Untouchable (Untouchables, 1)

Carter grasps me by the shoulder and runs his hands down my arms, his gaze perusing my body before returning to my face.

“I like you in Longhorn gear.”

“Yeah?” I murmur, resisting the urge to touch him, because then it’ll take me even longer to get out of here.

He nods. “I know you didn’t want to come, but I’m glad you did.”

“It’s not that I didn’t want to come,” I offer, making an attempt at sounding convincing, but failing horribly.

Smiling faintly, Carter shakes his head. “Don’t lie to me. It’s all right. I know you’re not into all this. Still, it’s nice you came.”

I glance down at the pavement beneath our feet, scuffing the toe of my shoes on the asphalt. Erika’s words from the other night flourish, making me wonder if sending him home after kissing him by my car counts as “leaving him high and dry.”

Carter’s thoughts aren’t entirely in line with mine, but as if he can pick up on the fact that I want to kiss him, he catches the back of my neck and pulls me close, bending his head to kiss me just like he did at lunch today.

My heart gallops in my chest, half from the sensation of Carter’s lips on mine, half from the fear of getting him excited. I try to shake it off, tell myself I won’t be blackmailed by my own imagination into… into what? I don’t even know. Getting in the back seat with him? I don’t want to do that, but Carter has maybe three fucks to give about what I want, and whether or not I want to have sex at any given time is not on the distribution list.

When he pulls back, he stays close. There’s genuine tenderness on his face that makes me feel mean for having those thoughts, but I’m stuck inside my own head and I can’t get out.

“Why don’t you come back to my house?” Carter suggests.

There it is. The invitation. The trap. I feel nervous, and it bugs the shit out of me. Before I can stop myself, I bring up what I’ve meant to bring up, but couldn’t in front of Carter’s friends.

“Erika came over to me after the game tonight.”

I watch his face for some sign of guilt like he’s a normal guy, like that feeling might register, but naturally, it doesn’t. His expression doesn’t change at all. “And?”

I swallow and glance down, then meet his gaze again, desperate for the truth, and knowing only he has it. A truth I’ll believe, anyway. “And she insists she wasn’t lying last night.”

“Of course she does,” he says, sounding unsurprised. “Erika doesn’t confess and repent when she’s caught in a lie, Zoey, she doubles down.”

“Well, it makes me uncomfortable,” I tell him.

“What would you like me to do about it?” he asks, wrapping his arms around my waist and tugging me against him.

“She thinks I’m a passing fad, that you were into my virginity more than me, and that now I’ll lose your interest and you’ll go back to her.”

“No, she’s worried you’re not a passing fad, and that’s why she’s putting work into scaring you off. Come on, you can deduce that without my help, can’t you?”

“She’s tapping into my existing concerns and exacerbating them,” I state.

“Only if you let her,” he says simply. “I realize I’m not the easiest guy in the world to trust, but you really wanna trust her more?” he adds, cocking his head skeptically. “She thinks I’m her ticket out of here, Zoey. She wants to use me as a stepping stone so she’s not stuck here, knocked up two years from now, waiting tables six days a week and going home to some washed up former Longhorn who’s probably fucking around on her anyway—but with him, there are a lot less perks for dealing with it. Erika doesn’t like me, she likes what I can do for her. You think she doesn’t know where I’m headed? She wants to hitch her star to my wagon. That’s all it is. I promise. I already told you nothing happened, and I can tell you ten more times, but why are we still wasting our time talking about this?”

I sigh, training my eyes on his abdomen instead of his face. “I think Jake told her. About that day in the classroom. About what you did to me.”

Silence.

My gaze darts to his, hoping for some reaction, but his face is carefully blank, the thoughts behind his dark eyes as transparent as brick walls. “She said some stuff, made it sound like she was gonna try to convince you Jake and I had some kind of… I don’t know. Then she said how ordinarily no one would believe I’d be romantically interested in someone who sexually harassed me, but hey, maybe you would believe that. It was clear she was talkin’ about you and what happened. Jake was with her, so I think he—”