’s sharp inhale catches in his throat before he wraps his arms around me and yanks me into his embrace.

“You didn’t answer your phone,” I cry. “And the code. I tried the code, and it’s not working. You locked me out.”

“Oh, baby.” His palm skates over my back, his touch rough as I cling to him. “No. I would never try to keep you out. I changed it to keep everyone else out. Everything’s been so overwhelming, and without you here, I needed some time to myself, time to think without people in my ear.”

“You said you were coming back, Carter. You said that. But you…” I pry my face from his neck, swiping at my sopping cheeks as he holds me. “Why haven’t you come back to me?”

Shame tints his cheekbones. Carter takes a seat on the step, setting me on his lap, and smooths my hair back from my damp face as Dublin lies beside us.

“It’s still broken, Ollie. I have to…I have to fix it before I deserve to come back to you.”

My head wags rapidly and I fist his shirt in my hands as another sob rips up my throat. “No,” I say firmly. “No. That’s not what you taught me. You taught me to communicate. You taught me to lean on you when I need strength, and you’re supposed to lean on me too. Because we’re supposed to do these things together, aren’t we? Work through the hard stuff, the fears?”

His eyes cloud, an uncertainty that takes over, steals the brilliance of his evergreen forest and replaces it with a bleak and gray hazy fog. His thick lashes flutter closed as he rests his forehead against mine, and there’s a tremor in his voice as he whispers, “I’m so scared, Olivia.”

Cupping his face in my hands, I sweep over the delicate skin beneath his eyes, urging them open. “I don’t want you to be scared alone. That’s not how we do things in this relationship.”

My tongue touches my top lip, tasting the saltiness of my tears, and before I can think twice about it, I cover his mouth with mine. Carter’s fingers crawl up my back, diving into my hair, clutching me to him as I kiss him.

When I pull back, I trap the single tear tracking its way down his cheek. “Please talk to me, Carter. Tell me what happened. Give me the truth, and together we’ll find the answers.”

His inhale is staggered, ragged. He licks his lips, the tips of his fingers pressing into my skin, and finally, he talks.

“I did go upstairs with them,” he tells me quietly. “Courtney, and the other girl, her friend, I still don’t know her name. I only went upstairs with them because Courtney had…She had my phone. Her friend found it in the bathroom at the restaurant. I was so careless, and I must have forgotten it, and when Courtney showed it to me…” Carter swallows, his gaze searching mine. “She had one of your private pictures up.”

Something strange claws up my throat, a mixture of anger and fear. Anger that somebody could be so callous, fear for what that means for me, for us. There’s something else there, the nagging reminder in the back of my head that I’m not perfect. That there have been so many women before me with smaller waists, rounder breasts. Shame curdles in my stomach, but for only a moment. Because then I remember that I’m perfect for Carter, that he thinks I’m beautiful, and what anyone else thinks doesn’t matter in the slightest.

“I’m so sorry, Olivia. I should’ve been more careful. I never should’ve kept them on my phone. I never thought…I never thought—”

I place my palm on his cheek, calming him. “What happened next?”

“She told me she’d already sent all the pictures to herself, that if I didn’t want them to get out I needed to come with her.”

“What did she want? Money? Did she blackmail you?”

A bitter chuckle leaves his lips. “If she’d wanted money, we wouldn’t be in this mess. I tried, trust me. I threw it all at her, but she didn’t want it.” He runs an agitated hand through his hair, mussing his waves. “She said we ruined her life, that Adam didn’t trust her anymore because of what happened that one weekend at the bar, that he would’ve been able to forgive her cheating otherwise. She said it wasn’t fair that I was getting another chance after my past, that she couldn’t stand seeing me portrayed as such a perfect boyfriend, that I’d never last. She wanted to remind everyone of who I really am.”

“But that’s not who you are, Carter. You aren’t your past, and it doesn’t define you. There is such a beautiful, incredible person behind every decision you’ve ever made.”

He looks down, nodding. “She wanted to hurt us, and I think…I think I let her.”

I brush his hair off his forehead. “Why didn’t you tell me all that?”

“Because she wanted me to break up with you. She said if I didn’t, then you would. She wouldn’t get rid of the pictures until she knew we were done. I can’t ever be done, Ollie, not with you. But I can’t let your pictures get out either. You’ll lose your job, and I won’t let you be embarrassed and exposed that way. I need to keep you safe, and I’ve already failed by letting your pictures get in someone else’s hands.”

“I love my job, Carter, but nothing in this life is worth risking you. I would trade all of it for a happily ever after with you, for the life we wanted.”

“I’ve never been so disappointed with myself. I was so scared, and I freaked the fuck out. I didn’t have a clue what to do, what to say to you. I was worried if it looked like everything was fine between us, Courtney would leak the pictures. I stayed up all night trying to come up with a plan. I came up with jack shit. Nothing. I wanted to beg you to stay, stop you from leaving. But in the moment I finally gave in, let you get in that damn car, I knew that the best thing for you was space. Space until I could solve it, until I could make sure you were safe.” He shakes his head, unable to meet my gaze. “I’ll never forgive myself if I fail you any more than this.”

“Failing is part of life. And we pick back up and start again. We can do that, Carter. As long as you’re by my side, I can always start again. Can’t you?”

Anguish swims in his eyes as he watches me closely, like he’s afraid the words aren’t real, that I’ll get up and leave at any moment. Doesn’t he know my heart belongs to him? As long as he’s willing to keep trying, I’ll be here.

Before he can answer, the quiet purr of an engine draws our attention up, and a police cruiser pulls up the long driveway. My pulse hammers in my ears as Carter shifts me off his lap, taking my hand in his as he stands, the car coming to a stop next to his truck.

Two officers step out, and the male looks from me to Carter. “Can we talk, Mr. Beckett?”

Carter nods, and the female officer smiles at me. “Good evening, Miss Parker. I’m Officer Perry, and this is my partner, Officer Wolters.”

I look to Carter in question, and he squeezes my hand.

Officer Wolters steps forward, offering something to Carter as he chuckles. “Well, your screen is still shattered; we couldn’t do anything about that. But you can have your phone back.”

Carter takes his phone, turning it in his hand, and the hot sun glints off the fragments of the broken screen before he tucks it in his pocket. “What does this mean?”

Officer Wolters smiles. It’s warm and broad and makes me feel something I haven’t felt in days.

Hope.

“It means we’ve got both women in custody. This is over.”

I can’t sleep, and I expected as much. The problem right now is that the solution to my sleepless nights feels obvious.

But Carter didn’t want to push me. He was worried it was all too much, too fast, too soon.

We spent hours at the police station, my hand tucked in his while they explained the charges we were well within our rights to press: intent of nonconsensual distribution of intimate images.

Carter filed a police report on Monday night after he promised to come back with answers, with a solution. He said he couldn’t find another way to handle it, because he couldn’t figure it out himself. I think he made the right decision, and he finally does too.

The problem was they couldn’t locate Courtney since her last known address was with Adam, and since Carter didn’t know the name of her accomplice, the police were stuck. Until a woman named Raegan showed up this afternoon, ridden with guilt over the part she’d played. She turned her phone in, loaded with messages from Courtney, details of her intent to distribute the photos one at a time, whether or not Carter and I ended our relationship.

And then Carter brought me back here to Cara and Emmett’s. He held me in their driveway and told me to take the time I needed to come to terms with this. He told me it was okay to be angry with him, and he’d understand if I was.

The problem is that he’s there, and I’m here.

The phone rings once before his smooth voice answers, eager, as if he were hoping I’d call.

“Ollie? Are you okay?”

The tears that haven’t stopped these past four days overflow again, cool trails tracking down my cheeks. “I don’t want to sleep without you.”

He stays on the phone the entire drive over, for every step he takes up the stairs, and I hear Emmett’s soft chuckle both in the phone and through the door as he pokes his head out to see who’s here. The bedroom door opens and Dublin dashes inside, leaping up on the bed, covering my face with his tongue. Only when Carter’s gaze lands on me does he finally hang up.

I peel back the covers and he wastes no time climbing in beside me, pulling my body against his, his hands gripping my hair, my face, my hips as his mouth covers every inch of my face with kisses.

“I haven’t lost you?”

“Carter, you will never, ever lose me.”