Fixing You

05. League of Unfortunate Bitches

Carter stared at his own reflection on the mirror and sighed. He then glanced at his phone as it rang right before he was about to shut the locker. The name 'Amber' was on the screen, and Carter immediately answered the call upon seeing it.

"Hey."

"Hey," her sweet voice replied, "How are you?"

"I'm good, just missing some people every now and then," Carter hummed, "I haven't heard from you in a long while. Are you still mad at me?"

Amber scoffed, "Will I be calling if I'm still mad?"

"Took you a long while to call again."

"Yeah, I was busy with work. I thought you'd call first."

"I'm a simple man. You asked for space, space you get," Carter pointed out. "I hope you're calling because you miss me and had a change of mind about what we talked about last time."

"I'm still thinking about it, Carter. I can't simply leave what I've built here and move there," Amber said softly, "There's a lot of things to consider. Once I move there, my life isn't going to be just about us, but your mother, too. I'm... honestly not ready to move in with you."

Carter clenched his jaw to hold back from trying to rush her into making a decision, then he nodded, "I understand. Take as much time as you want, I'll wait."

"Speaking of your mom," Amber hummed, "I've heard from Cathy about you trying to help some... 'damsel in distress' at the college?"

"Yup," Carter sighed, "I'm progressing as we speak. I'd say she's doing fine, but mom thought otherwise."

Amber hummed softly, then she asked, "Are you with her?"

"Not right now, but we're hanging out in a few," Carter hummed.

"Is she fun to be around?"

Carter smirked, "Are you jealous?"

"Not really," she scoffed, "But I am jealous about not being there with you."

"Come and hangout," he suggested, "Even if you're not here to stay, you can always visit."

"I'll visit if you admit you missed me," Amber chuckled.

"I want to hold you, Amber. That's how much I miss you," Carter told her.

"I'll visit," Amber chuckled, "But not in a few weeks. I'm pretty booked right now."

"Can't wait to see you again," Carter said before she had to hang up because someone's calling from work. He then sighed as he left his belongings in the locker and head out to swim.

Carter walked out of the locker room and peeked into the female's locker room to look for Mia. A woman walked out at the same time and was startled to see him. He raised both of his hands and shook his head, "Sorry, I was looking for--" he halted as the woman just walked off without listening to his explanations. He scoffed and shook his head in disbelief, "Okay, Carter, you're being a creep. What the heck?"

He then decided to walk out to the pool area and looked around just to find Mia just giggling to whatever an obviously younger guy was telling her. It's either he's really a funny guy, or Mia was just being too friendly to strangers. Carter approached them and cleared his throat as he sat down beside Mia, dipping his legs into the pool. "I didn't know you're easily entertained."

"I wasn't..." Mia paused and stared at him in shock, almost as if she didn't recognize him. Mia did find out that he has a great body the day he jumped into the pool to rescue her phone, but she didn't know that he had tattoo all over his torso. He had all of those intimidating ink well hidden under the sweaters he wore every day.