*********************

Carter and I got into a routine of going to my house after school to work on the composition for our music theory class. What seemed like an easy task was proving to stretch over the course of weeks and it was the fault of a certain bad boy.

We spent more time talking and joking around than we did actually working on our project because Carter would get bored and change the subject. I couldn't say that I necessarily minded, though. It was nice to talk without feeling like I had to keep him at arms length.

On Friday, we had been actually working on the composition in my room when my phone began ringing. I grabbed it from on top of the piano and checked the screen to see Jake's name blinking back at me.

Carter tensed beside me and muttered, "Shouldn't you get that?"

I just put my phone on silent and set it back on top of the piano. "No. He's probably just going to yell at me for never calling him the other day."

I don't know why I added the last bit, but when I did, I could see Carter's gaze shift to me as he stared at the side of my face. "You didn't call him?"

"I don't want to talk to him," I shrugged in the hopes my feigned nonchalance will overrule my actual quickening heart. The whole reason why I decided to talk to Jake in the first place was to piss Carter off. There was no way around explaining that minor detail.

Carter was silent for a moment before he asks, "Then why did you say-"

"Because you were being so adamant about talking to me about everything and I just really need some time, okay? And I was hoping that maybe if thought something was going on with me and Jake then you would back off." I reveal without looking at him. When I finally glance at him, he looks shocked, and I turn sheepish. "I know it was dumb and childish and lame but I couldn't help myself."

Very slowly, Carter's shocked expression morphs into a smile and his wide eyes return to their glimmering state as he states, "You did it to make me jealous."

"No," I deny immediately, although that's really all there was to it. My face even began heating in betrayal of my lie. "I did it to make you give me space."

Carter looks at me in wonder for a long moment before he says lowly, "You know that talking to Jake instead of me is the last thing that makes me want to give you space, right?" The intense look he's giving me mixed with his low voice makes my heart beat quicken. "It makes me even more determined to make you mine again."

My heart stops for a long moment as our gazes lock and I try to think of something, anything to say. All I come up with is a hesitant, "Carter..."

"I know," He says, even though I didn't even know, and he gives me a small smile. "You need time."

But right now, with the genuine and honest look shining in Carter's eyes, I didn't need time. I felt like I was moments away from grabbing him and kissing the life out of him. The raw feeling of want gnawed at me so heavily that I was too surprised to speak.

After weeks of trying to keep Carter away, I still felt the intense desire to make him mine again. For a minute, I forgot about all the stupid stuff he said and did at the end of camp. All I could focus on was how honest he looked, like he could never be the one who broke my heart.

"Let's keep working," Carter murmurs after a moment. He shifts in his seat and then shoots me an easygoing smile. "I was wondering if we should add some drum beats in the background. I have bongos at my house we can use."

The casual shift in conversation was so jarring that it took me a solid minute before I made myself nod. "Yeah, okay."

And that's how we ended up in Carter's forest green Jeep that somehow suited his personality so well, with the windows down to soak up the blue skies and warm temperature. We unnecessarily drove when we could've walked, but Carter insisted that it was the perfect day for a drive, so we took his car.

When we get to his house, I admire the outside for a few moments before I follow him through the wide wooden front door. Instead of misleading silence, there was chatter coming from the general kitchen area, though the sounds were muffled and quiet. Carter led us toward the noise to inspect the source and we stumbled upon his mother as she put away groceries.

"Hi honey," Mrs. Miller greets her son with a warm smile as she shifts her attention away from the news channel that she was watching from the kitchen. When her gaze meets mine, she looks surprised, but her smile widens. "Amelia, dear, it's nice to see you again."

"You too Mrs. Miller," I tell her earnestly.

"I'm going to grab my drums," Carter tells me with a lopsided smile. "I'll be right back."

I nod at him, annoyed at myself for being dazed at the sight of his gorgeous smile, and turn my attention back to Mrs. Miller when he walks out of the room. To my surprise, she's already looking at me with a knowing smile.

"To be honest, I didn't expect you to come back around here," She told me in a kind voice that somehow cushioned her unexpected sentiment.

My brow furrows and even though I'm thinking neither did I, I ask, "Why not?"

And then, as if my initial shock wasn't enough, Mrs. Miller tells me in a hushed voice, "He's been so sure that you wanted nothing to do with him. I almost thought that I'd never see you again."

Before the reddening of my cheeks catches up to me, I ask with wide eyes, "Wait, you know?"

From what she was hinting at, Carter had told his mom about what happened between us this summer. My suspicions from the first time I visited his house were confirmed by the knowing look in her eyes and the slight nod of her head.

But her smile soon turns sad as she tells me, "I know more than you, honey."

I stand there, puzzled by her words and too baffled to answer, before my mind starts reeling and I open my mouth to ask what she means by that. But before I can do so, the front door opens and closes, and I hear an unfamiliar voice call gruffly, "Hello?"

Mrs. Miller noticeably perks up as she looks at the kitchen doorway and calls, "In here, Rich!"

I stare at her wordlessly until I hear footsteps approach the kitchen and my gaze shifts to see who just entered. An established looking man with a minor receding hairline and a strong jawline walks in with a business suit on and a suitcase attached to his hand.

He smiles warmly at Carter's mom and sets his briefcase on top of the counter before he greets her with a kiss. My mind works double time before I finally realize that this was Carter's step father, the very one that he despised, but tolerated because of his mom.

"Welcome home honey," Mrs. Miller greets with a wide smile, and then her gaze flashes to me. "This is Amelia. She's a friend of Carter's."

His brown eyes shift to me and he assesses me carefully before giving me a brief nod. "It's nice to meet you, Amelia. I'm Richard."

I shake his hand hesitantly and watch as he turns his attention back to her. I didn't really know what to make of his existence yet. Carter told me that Richard had been the one to turn Carter in and almost land him a spot in Juvie, and yet with his mom, he looked so peaceful. Kind, even.

"I'm going to wash up before dinner," Richard tells Mrs. Miller with a smile.

I was eager for him to leave so that I could continue the very interesting conversation that I was having with his wife, but on Richard's way out the kitchen, Carter walked in. His expression was impassive as he passed his step father but his lips turned up in a slight smile when his gaze landed on mine.

There were bongos tucked underneath his arm that I doubted we would use in the end, but I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt anyway. After all, I only agreed to come to his house to get them because he insisted they would add an essential flare to our composition and I was too flustered by our conversation to object.

"I'm all set," Carter tells me and pats one of the bongos. "You ready?"

"You're not going to stay for dinner?" Mrs. Miller asks suggestively with a hint of a smile on her lips.

"As much as I would love to have you embarrass me over a meal," Carter redirects the conversation with a knowing look. "I'm going to pass." He glances at me and smiles a little. "Besides, we have work to do."

I smile back at him and then at his mom. "It was nice seeing you again, Mrs. Miller."

She smiles widely back at me. "You too, Amelia." And then, with a pointed look at her son, she adds, "I hope to see you again soon."

Carter ushers me out by practically dragging my arm until I was out the front door and he shut it promptly behind me. He let out a breath and dropped my arm as he stood on the first step, and then Carter's gaze lifts to meet mine, and his lips quirk up in a boyish smile.

"Now it's bongo time," Carter proclaims with an ever widening cheeky grin that made him look the exact opposite of his reputation at school.

"Well," I try to suppress my wide smile to give him a deadpan expression. "I never thought I'd hear you say that."

Despite my mock seriousness, Carter's grin simply widens. There's a flash of playfulness in his eyes as he leans down and teases in a low voice, "Mina, don't you know that I'm full of surprises?"

I can't help my eyes from giving him a once over as I feel my smile dissolve into a small smirk. "Full of something, that's for sure."

His bright eyes light up and I take that as my cue to turn and walk down the pathway of his house toward his car. But the sun was shining and it wasn't horribly hot nor frigidly cold and I could hear a bird singing amongst the rumble of cars halfway down the block, and I decided that it was the perfect day for a walk.

After all, my house was only a few streets over from Carter's. So I walked past the house and turned around when I reached the end of his driveway to see Carter regarding me curiously from the front step. I shoot him an easy grin and insist, "Let's walk."

"Whatever you say, princess," Carter says almost lazily from behind me, and I glance at him instinctively to see the same boyish smile on his lips.

For the first time since being back at school, I didn't tell Carter not to call me that. I couldn't bring myself to scold him while little fireballs of electricity shot through me at the familiarity of the nickname. Instead, I stayed silent and tried to fight the growing smile on my lips.

He fell into step beside me a moment or two later, and we walked leisurely down his street. This is where the nicer houses resided, with bedrooms that all had bathrooms and walk in closets, yet they all just looked too big. Admittedly, Carter's house was the only perfect one.

"So," I say conversationally, and steal a glance at Carter's profile as he looked ahead. "How's your sleep been?"

As I asked him, I could remember how tired he looked at school the other day, when he told me that he had been up all night. A small ache in my chest was evidence enough that I was starting to care too much about Carter and his wellbeing, but I couldn't help it. I don't think I ever stopped.

Carter glances at me wearily, yet even though he looked unamused by my question, the golden flecks swirling in his hazel eyes still looked breathtaking. "Alright."

"That was the least convincing answer you could possibly give me," I deadpan bleakly. "How about you try the truth, this time?"

He just stares at me for a moment before his lips begin to curl up. "You're worried about me."

The confidence backing his words threw me momentarily before I felt my cheeks flame as my body caught up with me. I felt my heart skip a beat by the look on his face as Carter's eyes float over my face, glowing with the sunshine that warmed my skin, and I stay deadly silent for a long minute.

"So?" I shrug in an attempt to make myself seem nonchalant, though I felt anything but. Carter's smile just widened. "Do you want me to not worry about you?"

"That's not what I said," Carter tells me through his grin. "I like that you worry."

My heart began stumbling over itself as I forced myself to speak. "That's kind of messed up, don't you think?" I gulp as my words escape me in a jumble. "You enjoy the fact that I worry. Why do you want me to worry?"

To my dismay, Carter's eyes are shining with the same boyish mischief that made my insides go to mush. "I like that you still care about me even though you act like you don't."

His words were like a blow to my guard that hadn't been up as high as I thought it was before. But that's what I was trying to do, right? Be his friend again? All I knew was that a friend doesn't make another friend's heart beat this fast.

I forced my legs to keep walking so that I could get to the safety of my own home quicker. When we got back to my house, we could stop talking about this. We could start working on the composition for school, again. We could go back to being friends.

"I never stopped," My words betray me as they fall out of my mouth quietly and I look at Carter in mild surprise of myself. "I wanted to, but I couldn't."

Carter's eyes harden but he still keeps our closeness, and only then do I realize that we had drifted closer until our arms were brushing against each other and elbows knocked into one another as we walked. Our pace had even slowed, too.

I tear my gaze off of his to regain my bearings, and I very slowly realize that we're already walking down my street. I let out an inaudible sigh of relief when I look down the street and see my house in between the familiar white and gray homes that belong to my neighbors.

"I'm sorry Amelia," Carter says suddenly, so quietly that I wouldn't have heard him had I not been right beside him.

I give him a half smile and tell him what I genuinely think. "It's okay."

Because, in some weird twisted way, it kind of was. I got the strongest feeling that Carter has been nothing but honest with me since he moved here, despite whatever happened at the end of camp. I couldn't keep harboring such profound hatred anymore. It was too exhausting.

So, at least for the time being, I forgave him.

+ + +

Dinner was dreadful. Talking to Carter on the walk home took a lot out of me, and by the time he left to go home, I was emotionally worn out. So, when my mom called up the stairs and said that dinner was ready, the last thing I wanted to do was sit at a silent table and force conversation with my mother and father.

But here we were.

The silence stretched out until the only noise was the sound of our forks scratching the plate and the occasional cough. I just stared down at my phone and picked at it in boredom, not at all hungry. My mom kept looking up at me and my dad like she wanted to say something, but every time I thought she was going to, she didn't.

Until the silence became too much for her, that is, and she shot us a rehearsed smile. "How was everyone's day?"

"Busy," My father said gruffly in between bites. "And you, Claire?"

"It was nice," She bobbed her head as she said it, like she was trying to convince herself instead of inform us. "I got a lot done. How about you, honey?"

I glance up from my plate when I realize that she was talking to me and mumble, "It was okay."

"Don't mumble, it's unbecoming." My father tells me sternly with a hard glance. I stifled an eye roll, as I was used to doing, and he straightens up and actually gives me his attention. "Have you heard anything from Juilliard yet, Amelia?"

My stomach pinched at the mention of Juilliard and I shook my head slowly. "No, sir."

"A letter should be coming in the mail," My mom chimes in with a tight smile. "It should be any day, now."

I simply nodded in response. I stayed silent for the remainder of dinner and only spoke unless spoken to, but kept my answers short and rehearsed and accompanied by 'sir' when addressing my father. By the end of dinnertime, I was even more wiped than I had been before.

I climbed the stairs and laid in bed staring at the ceiling for who knows how long. I thought about Juilliard, about my parents, about Carter. I thought for so hard and so long that when I rolled over and spared a glance at the clock on my bedside table, I was shocked to see it was midnight.

I stared at the neon numbers in disbelief for a long moment before listening to the silence that fell upon the house and realized that at some point my parents had gone to sleep. Despite how emotionally exhausted I was after the events of the day, my body was wired. I was too awake.

But still, I shut my eyes and evened my breathing and hoped for sleep. Of course, it didn't come. I was stuck lying in bed with my eyes squeezed shut and tried to count sheep or bottles of beer on the wall in the hopes that sleep would find me, but it never did. Eventually, I heard my phone ding from beside me on my bed, and I was actually thankful for the distraction.

I raised my gaze to the phone, wondering who would be texting me at this hour, and I saw that another hour and a half passed, making it almost two in the morning. The next thing I saw was Carter's name sprawled across the screen. I stare at the screen blankly for a long moment and blink a few times for good measure to make sure I wasn't dreaming.

My finger hesitantly swiped across the screen and brought me to my inbox. Sitting there was a message from Carter with the time stamp beside it to prove that he was really texting me in the middle of the night. As I pondered this, my phone buzzed in my hands, and the number of messages beside Carter's name changed to two.

Carefully, I opened my messages.

are you awake?

Texts from the middle of the night never lead to anything good. It was that reason that I almost decided not to answer and set my phone back down on the bed beside me. But I only lasted a mere minute lying down trying to fall asleep before I eagerly grabbed my phone and reread his messages.

With unsure fingers, I began typing back.

yes... why are you?

I bit my lip as I pressed send and stared at our messages in nervous anticipation. My stomach practically flipped when I saw the little three dots appear to signal that he was typing almost immediately after I texted him back.

My phone buzzed seconds later.

I stared at the question with wide eyes for a moment and shook my head before I even began typing my response. With shaking fingers, I started to say no, but stopped abruptly when my phone buzzed in my hands once more.

Hell, how was I supposed to say no to that? Before I could rethink my decision, I typed quickly, and then hit send.

i'm waiting...

I stare at my message and watch it go from sent to delivered, and hold my breath as I stare at the bright screen in my dark room. Seconds later, my phone began vibrating in my hand, and Carter's name was sprawled across the top of the screen.

I let out a deep- and admittedly shaky- breath before I answer with a soft voice as to not wake my parents. "Hey."

He exhales into the receiver and says back, "Hey."