Untouchable (Untouchables, 1)

“What are you thinking now?” he asks.

I sigh. “Impossible things. I wish long-distance wouldn’t be so hard.”

“Might not be as hard as you think,” he tells me. His tone is too blasé though, so I don’t believe him. He hasn’t considered how lonely he will be with a girlfriend too far away to ever spend the night with him. I have, and I have many rounds of Infidelity Clue to show for it.

“It wouldn’t be fair to either of us,” I tell him.

Carter is quiet for a moment, then he says words that turn my beating heart into an ice sculpture. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”

He’s never agreed with me before. I’m the one trying to keep us rooted in reality and Carter is the one blissfully positive that even if we only saw each other every other weekend for a single day, our relationship is worth hanging onto. Carter is the one who refuses to accept defeat, so if he is finally agreeing…

Well, it’s inconvenient that he finally came around on day one of this trip. It will probably be a little awkward now, walking around with someone I am 100 percent positive is my future ex-boyfriend.

The vicious brunette appears in my mind again, smirking because her family could afford to send her to Columbia, because she runs in Carter’s circles and is exactly the kind of girl he was meant to end up with. Me, I’m just the girl he was supposed to leave behind in Texas, and boy would she not shy away from telling me that.

“Your future wife’s a bitch,” I inform him, scooting out of his embrace so I can sit up.

Carter cracks a smile. “Hey, no one talks about my future wife like that.”

I wrinkle up my nose with displeasure and go to climb off the bed.

“Hey, where are you going?” he asks, grabbing my wrist and tugging me backward.

“We need to unpack. Everything your sister picked out for me is highly prone to wrinkling. Unless you want the first item on our itinerary to be a trip to an authentic New York dry cleaner, I need to hang up my clothes.”

Reluctantly, he lets me go. I leave him alone in the bedroom, coaching myself to get it together as I head toward the luggage. There is no reason to let our doomed future dull our enjoyment of this weekend. Knowing it will end doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy it while it’s happening, and Carter has really been looking forward to this trip. For that matter, so have I.

By the time I make it back to the bedroom, I am in better spirits. I hoist the suitcase up on the bed and unzip it, then Carter watches me unpack. He hasn’t told me any of the things we’ll be doing this weekend, but I trust him to take care of the planning. He knows New York much better from living here than I possibly could from hours of looking online.

I hope he takes me to see the tree at Rockefeller Center, though. I’d love to lace up some skates and stumble around on the ice with him. Afterward, we could warm up with some hot chocolate while we stroll through the lively city streets.

Carter is still on the bed, his weight propped up on his elbow. “What’s that smile for?” he asks.

“Just thinkin’ about touristy things. I hope you’re not opposed to doing touristy things just because you used to live here, because I am, in fact, a tourist.”

“There are touristy activities on the docket, don’t worry.”

I nod once. “Good. Also, I have decided to look on the bright side of all this. You and I are about to dive into a super exciting time in both our lives, and there’s no reason to let the inevitability of your bitchy future wife ruin it.”

He rolls on his back and props his hands behind his head. “Go on.”

“Until one of us isn’t single anymore, maybe I could still come visit you here during the school year. Obviously we would have to stop once one of us moves on, but…” I trail off, shrugging as I hang the last blouse on a hanger. “I don’t know, just something to think about.”

“You’ll do periodic booty calls, but not a long distance relationship?”

“Correct,” I tell him, crossing to the closet. The small amount of space my clothes take up in this closet is a bit pitiful, even though I only packed for the weekend. If I actually lived here, I probably wouldn’t fill much more space than this since I don’t have a large wardrobe. Closing the closet door, I tell him, “If we keep it casual, we don’t owe each other anything but honesty. You won’t be required to spend every night alone after a phone call with a girlfriend who lives in another state, and I won’t have to worry about all the sexy New York ladies who will inevitably throw themselves at you. When I’m not here, you can do whatever you want with whomever you want.”