Crushed (Torn #7)(18)

My frown deepened, my sleepiness gone for the meantime as I scrutinized him further. “For a guy, your eyebrow is too perfectly defined. Do you do anything with that ‘cause I gotta know? My brow game doesn’t come close to yours.”

He looked like he had tasted something sour. “Brow game? What the f*uk is a brow game?”

It was a good, hilarious moment, and I couldn’t stop myself from cackling really hard. Sometimes men were just so clueless it was funny.

Rolling my eyes at him, I scanned the aisles before redirecting my gaze back to him. “Please don’t tell me I missed out on lunch?” I was silently praying it wasn’t the case.

His lips pressed together before nodding. “You didn’t.”

“You’re lying.”

“You did ask me to”—he gave me a pointed look, unperturbed—“so don’t give me the crazy eyes.”

Pouting, I could feel my tummy growl a little. “But I’m hungry,” I moaned in protest, hoping the airplane crew would be kind enough to give me one if there was any left. “Should I press the call button just to ask if it’s possible?”

Carter sighed, tucking his book on the side of his chair, before giving me an amused look that was becoming too familiar to me. “You owe me one, woman,” he declared before unbuckling his seatbelt. “I’m going to see if I can charm my way into getting a tray full of food just so I don’t have to deal with your cranky ass all the way to LA.”

I made my silent mini clap, beyond gleeful. “Thank you, thank you, Carter.”

Watching him get up out of his seat, I didn’t even doubt for a second that he would be able to charm a stewardess for a lunch tray. Hey, he was Carter Mason after all. He could charm a snake to dance if he so wished it. He was that f*uking hot, if I did admit it myself.

It much over five minutes until, just as predicted, he was back with the mini, plastic tray with my hot lunch on it.

“Ah, you’re my savior,” I gushed before I enthusiastically grabbed the tray from him and immediately got down to business.

While I got busy munching my heart out, Carter went back to his reading. Quietly reflecting all by my lonesome, I realized he wasn’t such a bad companion. In fact, he was actually fun to be around. He and Brody were sort of similar in a sense, though Brody was a bit too frank and too open with me. Unlike him, Carter, though fun, still exercised some reservation.

It wasn’t until I made a satisfying sound as I finished eating that Carter finally paid some attention to me.

“You do realize you demolished all of that in five minutes tops, right?”

“Get the f*uk out! No way—”

“Yes, way.”

“Damn. Don’t judge. I really was starving,” I snorted out, laughing at myself.

We joked around for another ten minutes at my expense before things shifted to stories involving his best friend. Then, since his name was already out in the open, I couldn’t help but press more about him.

“He’s pretty torn up about Lindsey getting married, huh?”

“He’s coping,” he said before appearing to be reflective. “It’s not easy to be the one left behind,” he added with a hint of melancholy in his voice. It wasn’t a hard guess where his thoughts were leading.

Imagining Brody’s heartbreak and what kind of state he was in was hurting me. I remembered it all too clearly when Lindsey had broken up with him and immediately gone back to be with Dimitris. He was so devastated practically the only thing he consumed was alcohol because he couldn’t stomach the thought of digesting food.

“I wish…” I whispered, feeling helpless and blue as I pictured him in a much worsened state. “I just wish it could’ve been him instead of Dimitris.” Had he been happy, I would be happy along with him. Anything, really, as long as I didn’t have to see him so broken and out of sorts, but the inevitable had happened. I hoped he was dealing with it without getting himself in trouble.

“That’s surprising coming from you. You know, given how you feel about him.”

I would rather hurt seeing him happy than be in agony because I couldn’t help cure his heartache. It was selfless to love someone whom I had never had a romantic relationship with, yet I was. I had loved him since the beginning of time, and I supposed a part of me always would.

“What can I say, I just want him happy. I’d rather see him happy with her than be miserable forever.”

Carter sighed before reaching out to squeeze my arm. “You’re a good girl, Amber. Maybe if you give him time, he’ll come around to your way.” He wasn’t teasing; he truly meant it.

“I won’t hold my breath.”

He smirked. “It’s like that, huh?”

I made a determined nod. “It sure is. Maybe it’s high time I let it go, let him go.”

He seemed to understand the newfound purpose I had. “We all have to start somewhere.”

I had come to a point of no return. I couldn’t keep wishing he would see me as a woman who also needed to be loved. For years, I was merely a shadow behind Lindsey. However, after seeing her completely happy and fully satisfied with her life, I realized maybe it was my time to truly fight to start living again and not be so easily swayed into thinking I could keep loving the very same man for the rest of my life, one who barely saw me as the woman he told his pains and secrets to or occasionally slept with. Those particular times, he was mostly drunk out of his mind.