He didn’t.
“Sometimes I forget how long you’ve been gone, Tuck. Char and Josh haven’t been a thing since… uh.” He cleared his throat and swished the wine in his glass. “Well. One night after you and I stopped talking, Josh and Char had a huge fight and broke up—for the twelfth time—so Josh brought over a bottle of Southern Comfort, and… you might say we attempted to give each other a little Southern Comfort.” He wiggled his eyebrows. “Char came looking for him the next morning and found more than she bargained for.”
I choked on my drink and ended up coughing into my napkin as Carter grinned. “Wait, what? You? And Josh? Josh who wore those Sigma Nu windbreakers like he was still back in college Josh? Josh with the boat shoes Josh?”
“I prefer to think of him as ‘Josh who’s packing heat under those khakis Josh.’” Carter sighed, eyes to the ceiling and a fond look on his face. “And let’s just say, keg stands took on a whole new meaning with him.”
I laughed out loud. “Oh my God. I cannot believe… you and… just… wow. And how do the Rogers of Belle Meade feel about Josh?”
“Like I’d inflict my family on the poor man,” Carter scoffed. “Besides, it wasn’t like that. You know I refuse to settle down until I’m forty-five.”
“Used to be forty,” I noted.
“Until I turned thirty-five and suddenly forty was in spitting distance.” He chuckled at himself. “Anyway, Josh was just having fun. Curious, I guess. Probably also looking for a good reason not to marry his on-again-off-again girlfriend.” He shrugged. “It was very temporary, and we moved on. No harm, no foul, and we stayed friends. Last we spoke, he was dating a woman who looked remarkably like Char and his itch had been scratched.”
“Oh, wow.” I laid a comforting hand over his on the tabletop. “I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be,” Carter said. Before I knew what was happening, he turned his hand over so our fingers were clasped. “It wasn’t serious at all. Not like we were. So tell me for real, Tuck, why’d you stop calling? And more importantly—” He dropped his voice an octave to a low purr. “What would it take to get you to start calling again, especially now that I agreed to spend the next six months covering for Dr. Symmons in Great Nuthatch—which, I swear to God, is the worst name anyone ever gave a town.”
“Ah…” I laughed nervously. “Spoken like a man who doesn’t know there’s a town called Pecker Lurch just on the other side of the Thicket.” I tried to withdraw my hand, but Carter held it fast and lifted one eyebrow.
“Spoken like a man who’s dodging my question.”
“What? Dodging? No. I…” I took another healthy swig and licked my lips. “See, the thing is…”
The thing was, Carter Rogers was handsome and charming and funny and smart and Lord a’mercy, he was sexy, with his windblown hair and broad shoulders. Plus, he made me laugh… a lot. There were entire minute-long stretches of time tonight where I’d purely enjoyed myself and not felt like I’d left the house and forgotten to do something vitally important—like shut off the stove, or unplug the iron, or tell Dunn I loved him—which was how I’d felt every single day since I’d realized I’d fallen head over heels for my best friend.
But I swear, the moment I let myself enjoy Carter’s conversation or the way his button-down bunched over his big biceps, the ghost of Dunn Johnson would appear right on the table between us, smack on top of the bread basket, waving his spirit fingers and kicking his heels in the air, forcing me to remember that Carter Rogers was not the man I wanted.
He should have been. Oh, he should have been. Carter was gay, for one thing, and attracted to me, for another. One quick yes and he’d have me home and naked in no time flat, and I could potentially go to sleep on a Saturday night feeling satisfied instead of pounding my pillow in frustration until I dropped off.
Except… I couldn’t.
Because it was not Carter’s arms I wanted wrapped around me. It was not Carter’s chest I wanted to lean my head on when I’d had a hard day. It wasn’t Carter I wanted to call when I heard a stupid joke, or an interesting story on the news, or when I wanted to get outdoors and go fishing.
“Are you seeing someone, Tuck?” Carter prompted, his head tilted to the side like he already knew the answer. “I probably should have asked before I invited you out tonight, but I figured, worst-case scenario you’d just tell me you were engaged or married or something.” He grinned again, totally unrepentant. “And at least then I’d have gotten to see that handsome face again, right?”