Consider Me (Playing For Keeps Book 1)

CARTER

CAN I TOUCH HER? I don’t know if I can touch her.

I keep reaching for her hand and then letting it hang there in midair before pulling it back, dragging it over my thigh. It’s all clammy, so she probably doesn’t even want to hold my hand anyway. But I want to hold hers.

Olivia’s being a good sport, pretending not to notice how anxious I am, how I have zero clue what the fuck I’m doing. She keeps her eyes trained on the movie trailers in front of us, but every time I look at her, the corner of her mouth quirks as she tries not to laugh at me.

“I’m so hot,” I blurt, tugging at the neck of my hoodie. I fan at my face. “Are you hot?”

She twists in her seat, amusement twinkling in her eyes as she watches me. “No.”

“Oh. Just me then.” Leaning forward, I tug my hoodie over my head, and Olivia grunts as my elbow connects with some part of her body. “Oh fuck.” I shove my hoodie in her lap and stick my face in hers, my hands running up and down her arms, lifting them, searching for…bruises? I don’t fucking know. Christ, I’m a fucking mess. “Did I get you? Are you hurt? Are you okay? Sorry my hands are so sweaty.” I twirl one in the air, then point to the ceiling. “It’s the heat. I think they’ve got it cranked all the way up. Want me to ask them to turn it down?” I push on the armrests of my chair, climb to my feet, and thumb down the row. “I’ll ask them to turn it down.”

Olivia grabs a fistful of my shirt and tugs me back down to my seat. “The temperature is fine, Carter. I know you’re nervous, but—”

“Nervous? Me? Psssh.” I wave a flappy hand through the air. “Please. They call me Mr. Confident.”

Her tongue pokes the inside of her cheek as she fights her smile. “Uh-huh.”

I sink back in my seat, knee bouncing as I stare at the screen but don’t actually see what’s on it. This particular theater is relatively quiet considering how busy the place is. Perks of seeing a kid’s movie after they’ve all gone to bed, I guess. Anyway, I kinda wish it was busy, because then maybe I’d have something else to focus on other than how fucking nervous I feel.

She’s here. She came, all on her own. What does that mean? Is this a date? Does she want to, like…move forward? With me? I won’t fuck it up. I’m gonna be so fucking good, and I’m gonna show her how much she can trust me.

“Carter, I—”

“I’m gonna go get snacks,” I half yell, leaping to my feet before promptly tripping over them on my first step, catching myself against the row in front of us.

“Are you o—”

“I’m fine,” I call over my shoulder, scurrying down the row. “Snacks. Snacks, snacks, snacks.” I bury my face in my hands the second I burst into the hallway, leaning back against the wall. What in the fuck is wrong with me? She’s, like, half my size. Why am I scared of her suddenly and how do I become, like…normal again?

I pick the longest line at the concession stand, relishing in the time alone to screw my head on straight, but by the time I get to the counter I accidentally order so much food that they have to put all my candy and chocolate in a popcorn bag so I can carry it all.

“Thanks.” I wrap one arm around the XL popcorn, the other around the bag of treats, and carefully pick up a drink in each hand. “And by the way, it’s hot as balls in theater four. You should maybe think about turning the heat down.”

The kid behind the counter blinks slowly. “We keep all our theaters set at sixty-five degrees.”

My brows rise as I give him a pointed look. “Yeah. Fucking scorching.”

With that, I leave him staring after me, carrying my goodies back to the theater.

My blood drums in my ears with each step I take, climbing the stairs to Olivia in the back row. Her eyes shine with laughter as she unfolds my seat for me so I can sit down with my hands full. I place the bag of candy in her lap and she snickers as she peeks inside it.

“This is a lot of food.”

“Yeah, I eat when I’m nervous. And all the time, really. And I remember the day after we met you said you like sweet over salty, so I got a few bags of chocolate and candy, but we’re at the movies, so we need popcorn too. Do you like popcorn? I didn’t know what you wanted for a drink, so I got a root beer and an iced tea, and you can have whichever one you want, or we can split them both if you want some of each and you don’t mind sharing germs or whatever, but if you don’t want my germs, then that’s cool, and we can—”

“Carter.” Olivia lays her hand on my forearm. It’s soft and warm and all I can hear is my heart. “Take a breath. I love chocolate, candy, and popcorn. I like both root beer and iced tea, so I’m okay with either, but we can share if you’d like, because I don’t mind your germs. Okay?”

I lick my lips. “Okay.”

“Thank you for this. And thank you for the extra-extra bacon pizza last night.”

“Did you find the most bacon-y slice?”

She smiles, and I think my heart stops. “I did, but it was hard, because there was so much bacon. My dream come true.”

“I asked them to use the real stuff, not the crappy crumble.”

“It was incredible.”

“Okay.” I nod. “Yeah. Good.”

The lights dim in the theater, a quiet hum fading to silence that makes my skin crawl as Olivia settles back in her seat and I’m forced to go back to pretending like I don’t want to take her face in my hands and kiss her.

I’m one of those people that gets completely enraptured in Disney movies. My sister and I spent entire weekends lying on makeshift pillow beds on the living room floor, watching every Disney movie in our extensive collection. It’s one of my favorite memories. At nighttime, my parents would cuddle up on the couch behind us, and if we begged enough, they’d agreed to let us sleep out there, stay up and watch the movies. I can count the times we made it to midnight on one hand, and more often than not we each woke up in our own beds.

And yet right now I can’t focus on a single thing happening between Anna, Elsa, Kristoff, Sven, or Olaf.

By the time we’re a half hour into the movie, Olivia sets the treats down on the ground, and I follow her lead, placing the popcorn down too.

I can’t get my knee to stop bouncing, and I’m itching to do something with my hands, namely hold one of hers. Instead, I yank my toque off my head and plow my fingers through my hair, tugging on the strands.

Olivia reaches out, gently pulling my hair free, bringing my hand down to my lap, where she slowly twines her fingers with mine.

“Okay?” she asks on a whisper.

I stare down at her hand in mine, so tiny, so soft, so fucking warm, and when I peer up at her, she gives me a tender smile. The frantic race of my heart slows to a steady gallop, and the tension in my shoulders dissolves.

“Okay.”

“You really thought Olaf was going to die there, huh?”

“He did die, Ollie. Elsa brought him back to life, thank fuck. I would’ve rioted.” I nearly cut off the circulation to her hand by gripping it so tight while I waited, hoping the funny snowman would reappear.

“Can you imagine if Disney movies were as cutthroat now as they were when we were growing up?”

I shudder, squeezing her hand as we head through the lobby of the theater. “There was so much trauma back then.”

“But it shaped us. I wouldn’t be who I was if Scar didn’t toss Mufasa off that cliff, you know?”

“I’ll never get over Simba trying to wake him up,” I reply as we step into the cold night.

Olivia releases my hand, stuffing her toque over her mane of curls and pulling her floppy-eared puppy mitts from her coat pocket. “Thank you, Carter. I had a lot of fun.”

“Me too. I’m glad you came.” I rock back on my heels, smiling down at her as she smiles up at me. I don’t want to say good-bye.

She tilts her head down the street. “Um, I’m gonna go grab a tea at the coffee shop down the road.”

“Oh. What a coincidence. I was also about to go there and get a tea. Guess we can walk together. Maybe grab a seat at the same table.”

“You drink tea?”

“Never.”

Olivia’s eyes shut with her laugh, and I wrap my gloved hand around hers as we start strolling down the street. Fat snowflakes start falling from the sky, clinging to her lashes, the tips of her hair, and she looks kinda like a snow angel.

“I guess you’re used to this kinda winter, huh?”

“We got our asses kicked every winter in Muskoka,” she nods, “but they were the most gorgeous winters. Towering, snow-covered pines, and frozen lakes that looked like glass. My brother and I would walk to Willow Beach and play hockey where the lake was frozen solid.” Her nose wrinkles. “But I think I’ve grown too accustomed to these west coast winters, because whatever’s going on lately with this weather is really doing me in. I’m this close to taking Cara up on her offer to finish the season in Cabo.”

“Nah, you don’t wanna do that. You’d have to listen to her and Em have phone sex every night. Trust me, it’s not something you wanna hear. I’ve been subjected to it for way too long on our road trips.” I nudge her shoulder with mine. “Plus, that sounds like a lot of days without me, which would ultimately suck for you.”

Her eyes glitter. “Is that so?”

“Yeah, you’d miss me like crazy and your days would be boring as fuck without me making you laugh.”

Olivia laughs, a soft sound as I open the door to the coffee shop. It’s quiet in here, a few people sprinkled throughout, chatting lowly and sipping on hot drinks.

Olivia reaches into her purse, producing her wallet. “What do you want?”

“You’re not paying.”

“I’m paying.”

“No, you’re not. I’m paying.”

“You paid for the movies and the snacks.”

“Yeah, ’cause you kicked my ass in beer pong—by way of cheating—and I owed you a night at the movies. It’s the same night, so it counts.”

“Carter—”

“You won’t win, Ollie, so you might as well tell me what you want.”

She frowns but tucks her wallet away. “I’d love a London fog tea latte, please and thank you.”

Pulling my wallet from my back pocket, I chuckle.

“What are you laughing at?”

“Just thinking about the way you kept biting my head off when I tried to buy you a beer the night we met, and then whispered ‘but thank you’ after each attempt, like you didn’t know how to turn me down so aggressively without being polite too.”

She bites back her grin, pinning her arms over her chest. “You were being an ass that night.”

“I’m an ass most nights.”

“No, you’re not. I think you pretend more than anything, until you get to know someone, at least.”

“Maybe you’re right.” I incline my head toward a private table tucked in the back corner. “Go sit down. I’ll bring the drinks over.”

I bring cookies and muffins, too, and Olivia looks at me like I have five heads when I set everything down on the table.

“What? If you don’t finish it you can take it home with you. Or I’ll eat it. I’m always hungry.”

“Are you still nervous?”

I shake my head, breaking a ginger molasses cookie in half, sliding the other half over to Olivia. “I don’t think so. Not anymore.” I study her, the way she’s hunched forward slightly, playing with a small piece of her cookie, teeth skimming her bottom lip. “But now you’re nervous.”

Heat rushes to her cheeks. “A little bit.”

“Why?”

“Because we need to talk, and normally I’m good at talking but…sometimes I feel kind of foggy around you.”

“Is that because you’re confused?”

“Yes.” She shakes her head quickly when my face falls, touching her fingers to the back of my hand. “Not about the way I feel about you. I just think…I think my mind is always going in two different places, thinking about everything that could go wrong, but everything that could go right too. It’s hard to focus, and I get lost in this space in between, where I’m just…scared and confused.”

“I get that.”

“You do?”

I nod. “I think I was thinking the same thing, but maybe in different ways. I didn’t know how to step forward, because I’d never gone in that direction before. And then when I wanted to step forward, you wanted to leave, and it was confusing.” I look down at my hot chocolate, the whipped cream piped on top, the chocolate shavings and sprinkle of cinnamon, and when I meet Olivia’s gaze again, so much vulnerability shines in her eyes. “I might have been confused about why we were on different pages, but I understand your fears.” My shoulder pops up and down. “I guess I just wish you would’ve stayed and talked. We could have tried to figure it out together.”

The sound of quiet chatter and dishes clanking drifts around us as Olivia mulls over my words.

“We could have,” she finally says. “But I honestly don’t think it would’ve been effective, and that’s because I couldn’t wrap my head around what was happening. I think I needed to step away to evaluate my feelings, how fast and strong they came on, and my priorities, though I wish I hadn’t hurt you in the process.” The tip of her forest green nail taps on her mug. “Could we try to figure it out now? Or is it too late?”

“It’s never too late, Ollie. But I do think…I think maybe we should take it slow. Or try to, at least. You know, proper dates and stuff, where you can learn to trust me.”

Her mouth quirks as she nods. “I would like that, Carter.”

“Kissing doesn’t qualify as slow, though, in case you were wondering.”

“Oh really? Are we talking innocent pecks or—”

“Tonsil hockey.”

Olivia snorts a laugh, my favorite kind, clapping a hand over her nose and mouth. “That feels fast to me.”

“Well, you have little legs. It makes sense that you think everything I do is fast. Something for you to work on, I guess.”

Brown eyes roll as she shifts back in her chair to sling one leg over the other and tosses her curls over her shoulder. “And you can work on earning your tongue in my mouth.”

My lids hood as I lean closer. “A challenge? I love a challenge.”

She hides her smile behind her mug. “And I love watching you lose.”

“Oh, I never lose, Ol.”

“Right. Just at beer pong.”

A growl rumbles low in my chest, and when Olivia snickers into her tea, I smile.

“I really like you,” I murmur.

Tenderness swims in her eyes as her shoulders drop. “I really like you, too, Carter. Thank you for being patient with me and giving me some time.”

The truth is, I think I’d give her anything she ever needed, all she’d have to do is ask.

And when we finally amble out of the coffee shop at midnight, strolling hand in hand back to the theater where we’re both parked, I wonder if she’s what I’ve been needing all this time. It feels that way.

“Save me a dance tomorrow?”

“You can have as many dances as you like.”

I tug her toque down a little lower, covering her ears. “What if I want them all?”

“That wouldn’t surprise me at all.”

“I’ve never been good at sharing.” I brush her hair over her shoulder, knuckles skimming her cheek. “You’re not gonna let me kiss you right now, are you?”

“No, I’m not.” She tugs on my coat, guiding my face down until my mouth hovers above hers. “You need to work on your self-control if we’re going to do this slow, Mr. Beckett.”

“Fine, but I’ve never been good with self-control.” I watch as she climbs into her car. “That rule was more of a guideline anyway. And you wanna kiss me too!”

“Of course I do.” She hits me with a wink as she starts pulling her door closed. “But I want to watch you lose more.”