I almost laugh at my own thoughts. Let him. I barely let him have sex with me in the first place.
Carter pulls back, and I realize the short laugh must have escaped me. “What’s funny?” he asks.
“Nothing. I’m kind of surprised you didn’t have a condom on you, though. You have been planning to fuck me since that day in the classroom; I expected you’d have one handy at all times.”
“There’s a condom in my wallet,” he says, before resting his head against my shoulder again.
“What?” I blink. “Then why didn’t we use it?”
He shifts his weight and carefully pulls his dick out of me. “I wanted to come inside you,” he states, like that’s a valid reason.
“Well, I’m not on the pill,” I inform him.
“Well, you should probably get on it then, huh?” he returns, reaching over and snaking an arm under me so he can gather me against his chest.
“Future birth control doesn’t do any good tonight,” I mutter at him.
“It’ll be all right,” he says, with unreasonable confidence.
I shake my head at him, but snuggle into the crook of his arm anyway. “You’re not actually invincible, you know? The world won’t always bend to your will.”
He doesn’t bother to argue with me. I hope it’s because in every other sexual scenario he has been safe, and this was a fluke. I’m going to be really pissed off if he only assumed he was clean, and he actually gives me Chlamydia.
I’ll be doubly pissed if he gives me a baby. He’ll never hear the end of it.
I know that’s a paranoid thought to have when we’ve only had unprotected sex one time, but he’s so quiet, my mind has nowhere else to wander. It takes the direst road, leading me down the path of teenage pregnancy. Would I still be able to go to college? Probably, but only part-time; it would take twice as long to graduate, and I would feel like such a failure.
And Carter—would it even impact his life? What are his post-high school plans? He told me football wasn’t his end game, that it was just a stop along the way, but what are his future plans? Why didn’t I make him tell me that before I slept with him?
Well, because I had no intention of sleeping with him, but tonight got away from me. Wow, what a cluster-fuck of bad decision-making.
Swallowing, I tip my head back to look up at him. “Do you have any idea where you’ll be going to school next year? I mean, where do you want to go?”
“It’s not officially official yet because of the rules and regulations, but I’ve already made a commitment. There are schools with better teams that want me, but I’m not going to college to play football, I’m going for the degree. I lucked out that their quarterback is a senior this year, so they needed someone to fill the spot, and I’m the best they can get. Didn’t actually plan to play college ball, to be honest, certainly don’t need the scholarship, but Hell, it’s a guaranteed in at the school I wanted to go to anyway, so why not?”
I nod. “Which school is that?”
“Columbia.”
My stomach sinks. “Columbia. Like, Columbia University. In New York.”
“That’s the one,” he verifies.
A lead balloon seems to rest in my gut. I manage a faint nod, but icy regret starts to spread through my veins like it’s being pumped in through an IV. He’s not staying here. Of course he’s not staying here. Why would he? If I had a scholarship to go to an Ivy League school in New York, nothing could keep me in Texas.
I just gave my virginity to someone I have absolutely no future with. That isn’t what I wanted. I’m not Grace, I won’t be devastated if the man I gave myself to the first time isn’t the man I’ll marry and spend the rest of my life with, but I wanted more than this. I wanted to be positive I wasn’t a conquest, I wanted it to be with someone I trusted, a relationship I would always remember fondly, even after it ended.
I wanted to be in love.
With the icy fingers of regret already prodding me, I can’t bear to remain snuggled up against him like we’re lovers. I guess we are now in the technical sense, but it was too soon. I knew it was too soon, and he didn’t want to hear it. He decided for us that my virginity was in the way, and then he removed it.
I don’t know what happens now.
I pull back the corner of the made up bed so I can crawl under the sheets once I’m out of his embrace. It occurs to me that I am still wearing my bra. He never got around to taking it off.